to read those kinds of things and I mean, uh, uh, it’s a terribly difficult
thing to endure
and when people hear it over and over and over again.
And I make speeches
on college campuses all across the country
and I swear
I have a group,
mostly African-Americans,
and I swear
I am the symbol
of police oppression
in the United States,
if not the world.
I am.
Me!
And I ask them:
Who told you this?
What gave you this idea?
You don’t know me.
You don’t have any idea
what I’ve done.
Forty-three years in law enforcement,
no one has said that about me,
no one.
And suddenly
I am the symbol
of police oppression
and it’s a tough thing to deal with,
a very tough thing.
You know,
just prior
to this,
in a poll
taken by a legitimate pollster,
the individual
with the greatest credibility
in the state of California—
I can’t say the state
of California,
but the southern
part of the state of California—
was me.
The most popular Republican in Los Angeles
and Los Angeles County
was me.
I got more support
than
Ronald Reagan,
George Deukmejian,
what other Republicans,
Pete Wilson.
I got more support,
and suddenly!
suddenly!
I am the symbol.
And, you know,
on the day
that the Rodney thing [sic],
thing
happened,
the
President of the United States
was declaring me a national hero
for the work that I had done
in drugs
and narcotics
and the work that I had done with kids
and a lot of those kids were black kids.
And suddenly,
suddenly,
I am the symbol
of police oppression.
Just because some officers
whacked Rodney King
out in Foothill Division
while I was in Washington, D.C.
Human Remains
Dean Gilmour Lieutenant, Los Angeles County Coroner
(Afternoon, his office. A middle-aged man. Glasses. Very friendly. Speaks slowly.)
I been working with a …
an attorney
who is trying to have a (aye)
young lady—
I think she’s twenty-one years of age—
declared dead,
um (a small suck like a soft “t”),
down at Fifty-eighth and Vermont.
There was
a New Guys
appliance store
and apparently
there were some looters inside
and the place caught fire.
Two of the looters, uh, was this girl and her boyfriend,
fiancé.
Appar …
from what we understand,
there were four or five
other, uh,
people in the store at the time
and
the boyfriend’s the only one that escaped.
They don’t know what happened to the other three or four people
but they do know that, um,
uh …
Well (quickly),
the mother of the girl says
she hasn’t heard from her since (singsong)
then.
There’s no insurance policies.
There’s no reason to believe
she didn’t perish in that building.
The boyfriend says,
“I last saw her over my shoulder,
but because of the heat and the smoke and the fire
I didn’t, uh,
you know, I couldn’t help her”
(on an exhale, and therefore substantially increased volume,
like a
release).
So that was the best information
that we had out of all the buildings.
That there may be human remains
in there.
We searched that place
four times.
And the fire was so hot
the ruff [sic, meaning “roof”]
had totally collapsed.
Rubble was about like so …
We couldn’t find any human remains
and we went in with our forensic
anthropologist
and her search teams.
We went in with, um (“t” sound),
uhh,
uh, dogs,
search dogs that we brought in from Northern California.
We made four attempts, if I recall correctly.
We couldn’t find a tooth
or a finger or anything.
The family doesn’t have …
They can’t really get on with their life until they have some
resolution to it
(a breath, covering a burp?).
And that’s the thing about our society is until,
um,
until there’s some type of a service,
whatever it is,
whether there’s a cremation
or there’s a burial,
uh,
most people just can’t let go
with their lives
and then pick up the pieces and start
from there.
There has to be some resolution.
(Pause)
There were fifty-two deaths.
We were looking seriously at sixty
and again there wasn’t a whole
lot of information.
Just because somebody died
during this time frame doesn’t mean it was directly related
to the riot.
We were able to look at each individual death.
If we couldn’t …
if we didn’t have enough facts to … to
support it,
we would say no,
we can’t definitely call this.
But again it wasn’t just in South-Central.
We had one out in the Valley (singsong).
We had one in Pasadena
where there was a party
and the
police arrived with a helicopter.
Seems to me it was Pasadena or
Altadena, up that way,
and
some of these … I think the party was being crashed
by gang members,
which brought up an interesting point.
Are all gang shootings during this time riot-related?
I mean, we have gang shootings every day
of the year.
What would set these apart from being riot-related?
And … and, as I recall, I think someone had shot at a police helicopter
and one of the people in the neighborhood,
in the block there,
was shot.
So that was one.
Now,
was this just a bunch of kids having a party
who got carried away
and somebody started shooting at the chopper
’cause they were drunk
or was it because of the riots?
What was interesting was one of the cases I was looking at was in
Hollingback Division.
Hollingback is East LA.
They didn’t have any riot-related deaths
in East Los Angeles.
So,
um,
one guy was found, um, I can’t remember if he was stabbed or shot
inside of a drainage pipe,
and they said no, it was definitely not riot-related.
I don’t know whether it was a lovers’ quarrel
or … or a bad dope deal
or what,
but they said it definitely didn’t have anything to do with the riots,
it was just
another homicide.
Um, so that’s how we ended up with sixty,
and oh,
I think it was by July
we were able to whittle the number
down to …
(a breath)
And since then we found some human remains
in some of the rubble,
several months later.
That was a riot building,
um,
and we were able to identify the person.
Human remains?
Human remains
is what we …
you and I leave behind.
We don’t die like this necessarily.
Uh, we …
especially in a hot fire
you’re charred.
You also, after the fact,
have animal activity.
Dogs
and … and other critters come along
and will disarticulate
bodies.
Uh,
rats,
uh,
all kinds of,
uh,
varmints and stuff.
And once we’re gone
we … we don’t take very good care of ourselves, know,
so …
We have the same thing out in the boonies,
up here in the mountains or out in the desert.
Skeletonized bodies
that have little teeth marks
where the rats
have started gnawing the bones,
because they go after the marrow and stuff.
You don’t have an entire body necessarily.
If there’s a tremendous explosion,
um …
Let me see if I have those numbers.
We published some numbers.
(He is going through his sheets of paper from now until nearly
the
end of his talk, flipping over stapled sheets)
I can’t see real well without my spectacles.
(He puts on his glasses)
See if I can find that press release.
See, the hardest part of this job is the families,
the survivors, um …
You know this person’s
no longer in pain.
They no longer have to worry about
the April 15th deadline.
They don’t have to worry about
paying their bills
or … or AIDS
or any of those other things that
those of us who are alive worry about.
But, um,
I’ve lost …
My first child was a full-term stillborn.
My brother was murdered up in Big Bear
and the guy got four years’ probation.
Um,
my sister was killed by a drunk driver,
leaving three kids
and a husband
behind.
So I can empathize with these families as far as what they’ve gone
through.
(still turning pages, now just the sound of the pages)
Oh, here we go.
Forty-one gunshot wounds.
These are the races.
Okay, but these are not official.
Some of these are not.
Twenty-six black,
Eighteen Hispanic,
Ten Caucasian,
Two Asian.
Uh, types of death.
Gunshot wounds were forty.
Uh, traffics were six.
Four assaults,
Four arsons and four others.
Sex were fifty-one males
and seven females.
Um,
there were seven officer-involved fatalities.
Four involved LAPD,
One with sheriff,
One with Compton,
One with the National Guard.
So …
Let’s pray for peace, hunh?
(Abrupt blackout)
(Here there should be a musical cue)
Scenes from the Disturbances
Twilight
Long Day’s Journey into Night
Peter Sellars Director, Los Angeles Festival
(Sunday morning, February 1993. We are at the Pacific Dining Car restaurant. Peter tells me it’s a place where power breakfasts happen. There are very few people there. It’s an old-fashioned kind of restaurant. Peter gets very emotional while he speaks, almost in tears.)
Dad … he won’t replace the burnt-out light bulbs.
You know, he yells at the family for complaining and condemns everyone
to live in darkness.
’Cause he’s too cheap
to put in some light bulbs.
That’s what America feels like right now.
Just asked him for some light bulbs.
Burned out here and here and here.
Couldn’t we replace them?
With brighter ones?
And … James Tyrone …
he’s too cheap.
How he’s lived his whole life just to support his family.
But he won’t replace the light bulbs.
And he’s grew up on a culture of success.
So the only thing that was of any interest to this man has to be
success,
you know,
which is America.
Here’s a man who has been a success
and of course he’s at home with that.
Right now in America, there isn’t a family …
We may have a good GNP
but not a family to come home to.
Can’t live in our own house.
That’s what the LA riots is about.
We can’t live,
our own house burning.
This isn’t somebody else’s house,
it’s our own house.
This is the city we are living in.
It’s our house.
We all live in the same house …
Right, start a fire in the basement
and, you know,
nobody’s gonna be left on the top floor.
It’s one house.
And shutting the door in your room,
it doesn’t matter.
Fact is, you have a stronger sense of getting incinerated,
you know, and the task is,
you know.
I mean, Eugene O’Neill
wrote the classic play about
the American dream.
I Remember Going …
Rev. Tom Choi Minister, Westwood Presbyterian Church
(In a pastor’s office in the church, a church with an affluent congregation. Afternoon, during a rainstorm, winter 1993. He is a tall, slender Chinese-American man. He was educated at Yale Divinity School and labors during the interview to be clear and not to overstate.)
I remember going out
finally on Saturday to, um, do some cleanup work.
And I remember
very distinctly
going down there and choosing to wear my clerical collar.
And I haven’t worn my clerical collar for about seven or eight years,
you know,
because, you know, people call me “Father,”
all this kind of stuff,
and I didn’t like that identification.
; But I remember doing that specifically
because I was afraid that somebody
would mistake me for a Korean shop owner
and … and, um, either berate me physically or beat me up.
So I remember hiding behind this collar
for protection.
The reason why a minister should wear a collar
is to proclaim …
to let everybody know who he is and what he is,
but I’m using it for protection,
which I, I knew about that
and I said, “Gee.”
But I didn’t take it off.
Anyway, I went down
and we were asked to go
and pick up
stuff from the Price Club
and so I had to go down to the bank
and get money
and I went to the area.
Also I remember some people complaining
that Korean-Americans didn’t patronize black businesses.
So I made sure that I went to black businesses for lunch
and whatnot, wearing my collar and waiting around for food.
And I remember just going to people and people just looking at me.
And … and I usually kind of slump over when I walk, but in this case I
kind of stood straight and I had my neck high
and I made sure that everyone saw my collar.
(Laughs)
And … and I, I just went to somebody and, um, who was standing
next in line and I said,
“How are you doing?”
Every … every place I went
I got the same answer:
“Oh, I’m doing all right.
How are you?”
And I said, “Oh, I’m just trying to make it.”
And there’d be a chuckle.
And … and agreement.
And then we just started having this conversation.
And in every instance,
you know,
of these people that quote unquote
were supposed to be hostile on TV and whatnot,
there was nothing but warmth,
nothing but a sense of … of
“Yeah, we should stick together” and nothing but friendliness
that I have felt,
and this was, um, a discovery
that I had been out of touch with this part of the city.
After a couple of days
I stopped wearing the collar
and I realize that if there’s any protection I needed
it was just whatever love I had in my heart to share with people that
proved to be enough,
the love that God has taught me to share.
That is what came out in the end for me.
A Jungian Collective Unconscious
Paula Weinstein Movie producer
(On the phone. About 11 P.M. Chicago time. She is at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago. She has been on a movie set all day, shooting on location.)
You know it was odd, we felt—
Mark and I think—slightly isolated in our world