The Chicano Moratorium
In 1970 there was a very large protest in East Los Angeles called the Chicano Moratorium. The important issue here was that Chicanos were disproportionately drafted, disproportionately sent to combat in Vietnam, and disproportionately died. A worthy thing to protest.
The protest started at East LA College. There were speeches, a rally, etc. Then 30,000 of us marched down Atlantic Blvd down to Whittier Blvd where we turned right, and marched over to what was then called Laguna Park. At most of the intersections there were police lines aggressively blocking us from entering the cross streets.
At the park, there were the usual speeches and songs and stuff like that there.
When I thought the gathering at the park was winding up, and you know I don’t like moving in crowds, I said to my friends, Let’s go back to my house. Lee Street is only a few blocks away.
Indiana St at Whittier is the border between LA City and LA County. We saw a lot of police activity a block north, we thought we'd take a look. Along the junior high school, on Percy Street, which is in LA city, we saw six bus loads of County sheriffs waiting. It occurred to me very recently while thinking about this, that both sides of the street had to have been blocked off to accommodate the six bus loads of county sheriffs. As this was on an LA city street, the city police had to have been part of this plan.
My friends and I hung around and saw the bus loads of sheriffs get out of the buses, and from underneath the buses get out their riot gear. They closed down the streets and set up in military formation. At a signal most of them started marching towards the park, we followed them, they lined up on the streets just north of Whittier Boulevard and waited. I read later that the other group of sheriffs marched south on Indiana and were waiting at the other exit of the rally.
We followed the cops as they approached the park. The cops lined up in their full riot gear in the middle of Whittier along the top border of the park, and waited for the rally to end.
When it ended and the kids started coming up out of the park, the police rushed them and started beating heads.
The official police report said that a liquor store was being looted as the rally ended, the sheriffs showed up, and rocks and bottles were thrown at them, and that they called for back up, and that is when the violence started. We saw that the line of cops in riot gear was between the liquor store and the park long before the rally ever ended.
Liars.
My friends and I stood in an entrance to a mortuary. It was off the street and elevated. We could clearly see how the cops attacked the kids. My friends and I saw the cops' vicious unprovoked attack on the peaceful protesters who were merely exiting the rally and park. It also looked like they were being extra mean to anyone with long hair, girls and boys. I felt so weak and useless standing there watching the violence. When we got a touch of tear gas, my friends and I left and walked to my house.
Later in the day, the violence spread a couple of miles down Whittier Blvd. A deputy sheriff near Atlantic Blvd, shot a tear gas canister point blank into The Silver Dollar bar and hit the head and killed a famous and excellent reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Ruben Salazar. Months later, they named Laguna Park, where the rally was and where the police violence started, after Ruben Salazar.
During some research for an article I was writing for the school paper, I went to City Hall and requested the autopsy report for Ruben Salazar. I opened the file and there was an unusual envelope in it. The City Hall records clerk vaulted the counter and took it away from me. Who knows what the significance of it was, but it was obvious that I wasn't supposed to be looking at it.
Insert your own conspiracy theory here.