Simple as Brown vs. Black

The heart-wrenching L.A. Times cover photo of Jamiel Shaw in an open coffin drew angry protests last week from readers who bitterly complained to the Times that its decision to run such a graphic image was “disrespectful” and “disgusting.” One woman, who wrote that she’s the parent of a high school boy who is – as Shaw was – “an athlete with good grades,” glanced at the cover lying in her driveway and flatly refused to bring the paper into her house. The tragedy just hit too close to home.

The Times later clarified that the photos were – as in every case with their funeral coverage – in keeping the family’s wishes. The photo also showed parents Anita and Jamiel Shaw Sr., dressed in white, praying by the casket of their slain son, the 17-year-old star athlete gunned down in broad daylight on the sidewalk by Latino gang members simply because he didn’t answer fast enough that he wasn’t in a gang.

The families who have lost children to gang attacks on innocents have shown exemplary strength in the wake of unspeakable horror. They’ve appeared at rallies, press conferences, and as ambassadors for campaigns to silence the violence. And here it was again, with the Shaws asking for the uncensored truth, as sometimes only a photo can.

But in the aftermath of recent shootings that have left four children killed or wounded in two weeks, activists struggling for the LAPD to address the hard stuff are finding that uncensored truth isn’t just tough to come by, it’s become a raging controversy of its own.

Last week, praise resounded from the community when the LAPD announced the arrest of 19-year-old Pedro Espinoza, Shaw’s suspected killer. A known member of the 18th Street gang, Espinoza had been released from jail one day before the killing and could face the death penalty if convicted. The next day, the police announced two suspects were in custody for allegedly wounding six-year-old Lavareay Elzy, who remains in critical condition. Elzy was in a red SUV in Harbor Gateway with his parents when gang members opened fire on the car. The suspects, Ernesto Murillo, 25, and Ismael Torres, 26, are members of the East Side Torrance gang. A sad irony: Murillo had been placed on gang injunctions one week before the shooting.

Still at large is the killer of Anthony Escobar, the 13-year-old Latino who was shot in the head in Echo Park while picking lemons for his family’s dinner. As with the others, Escobar’s shooting is being described as a gang attack against a young person who is not believed to have been a member of a gang, driving home the cruel reminder that Latinos are also victims of worsening gang violence.

Federal and local authorities have classified the 18th Street gang, along with the MS 13s and the Florencia 13s, as a “super gang.” These three together claim much of L.A. County’s Latino gang population, estimated by gang cops to be more than 50,000. Additionally, these gangs are responsible for the alarming spike in gang membership worldwide and share a racial agenda against African Americans, stemming from their sworn allegiance to the racist Mexican Mafia (La Eme) prison gang that works with the Aryan Brotherhood.

Though not categorized as a super gang, East Side Torrance also has a known allegiance to La Eme and a racist agenda against blacks that can be verified easily by doing a quick Google search for “East Side Torrance gang.” Their hate-speech posts come up first.

Interviews with law enforcement experts underscore the racist motives of these killings, but L.A.’s top cop will hear none of it. Chief William Bratton chastised an activist and a reporter on separate occasions for trying to get him to address the racial aspect. At an Urban Policy Roundtable meeting March 8 in Leimert Park, Project Islamic Hope’s Najee Ali caught a tongue-lashing by Bratton for using “ethnic cleansing” when asking about the killing of African American innocents by Latino gangs. On March 12, it was ABC Eyewitness News veteran reporter Leo Stallworth’s turn. When Stallworth asked Bratton if the shooting of Elzy was racially motivated, Bratton angrily fired back, “You’re a one-note band on this issue. You need to get off it.”

Stallworth tried to ask a follow-up, with the chief angrily talking over him, and told the top cop that these questions were from African American and Latino residents who “are terribly afraid.” Sometime during the exchange, Bratton made his point that the shooting was not race-related.

Councilwoman Janice Hahn was standing next to Bratton. It was her impression that “Stallworth had every right to ask those questions. He wasn’t being combative at all.”

Over at the Los Angeles Wave, an “infuriated” Betty Pleasant took the chief to task. “Bratton angrily dressed down my black colleague and then, turning to the other journalists present (and from my experience, they would be something other than black) and said, ‘The rest of you seem to get it,’” Pleasant wrote. “Get what? The fact that black children are being gunned down in their neighborhoods by Latino gangsters and nobody wants to call it what it is? Yeah, I get that.” Pleasant also called out Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Councilwoman Hahn for appearing to nod in agreement with Bratton.

Hahn was quick to note that she called Pleasant as soon as she saw the column to say that she actually was nodding at someone she recognized and can be seen grimacing because she doesn’t agree with the chief. She says, “Do we have a major war in L.A.? I don’t think so. But are these crimes racially motivated? We know that Cheryl Green was killed in a racially-motivated killing. Clearly the little six-year-old was with his African American family that was shot at by Latino gang members. I don’t know how LAPD can determine so quickly that it wasn’t racially motivated, particularly since the shocking revelations that have come to light in Los Angeles in the last couple of years.”

Deputy District Attorney and landmark Mexican Mafia prosecutor Anthony Manzella concurs on the city’s larger racial picture, but says Bratton’s message was confusing. “I agree with the chief that the fact that the Mexican Mafia wants to ethnically cleanse their neighborhoods does not mean that the city has a larger racial problem. But there’s no question that among Hispanic gangs the Mafia gave orders a long time ago that the Surenos were supposed to move African Americans out of Hispanic neighborhoods. There’s no question about that. That’s documented.”

Thing is, Bratton has never stated that the Mexican Mafia has an “ethnic cleansing plot,” despite the prosecutors evidence. He’s been quoted saying the opposite. And when CityBeat, yet another “one-man band on this subject,” asked LAPD for clarification, spokesperson Sgt. Lee Sands reiterated Bratton’s statement to Stallworth that “there has been nothing to indicate there is a racial motivation to these shootings.”

It is confusing, notes Joe Hicks, vice president of Community Advocates, Inc. and former executive director of the city’s Human Relations Commission. “I agree with the chief and the mayor that L.A. isn’t on the road to racial Armageddon. We’re not on the edge of a race war. But I don’t think anyone is alleging that. I’m still a bit amused at broader claims that there are no racial implications to what we’re seeing from Watts to South Central to the Valley. And I’m sure Chief Bratton is aware of that information also. He’s a very bright guy.”

Many we spoke with speculate that Bratton knows what’s going on but wants to prevent tensions from escalating in communities where law-abiding African Americans and Latinos share the same economic distress. As to the wisdom of the tactic? Ali says his whole reason for asking about “ethnic cleansing” was to extract from LAPD a cohesive message that would at least alert people about driving in a neighborhood, as Elzy’s parents did, where they could be harmed.

“Ethically, I think you have to alert people like when the State Department warns about not going into certain countries,” says Tony Rafael, author of The Mexican Mafia.

Hicks reminds us that gang racism goes both ways. “In Jordan Downs, the Grape Street Crips have been preying on Latino residents.” However, he concedes that black gangs don’t have these chilling unwritten rules whereby once you join a Latino gang you cannot get out alive. Nor do black gangs share a racial agenda to rid their neighborhoods of all Latinos. Finally, black gangs don’t give out stripes for executing a murderous racial agenda, or threaten to kill bangers who won’t. All of these, according to Manzella, are known as La Eme’s unwritten rules.

Retired L.A. County Sheriff’s Detective Richard Valdemar believes that Bratton is simply in over his head. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing and he doesn’t understand L.A.-based gangs,” says Valdemar, who’s served as a star witness against Mexican Mafia shot callers. “The kids on the street know what’s going on. So, for us to deny it is to show the kids that we don’t know what’s going on. They start to see the government and the police department as stupid.”