His paper, the L.A. Times, carried the account of its former foreign correspondent’s death on its Monday front page: “Mexican-American newsman Ruben Salazar was killed by a bullet-like tear gas shell fired by a sheriff’s deputy into a bar during rioting Saturday in East Los Angeles.” The details were hazy, but the new, hastily revised police version was clearly constructed to show that Salazar was the victim of a Regrettable Accident which the cops were not aware of until many hours later. Sheriff’s deputies had cornered an armed man in a bar, they said, and when he refused to come out—even after “loud warnings” (with a bullhorn) “to evacuate”—“the tear gas shells were fired and several persons ran out the back door.”
At that time, according to the sheriff’s nervous mouthpiece, Lt. Norman Hamilton, a woman and two men—one carrying a 7.65 automatic pistol—were met by deputies, who questioned them. “I don’t know whether the man with the gun was arrested on a weapons violation or not,” Hamilton added.
Ruben Salazar was not among those persons who ran out the back door. He was lying on the floor inside, with a huge hole in his head. But the police didn’t know this, Lieutenant Hamilton explained, because “they didn’t enter the bar until approximately 8 PM, when rumors began circulating that Salazar was missing,” and “an unidentified man across the street from the bar” told a deputy, “I think there’s an injured man in there.” “At this point,” said Hamilton, “deputies knocked down the door and found the body.” Two and a half hours later, at 10:40 PM, the sheriff’s office admitted that “the body” was Ruben Salazar.
“Hamilton could not explain,” said the Times, “why two accounts of the incident given to the Times by avowed eyewitnesses differed from the sheriff’s account.”
For about twenty-four hours Hamilton clung grimly to his original story—a composite, he said, of firsthand police accounts. According to this version, Ruben Salazar had been “killed by errant gunfire ... during the height of a sweep of more than seven thousand people in [Laguna] Park when police ordered everyone to disperse.” Local TV and radio newscasts offered sporadic variations on this theme—citing reports “still under investigation” that Salazar had been shot accidentally by careless street snipers. It was tragic, of course, but tragedies like this are inevitable when crowds of innocent people allow themselves to be manipulated by a handful of violent, cop-hating anarchists.
By late Sunday, however, the sheriff’s story had collapsed completely—in the face of sworn testimony from four men who were standing within ten feet of Ruben Salazar when he died in the Silver Dollar Cafe at 4045 Whittier Boulevard, at least a mile from Laguna Park. But the real shocker came when these men testified that Salazar had been killed—not by snipers or errant gunfire—by a cop with a deadly tear gas bazooka.
Acosta had no trouble explaining the discrepancy. “They’re lying,” he said. “They murdered Salazar and now they’re trying to cover it up. The sheriff already panicked. All he can say is, ‘No comment.’ He’s ordered every cop in the county to say nothing to anybody—especially the press. They’ve turned the East L.A. sheriff’s station into a fortress. Armed guards all around it.” He laughed. “Shit, the place looks like a prison—but with all the cops inside!”
Sheriff Peter J. Pitchess refused to talk to me when I called. The rude aftermath of the Salazar killing had apparently unhinged him completely. On Monday he called off a scheduled press conference and instead issued a statement, saying: “There are just too many conflicting stories, some from our own officers, as to what happened. The sheriff wants an opportunity to digest them before meeting with newsmen.”
Indeed. Sheriff Pitchess was not alone in his inability to digest the garbled swill that his office was doling out. The official version of the Salazar killing was so crude and illogical—even after revisions—that not even the sheriff seemed surprised when it began to fall apart even before Chicano partisans had a chance to attack it. Which they would, of course. The sheriff had already got wind of what was coming: many eyewitnesses, sworn statements, firsthand accounts—all of them hostile.
The history of Chicano complaints against cops in East L.A. is not a happy one. “The cops never lose,” Acosta told me, “and they won’t lose this one either. They just murdered the only guy in the community they were really afraid of, and I guarantee you no cop will ever stand trial for it. Not even for manslaughter.”