Sleepy Lagoon murder

Sleepy Lagoon murder was the name that newspapers and radio commentators used to describe the alleged murder of José Díaz, whose body was found on the Williams Ranch near a lagoon (later named "Sleepy Lagoon" by the media) in southeast Los Angeles, California, on August 2, 1942. The murder led to the Los Angeles, California, criminal trial of 21 Latino young men; the convictions were reversed on appeal in 1944. The case is considered a precursor to the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943.

Sleepy Lagoon was a reservoir beside the Los Angeles River that was frequented by Mexican-Americans. Its name came from the popular song "Sleepy Lagoon," by big band leader and trumpeter Harry James. The reservoir was located near the city of Maywood at approximately 5500 Slauson Avenue.

The murder

With the internment of Japanese Americans, racial paranoia in California turned to the Mexican American community and, spurred by the media, a grand jury headed by E. Duran Ayres was appointed by the City of Los Angeles to investigate an alleged "Mexican Crime Wave."

On August 1, 1942, two groups of pachucos fought each other at the Williams Ranch near a lagoon. The following morning, a man named José Díaz was found unconscious on a road nearby but later died in hospital. The autopsy revealed that Díaz was intoxicated and that death was the result of blunt head trauma. Despite one medical examiner stating that the injuries were consistent with being hit by a car, 20 year old Henry Leyvas and 24 members of what the media termed "the 38th Street gang" were arrested for the murder.

In response to the murder, the media began a campaign calling for action against zoot suiters which led police on August 10, to conduct a roundup of 600 Latinos who were charged with suspicion of assault, armed robbery etc, 175 eventually being held for various crimes.

Criminal trial

The resulting criminal trial is now generally viewed as lacking in the fundamental requirements of due process. Twenty-two Chicano youths were indicted on the murder charges and placed on trial. The courtroom was small and during the trial the defendants were not allowed to sit near or to communicate with their attorneys. None of those charged were permitted to change their clothes during the trial by order of Judge Fricke at the request of the district attorney on the grounds that the jury should see the defendants in the zoot suits that were "obviously" only worn by "hoodlums". Every time a name was mentioned by a witness or the district attorney, regardless of how damning the statement may be, the named defendant was required to stand up. Judge Fricke also permitted the chief of the Foreign Relations Bureau of the Los Angeles sheriff's office, E. Duran Ayres, to testify as an "expert witness" that Mexicans as a community had a "blood thirst" and a "biological predisposition" to crime and killing, citing the culture of human sacrifice practiced by their Aztec ancestors.

Twenty-two defendants were charged with murder and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit murder. A jury acquitted 5 defendants on all 3 counts, convicted 5 of minor offenses, and convicted 12 on all 3 counts, with 3 found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, and 9 of second degree murder and sentenced to "five-to-life". The five convicted of minor offenses (assault) were released for time served. All of the jurors in each case were white. The defendants began serving their sentences in January 1943.

Activist involvement

The East Los Angeles, California community came to the support of the defendants. They created the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, composed of leftists including historian Carey McWilliams and Alice McGrath, African-Americans, and Mexican-American community leaders. McWilliams noted that a few months earlier over 120,000 Japanese Americans were detained and interned in detention camps, and later argued that there were common links between the Japanese-American internment and the anti-Mexican response in the Sleepy Lagoon case. [1] From 1943 through 1944, the state anti-Communist Tenney Committee subpoenaed and investigated the members of the Defense Committee in an attempt to uncover Communist ties.

Convictions reversed on appeal

In October, 1944, the Court of Appeal of the State of California reversed the 12 defendants' convictions, in the case of People v Zamora 66 Cal.App.2d 166.

Play and movie

The 1979 play Zoot Suit and the 1981 movie Zoot Suit are loosely based on events surrounding the murder trial.

See also

• Zoot Suit Riots
• 38th street gang
• East Los Angeles, California
• Pachuco

References

The Big Nowhere - James Ellroy

Further reading

• McWilliams, Carey, "Second Thoughts," The Nation (April 7, 1979)
• Servin, Manuel, The Mexican-Americans: An Awakening Minority. (1970) ISBN 0-02-477940-7
• Dimitroff, James S. The 1942 Sleepy Lagoon Murder - Catalyst for Mexican-American Militancy in Los Angeles.
• Endore, S. Guy. The Sleepy Lagoon Mystery (1972) ASIN B0006X9OYO
• Greenfield, Alice. The Sleepy Lagoon Case - A Pageant of Prejudice ASIN B0007F4WKM

External links

• Sleepy Lagoon Website
• Pagán, Eduardo Obregón Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime L.A. University of North Carolina Press (2003)
• USC Los Angeles History: The Sleepy Lagoon Mystery
• Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. (1944). This is the story of a crime. The Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA, via Calisphere.
• UCLA Sleepy Lagoon Symposium (2005)
• The Sleepy Lagoon Case: Constitutional Rights, and the Struggle for Democracy. A commemorative symposium, May 20–21, 2005, UCLA
• PBS special