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Ruben Salazar

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Ruben Salazar
File:RubenSalazar.jpg
BornMarch 3, 1928
Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
DiedAugust 29, 1970(1970-08-29) (aged 42)
Los Angeles, California, United States
Years active1956–1970

Ruben Salazar (March 3, 1928 – August 29, 1970)[1] was a Mexican-American journalist killed by a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War on August 29, 1970 in East Los Angeles, California. During the 1970s, his killing was often cited as a symbol of unjust treatment of Chicanos by law enforcement. Working as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Salazar was the first Mexican-American journalist from mainstream media to cover the Chicano community.[2]

Career

Salazar was born in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico in 1928. He later moved across the river to El Paso, Texas. After high school, he served in the U.S. Army for two years. Salazar attended the Texas Western College, graduating in 1954 with a degree in journalism. He obtained a job as an investigative journalist at the now-defunct El Paso Herald-Post; at one point he posed as a vagrant to get arrested while he investigated the poor treatment of prisoners in the El Paso jail. After his tenure at the Herald-Post, Salazar worked at several California newspapers, including the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.[2][3]

Salazar was a news reporter and columnist for the Los Angeles Times from 1959 to 1970.[4] He served as a foreign correspondent in his early years at the Times, covering the 1965 United States occupation of the Dominican Republic, the Vietnam War, and the Tlatelolco massacre (the latter while serving as the Times' bureau chief in Mexico City).

When Salazar returned to the US in 1968, he focused on the Mexican-American community, writing about East Los Angeles, an area largely ignored by the media except for coverage of crimes. He became the first Chicano journalist to cover the ethnic group while working in general circulation media. Many of his pieces were critical of the Los Angeles government's treatment of Chicanos, particularly after he came into conflict with police during the East L.A. walkouts.[2]

In January 1970, Salazar left the Times to serve as the news director for the Spanish language television station KMEX in Los Angeles. At KMEX, he investigated allegations of police officers' planting evidence to implicate Chicanos and the July 1970 police shooting of two unarmed Mexican nationals. According to Salazar, he was visited by undercover LAPD detectives who warned him that his investigations were "dangerous in the minds of barrio people."[2]

On August 29, 1970, he was covering the National Chicano Moratorium March, organized to protest the Vietnam War, in which a disproportionate number of Chicanos served and were killed. The peaceful march ended with a rally that was broken up by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department using tear gas. Panic and rioting ensued, during which Salazar was shot in the head at short range with a tear gas projectile while seated in The Silver Dollar Cafe.[5] A coroner's inquest ruled the shooting a homicide, but Tom Wilson, the sheriff's deputy involved, was never prosecuted. At the time, many believed the homicide was a premeditated assassination of a prominent, vocal member of the Los Angeles Chicano community.

The riot started when the owners of the Green Mill liquor store, located around the corner from the Silver Dollar Bar on Whittier Boulevard, called in a complaint about people stealing from them. Deputies responded and a fight broke out. Later on that day, cadets from the nearby Sheriff's Academy were bussed to the area and marched into the park. A fight ensued, with the untrained cadets being beaten up. This led to more rioting. The Green Mill liquor store is still located at the same place on Whittier Boulevard. The owners later denied contacting the Sheriff's Department.

The L.A. Times columnist was resting in the Silver Dollar Bar after the Vietnam War protest became violent. According to a witness, "Ruben Salazar had just sat down to sip a quiet beer at the bar, away from the madness in the street, when a deputy --ignoring the pleas of a woman outside who begged him not to shoot-- fired a tear gas projectile" at a crowd which went into the interior of the bar, hitting Salazar in the head and killing him instantly. The sheriff’s deputy fired a 10-inch wall-piercing type of tear gas round (for use in barricaded situations) from a tear gas gun, rather than the type of tear gas round designed to be fired directly at people (which produces a plume of tear gas smoke). The Sheriff's deputy was found to have mistakenly loaded the wrong type of tear gas round. The 10-inch tear gas rounds of both types were identical in size and shape, and a tear gas gun is extremely inaccurate beyond about twenty yards.

The story of Salazar's killing gained nationwide notoriety with the publication on April 29, 1971 of "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," an article by gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson for Rolling Stone magazine.[6] In February 2011 the Office of Independent Review released a report of its examination of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department records on the death of Salazar. After reviewing thousands of documents, the civilian watchdog agency concluded there is no evidence that sheriff's deputies intentionally targeted Salazar or had him under surveillance.[7]

Legacy and honors

Notes

  1. ^ "NNDB". NNDB.com. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
  2. ^ a b c d Juan Gonzalez (August 31, 2010). "Slain Latino Journalist Rubén Salazar, Killed 40 Years Ago in Police Attack". Democracy Now!. Retrieved 9-3-2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  3. ^ Gustavo Reveles Acosta (August 29, 2010). "Ruben Salazar killing left impact on Hispanics, journalism". El Paso Times. Retrieved September 3, 2010.
  4. ^ Pilar Marrero, "Homenaje al periodista angelino Rubén Salazar," La Opinión Newspaper, 22 April 2008.
  5. ^ Chavez, Ernesto (2002). Mi Raza Primero! (My People First!): Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978. University of California Press. p. 70.
  6. ^ Perry, Paul (2004). Fear and Loathing: The Strange and Terrible Saga of Hunter S. Thompson. Thunder's Mouth Press. pp. 153–4. ISBN 156025605. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)
  7. ^ Robert J. Lopez (February 19, 2011). "No evidence Ruben Salazar was targeted in killing, report says". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2011-02-20. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  8. ^ "Three Times Reporters Win Awards". Los Angeles Times. June 25, 1965. p. A8.
  9. ^ "Times Assigns Second Reporter to Vietnam". Los Angeles Times. August 8, 1965. p. A1.
  10. ^ Sheryl Kornman (September 28, 2007). "UA educator succeeds in getting stamp for Hispanic journalist". Tucson Citizen. Retrieved September 3, 2010.
  11. ^ Documentary on Life, Not Death, of Ruben Salazar ABC News, 2014-04-29.
  12. ^ Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle PBS, 2014-04-29.

External links

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