The Death of Ruben Salazar
by Gary Phillips
In this past Wednesday's Donuts at 2 A.M., "August, the Mother of All Months," I made a passing reference to this August also being the 40th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium, or National Chicano Moratorium March in East L.A. organized by the Brown Berets. This resulted in a confrontation between activists and the Sheriff's Department on Whittier Boulevard, and the deputies going hog wild on some of the 30,000 men, women and children gathered to exercise their right to protest. Three people were killed, most notably L.A. Times columnist and KMEX-TV news director Ruben Salazar. He was killed when he was struck in the head by a tear gas projectile shot through an entrance curtain into the Silver Dollar bar where he and another reporter were cooling out as they covered the march and rally at Laguna Park.
There was a recent exhibit of the Moratorium up at the Mexican Cultural Institute at Olvera Street, and a commemoration of the historic event at the renamed Salazar (nee Laguna) in East Los. For more on the current push to resolve his death, here's a recent segment on KPFK's morning show, Uprising. Therein host Sonali Kolhatkar interviews LAT reporter Robert Lopez and Carlos Montes, one of the organizers of the march, on curent efforts to re-open the Salazar case and what went down back then.
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