Salazar's death
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-salazar-20100810,0,2506280.story
The Times filed a Public Records Act request. Salazar was killed
during a violent war protest in 1970.
By Robert J. Lopez
August 9, 2010
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said through a spokesman Monday
that he was refusing to release eight boxes of records regarding
former Times columnist and KMEX-TV News Director Ruben Salazar, who
was killed by a deputy in 1970.
The Times filed a California Public Records Act request with the
department in March seeking records that might shed light on the
circumstances involving Salazar's slaying, which left an open wound
that has yet to heal 40 years later.
Salazar had been covering a huge anti- Vietnam war rally in East Los
Angeles that exploded into rioting when deputies and protesters
clashed along Whittier Boulevard on Aug. 29, 1970. The newsman, who
was taking a break in the Silver Dollar bar, died instantly after he
was struck in the head by a tear-gas missile fired into the bar by a
sheriff's deputy.
The documents identified in response to The Times' request include
investigative reports and other files on the journalist, according to
Baca spokesman Steve Whitmore.
He said Baca "has nothing to hide" regarding Salazar's slaying but
was not releasing the documents because to do so could set a bad
legal precedent regarding law enforcement records that are generally
confidential.
The budget-strapped department is also unable to devote personnel to
review the voluminous files to determine what might be releasable,
according to Whitmore. "It's extraordinarily labor-intensive," he said.
Other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the Los Angeles
Police Department, have previously released records to The Times
regarding Salazar.
Those documents showed that authorities monitored Salazar's
activities and reporting during his time as a foreign correspondent
for The Times in Vietnam and Latin America and through his final days
as a columnist and TV news director covering alleged police brutality
and civil unrest in the Mexican American community on Los Angeles' Eastside.
The records also show that an informant inside The Times passed
information to the LAPD describing Salazar as a "slanted,
left-wing-oriented reporter."
All available evidence showed that Salazar's slaying was a tragic
accident. But many questions were never answered, including why the
deputy used a high-velocity 10-inch projectile that the manufacturer
warned was "not to be used against crowds."
"I see no good reason why the sheriff's office would not want to
share information that might shed light on the circumstances
surrounding the tragic death of Ruben Salazar," said filmmaker Jesus
Salvador Treviño, a former KCET producer who covered the 1970 rioting
and the 16-day coroner's inquest into Salazar's slaying.
The inquest was widely criticized by Mexican American activists for
focusing on the actions of the rioters instead of the circumstances
surrounding what occurred at the Silver Dollar bar in the moments
leading to Salazar's killing.
"There's just so many questions that were never resolved," said
activist Rosalio Muñoz, who organized the National Chicano Moratorium
rally that exploded into rioting and who spoke with Salazar that day.
"Releasing the records would give us a sounder foundation for looking
at the situation."
Parks, schools, libraries and scholarships across the country have
been named in honor of Salazar. In 2008, the U.S. Postal Service
issued a stamp recognizing the pioneering newsman.
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