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Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's records on the Investigation of the Homicide of Ruben Salazar
0548
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Contributing Institution:
USC Libraries Special Collections
Title: Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Records on the Investigation of the Homicide of Ruben Salazar
Creator:
Los Angeles County (Calif.). Sheriff's Department
Creator:
Los Angeles County (Calif.). Office of Coroner
Identifier/Call Number: 0548
Identifier/Call Number: 1715
Physical Description:
9.8 Linear Feet
10 boxes
Date (inclusive): 1970-1974
Date: 1998
Date (inclusive): 2011-2012
Date (bulk): 1970-1971
Abstract: The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Records on the Investigation of the Homicide of Ruben Salazar contain documents
maintained by the Sheriff's Department for more than forty years pertaining to preparations for, and responses to, the National
Chicano Moratorium march and rally, among the largest anti-Vietnam War protests in Los Angeles, held on August, 29, 1970,
in East Los Angeles. Also documented is the tragic aftermath--the ensuing riot, significant damages, complaints about the
forced clearing of the rally in Laguna Park by Sheriff's deputies, and three deaths, including that of the highly respected
Los Angeles Times columnist and KMEX-TV's news director Ruben Salazar. He and a colleague, one of the witnesses, were covering
the Moratorium march, but took refuge from the chaos at the Silver Dollar bar. Salazar was killed instantly when he was struck
by a tear gas projectile fired into the café by Deputy Thomas Wilson. A major portion of the collection contains the investigation
into Salazar's untimely and still controversial death. Two other less extensive investigations cover the death of a teenage
member of the Brown Berets, apparently from an explosion during the riot, and a deputy-involved shooting of a man who allegedly
drove his vehicle directly at deputies. Although most of the documents are in English, some items are in Spanish.
Language of Material: Although most documents are in English, some items in the Intelligence and Inflammatory series and in the newspapers in the
oversized box are in Spanish.
At the time of the August 29, 1970, National Moratorium March, Ruben Salazar was a highly respected columnist for the Los
Angeles Times and news director for KMEX-TV, Los Angeles' first Spanish language station. In 1959 he had joined the Los Angeles
Times as a reporter, becoming the first Latino journalist in the US to work for an elite mainstream newspaper. In 1963 he
wrote an award-winning series on "Spanish-speaking Angelenos," addressing much needed educational reforms and other civil
rights injustices in the Mexican American community. From 1965 to 1968, Salazar was assigned to the L.A. Times' foreign desk,
he spent time in Vietnam covering the war, and held the coveted position of L.A. Times' Mexico City Bureau Chief, covering
many Latin America countries. In June 1968, the L.A, Times called him back unexpectedly to Los Angeles to cover what they
saw as a "new Mexican-American uproar..." at home. (Letter from the Times foreign editor Bob Gibson to Salazar, June 13, 1968,
in the Ruben Salazar papers) During that year there were many high school student walkouts, or "blowouts," in East Los Angeles.
The L.A.Times possibly viewed Salazar as the journalist on their staff who could best cover these events. He and his family
soon returned to California. On the day of his death he was covering the Moratorium march for the Times and for KMEX-TV.
During the afternoon he and a Times photographer, one of the key witnesses, took a break from the chaos in the street and
entered the Silver Dollar bar. There are still many unanswered questions about the events that day that may never be resolved.
What is known for certain is that Salazar was killed instantly when he was struck by a tear gas projectile fired into the
café by Deputy Thomas Wilson. As the Office of Independent Review concludes in their report "It was not an era of openness
and public transparency. The Sheriff's Department … offered few explanations and no apologies. That posture fueled the skeptics."
(OIR Review, p. 17)
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Records on the Investigation of the Homicide of Ruben Salazar contain historical
documents dealing with the homicide investigation of the circumstances of journalist Ruben Salazar's death and extensive materials
about the National Chicano Moratorium March, among the largest anti-Vietnam War protests in Los Angeles, held on August 29,
1970. Included are documents on the planning and events leading up to that day, information on the organizers, intelligence
on radical groups and participants of the march, and the tragic conclusion. By the end of the day, the march that began peacefully
at Belvedere Park in East Los Angeles had become a full-blown riot near Laguna Park, with extensive damages, many arrests,
complaint reports, and three deaths, including Salazar's at the Silver Dollar bar. Following the homicide investigation,
there was a 16-day televised Coroner's inquest, one of the longest and most costly in Los Angeles' history. When it concluded,
District Attorney Evelle Younger issued a statement indicating among other things that he would not pursue criminal charges
against Deputy Wilson, who had fired the tear gas projectile that killed Salazar. Sheriff Peter Pitchess followed with a
statement indicating there had been no misconduct by any of the deputies involved in the shooting or during the riot. Salazar's
wife Sally filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the County of Los Angeles and was awarded damages. The case was considered
closed and the files were inaccessible for forty years. In 2011 the Los Angeles County Office of Independent Review (OIR),
at the request of the Los Angeles County Sheriff, produced a special report after a careful examination of the files. The
OIR's Review, many Public Record Acts requests for access in 2010, on the fortieth anniversary of Salazar's death, media coverage,
and a lawsuit by MALDEF, eventually led to the opening of the files.
From 1965 to 1970 there had been an increasing number of Vietnam War protests in many U.S cities, especially on college and
university campuses. As the war continued new groups joined the antiwar movement including women, veterans, African Americans,
and Chicanos. The National Chicano Moratorium was organized by the Chicano Moratorium Committee and the Congress for Mexican
American Unity, a group of Chicano activists. It was unique because it was among the few ethnic antiwar movements in the U.S
--part of the newly evolving Chicano movement as well as the anti-Vietnam War movement. The main concern of the Chicano Moratorium
organizers was the disproportionate number of Chicanos and other Latinos or Hispanics who were being drafted and killed in
Vietnam. They promoted antiwar demonstrations by Chicanos in California, the Southwest and other parts of the United States
from November, 1969 to August, 1971.
1970 marked a high point of Chicano discontent with the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. As the files indicate, in the
months leading up to the East Los Angeles National Moratorium march on August 29, there were numerous Chicano antiwar marches,
rallies and student protests in California. Only a week before the August 29th march in East Los Angeles, Chicanos had marched
in protest in many cities throughout the U.S. Within this context, it is not surprising that the march in East Los Angeles
on August 29th attracted, as the L.A. Times reported, an estimated 20,000 demonstrators. In 1980, Times columnist Frank del
Olmo, on the tenth anniversary of Salazar's death, claimed it was the "largest Mexican American demonstration ever held in
this country." As documents in the collection show, attendance at previous Chicano marches numbered one or two thousand at
most, and had been conducted peacefully, without major incidents. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department based their
preparations on previous experience and predicted in a report that this march would be similar to previous marches.
Materials relating to the National Chicano Moratorium march and rally in East Los Angeles, August 29, 1970, include the parade
permit and correspondence, notes of meetings with parade organizers, including Rosalio Munoz, LASD operational plans, radio
car logs, maps of the parade route and maps of major incidents, intelligence collected by the LASD on radical groups and individuals
participating in the march, copies of "inflammatory" flyers, issues of Chicano newspapers, and of the L.A Times, gathered
before and after the march. Also in the files are materials on the aftermath – the transcript of the press conference by
KMEX-TV's General Manager, Danny Villanueva, numerous complaint reports from businesses and individuals who suffered damages
during the rioting, local radio and television news editorials, and citizens' correspondence sent to Sheriff Peter Pitchess
in response to the events on August 29, 1970.
Materials relating to the investigation of the homicide of Ruben Salazar include the investigation "books" with reports by
Homicide detectives, summaries by the LASD of the 16-day Coroner's inquest proceedings, documents provided to the United
States Attorney General, the Coroner's autopsy report, interviews and statements from numerous witnesses, including a manuscript
statement by Deputy Thomas Wilson, who fired the tear gas projectile that killed Salazar, a drawing of the interior of the
Silver Dollar Café, a report of the LASD tear gas field tests, a tear gas training manual, teletypes and telegrams, evidence
tags, field notes, photographic evidence (negatives and photographs) and taped interviews of witnesses (reel-to-reel) and
taped radio car transmissions. The files also include a copy of the Los Angeles County Office of Independent Review's report
on the homicide investigation (2011) and the LASD's digital copies of the files (2011).
The collection is organized in these series and subseries: Homicide Investigation; Interviews, Statements, and Supplementary
Reports; Diaz/Lara Investigation; Lynn Ward Investigation; Chicano Moratorium March; Chicano Moratorium March--Complaint Reports;
Chicano Moratorium March—Parade Operational Plans; Chicano Moratorium March—Operational Logs; Intelligence and Inflammatory
Literature; Coroner's Inquest; Civil Suit: Sally Salazar vs. County of Los Angeles; Miscellaneous Items; Audio Visual--Photographs
and Negatives; Audio Visual—Audio tapes; Audio Visual--Sheriff's digital files; and Oversized items.
Advance notice required for access.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Department of Special
Collections at specol@usc.edu. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical
items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Rights Statement for Archival Description
Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
[Box/folder# or item name], Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Records on the Investigation of the Homicide of Ruben
Salazar, Collection no. 0548, Boeckmann Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies, Special Collections, USC Libraries,
University of Southern California
The collection was received by the USC Libraries on special loan agreement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
on October 23, 2012.
Ruben Salazar papers, Collection no. 0547, Boeckmann Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies, Special Collections, USC
Libraries.
The collection was organized and edited by Barbara Robinson. Assistance in data entry for this collection was provided by
Luiz Eduardo Leonardi.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Laguna Park (East Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Archival resources
Tear gas -- Archival resources
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Protest movements -- California -- East Los Angeles -- Archival resources
Riots -- California -- East Los Angeles -- Archival resources
Homicide investigation -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
Los Angeles County (Calif.) -- Politics and government -- Archival resources
Los Angeles County (Calif.) -- History -- 20th century -- Archival resources
Reports
Telegrams
Photographs
Newspapers
Teletype
Editorials
Press releases
DVDs
CD-ROMs
Printed ephemera
Drawings
Audiotapes
Negatives (photographic)
Correspondence
Clippings
Memorandums
Maps
Transcripts
East Los Angeles (Calif.) -- History -- Archival resources
Interviews (Sound recordings)
Logs (records)
Legal documents
Villanueva, Danny -- Archives
Munoz, Rosalio -- Archives
Los Angeles County (Calif.). Office of Coroner -- Archives
Salazar, Ruben, 1928-1970 -- Archives
Los Angeles County (Calif.). Sheriff's Department -- Archives
Los Angeles County (Calif.). Office of Independent Review -- Archives
Pitchess, Peter J. -- Archives
Congress of Mexican American Unity -- Archives
Silver Dollar Cafe (East Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Archives
Younger, Evelle J. -- Archives
National Chicano Moratorium. East Los Angeles. 1970 -- Archives
Ward, Lynn -- Archives
Wilson, Thomas H., Deputy -- Archives
Salazar, Sally
Diaz, Angel G. -- Archives
Treviño, Jesús Salvador (1946-03-26) -- Archives