Dec. 31, 2014 LA Weekly Aritcle on The Legendary Career of LAPD Homicide Detective Sal LaBarbera

Sal LaBarbera sees dead bodies.

Driving from Watts to USC — up Central Avenue, west over on 83rd, up Figueroa — the LAPD homicide detective can envision the slain bodies of his cases. Hundreds of them. Hell, no, thousands of them.

"There is not a street, not a corner, from the Nickerson Gardens to the Sports Arena [where] I haven't been part of a homicide investigation," LaBarbera said as he drove that route recently. "I don't remember all the names. How could I? But I remember the bodies."

Detective Sal LaBarbera's days of seeing dead bodies are winding down. After 33 years with the Los Angeles Police Department, 27 of those investigating homicides, he is retiring. On Jan. 31 he will be, as police say, "KMA367." End of watch.

He'll leave a legacy as one of the best homicide cops in the history of LAPD, meaning one of the best anywhere — built on a foundation of loyalty to his peers but, even more, to the victims and their families.

"The level of compassion and the commitment he has are unsurpassed by any detective," said LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, who has worked with LaBarbera his entire career. "We're really going to miss him. Not just because he's a great detective but because he's a great friend."

LaBarbera said the best part of being a detective is "driving Code 3 in reverse around LAX chasing somebody." The worst? "Statistics are bullshit. One murder is one too many."

LaBarbera, 55, was raised in New York's Westchester County by his detective father and homemaker mother. He played semipro baseball in New York as an outfielder.

But his grandparents lived in the San Fernando Valley, and when he visited them he would sit outside the LAPD Van Nuys station and watch the officers come and go. "I was so impressed by their size, their professionalism and that sharp uniform," he said. "They were unlike what I was used to seeing in New York."

He graduated from the Los Angeles Police Academy in 1981 and fairly quickly was assigned to the wild 77th Street station, becoming a detective trainee. By 1990, he was working homicide at South Bureau amidst the era's gang bloodbaths.

"It's the most rewarding and demanding job. Thirty-six-hour shifts were normal," he said. "My goal was always to catch the bad guy before the victim's funeral. To get suspects to cop out, that's so rewarding. I have a half-dozen assholes on Death Row."

The worst thing about being a homicide detective: "Seeing the carnage left behind." The best: "A little bit of closure for families."

LaBarbera's boss, Lt. Jeff Nolte, said the detective is "going to be impossible to replace."

"There's more art to homicide than science," Nolte said. "It's a feeling. It's about tension. It's about having relationships. There is no one like Sal when it comes to naturally building a relationship. When a witness senses that feeling, they become comfortable, and that's when they come forward. Sal is unwavering in his oath to make things right."

Thirty-one years ago, at Manchester Avenue and St. Andrews Place, LaBarbera was on patrol when a man got shot, his femoral artery taking a potentially fatal hit. But the detective reached his fingers into the victim's leg and pinched off the artery, saving him.

The best thing about his job, LaBarbera said: community contact. The worst: "Department bullshit."

Det. Chris Barling, supervisor of the 77th Street homicide unit, has known LaBarbera for 27 years and calls him "Hollywood Jack," a nod to the detective's frequent press conferences and oft-stated desire to "go Hollywood" after he retires.

When Barling heard L.A. Weekly was profiling the detective, he asked, "How much is he paying you?"

But then Barling got serious. "Sal's compassion and caring about people both on the force and on the street, the victims, the families, is second to none. He is a compassionate and a passionate advocate for victim's families."

Det. Tim Marcia of the Robbery-Homicide division explained that the detective taps into something deep in these families, then turns it into a tool that propels him forward.

"He's carried the loss of a victim close to his heart, and he used the pain and anguish that violent crime brings to a family as motivation to do the job right," Marcia said. "Sal was a real murder cop, and the city of L.A. is a better place because of him."

It's not difficult to tap into compliments from co-workers. What's unique about LaBarbera is that he gets compliments from "the other side."

Infamous 89 Family Swans gang member Cleamon "Big Evil" Johnson lauded LaBarbera for his "come at you as a man" straightforwardness.

Johnson is incarcerated at Men's Central Jail, awaiting his retrial for two murders for which he served 13 years on death row. In 2011, the California Supreme Court overturned his conviction, finding that a juror leaning toward acquittal was wrongly excused by the trial judge. A few months ago, asked by a reporter about the guest list for his "homecoming party" if he wins at retrial, Johnson said, "Hey, you gotta invite Sal. Just tell him to leave the badge at home."

Homicide detectives who listen to Johnson's jailhouse phone conversations gave LaBarbera a full ration of shit for that.

Betty Day, the mother of Wayne "Honcho" Day, a former Grape Street Crip whom the FBI once labeled the "Godfather of Watts," also praised LaBarbera

"That Italian is retiring, and I'm just now hearing about it?" Day said. "He knows my son, and he was after him, but Sal was and is always fair. A good cop. He better invite me to his party."

Donny Joubert, a respected Nickerson Gardens peacemaker who convinced the project's Bounty Hunter Bloods not to retaliate against a rival gang — and to instead let LaBarbera do his job — remembered, "Sal sat down with me, and I could feel his determination, his concern for my family."

"Sal got the killer," Joubert said. "We have nothing but respect for Sal in Watts."

LaBarbera said his best moments include "hijacking an ice cream truck and treating the neighborhood." His worst: "The nightmares, the not sleeping."

LaBarbera's dedication to families of the murdered came at a cost to his own family. He recalled "getting yelled at for almost not being there for my own child's birth," even as he celebrated the fact that he delivered "three babies over the years."

When asked if her father ever left a special occasion to rush to a crime scene, LaBarbera's oldest daughter, Marissa, 21, replied with a laugh, "Which special occasion would you like me to start with? Easter, Christmas, my birthday?

"My dad would get home from a 12-plus-hours workday, sit down at the dinner table, ask us girls how school was, and all of a sudden his cellphone is ringing and he is out on the porch, smoking his cigarette, with his work face on. His demeanor would stiffen, his tone would become more stern. And I would watch through the window and realize my dad is going back to work."

Younger daughter Emily, 18, said she has some of his traits.

"I don't want to be a cop, but what I will do, to follow his footsteps, is to be a wolf, not a sheep. Meaning, I'm going to be a leader; I'm going to help others, and I won't be afraid of anything."

For LaBarbera, the worst part of the job has been "someone dying in your arms."

The best: "Being there with prayers and kind words for someone dying in your arms." 

http://www.laweekly.com/informer/2014/12/31/the-best-and-worst-of-a-legendary-homicide-detectives-9800-days-at-lapd

This story was edited by Jill Stewart.

Sal and a suspected assassin . As the above photo shows, , Labarbera's style was to get close to suspects before arresting them 

Man Shot to Death Monday Evening on 84th Street and St. Andrews Place

A young black man walking along 84th Street near St. Andrews Place died early Monday evening after he was shot several times by an assailant firing from a passing car.

The man, whose identity was not immediately known, was carrying a bag of snacks and was walking westbound around 7 p.m. on 84th when the car drove along side. The shooter did not get out of the car, authorities said, and the victim collapsed on the street.  

"Someone is waiting for their baby to come home and he ain't coming home," said a woman standing outside the crime scene tape and looking at the familiar white "murder tent" the LAPD had set up to keep the body out of view.  "Where's the protest for him? I mean, I know it just happened, but, I'm telling you,  no one is going to be protesting for this kid."

The neighborhood has for decades been a stronghold of the Eigth Trey Gangster Crips.

Saturday Morning Killing on 82nd, Saturday Evening Killing on 88th

LAPD homicide detectives were busy Saturday investigating the deaths of two adult black males, ages 26 and 24, shot to death in separate incidents on the Southside..

Early Saturday evening, Maurice Reliford was fatally shot and three companions wounded near 88th Street and Figueroa in Vermont Vista when an assailant opened fire on the group.

Shortly after the shooting, friends and relatives gathered outside the crime scene tape near the Full Moon Motel. Reliford's father walked among the crowd telling everyone "God bless you."

Reliord's aunt said she ran to the shooting site and saw her nephew laid out.

"I kept saying 'Maurice! Maurice!', but he wouldn't wake up, " said Judy Ann Reliford, adding emphatically that her nephew was not a gang member. 

Reliford's cousin, Brandia Cook, stood by in a dazed state before she spoke. 

"If you needed something to eat,  Maurice would get you something to eat," said Cook, who spoke to Reliford five hours before he was shot. She said he was from Victorville, had moved to Los Angeles two years ago and was the father of two young children. . "You hear this all the time, but he was just a really nice guy who kept to himself and mainly hung out with his cousins. He loved hip hop. Especially E-40 and Nipsey Hussle.  He was a great cousin. "

Saturday morning detectives were at 82nd Street just east of Vermont Avenue in Vermont Knolls where the 24-year-old, an reputed Avalon Crip gang member with a lengthy criminal record, lay dead. He may have been shot as early as Friday before midnight, but the body was not discovered until 6 a.m., authorities. A U.S. Post Office is 20 feet away from where the victim died and detectives are hoping the surveillance cameras there will provide valuable information.

Outside the crime scene tape and the 'murder tent" where the victim's body lay hidden from view and covered with a sheet, the man's mother wailed. "Not my son!. Oh, my god, not my son1"

Maurice Reliford with one of his two boys. 

Internet Movie Site IMDB Possibly Hacked by Sony Loyalists As "The Interview" Gets 9.9 Rating

Either IMDB, the internet movie rating site, has been hacked by people loyal to Sony or "The Interview" is the greatest movie of all time. The site, which lists "The Godfather" and "The Shawshank Redemption" as their highest rated movies ever with 9.2 scores, has the controversial film about North Korean dick-tator Kim Jung-un listed at 9.9. Yeah. Nine point nine.

"Casablanca" gets an 8.6, "Lawrence of Arabia" an 8.3 and  "On the Waterfront" an 8.2. But, "The Interview" is coming in at 9.9.  And no, this is not a few votes. According to IMDB 38,956 votes were cast.

Check it out. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2788710/

I didn't even know 38,956 people have seen this movie.  I won't be one of them when it is made available, but I bet Sony wishes 38,956 have seen it.

Hold up. Forget the lede. It just hit me. This movie must have been furrowed  into the North Korean concentration camp Hoeryong and the inmates watched it, loved it and voted. Aka "Penal Labor Colony #22", Hoeryong, located  in the northeast corner of North Korea, has housed up to 50,000 inmates so getting 38,956 to love a movie about off the guy who put them  - or at least keeps them - in prison would not be all that difficult. 

If that's the case, then one puzzling question remains.Why not a perfect 10

LA Weekly Review Slams Chi Spacca as Not "World Class", Demonstrations Erupt in Three Continents

Demonstrations continued to erupt over the weekend in three continents after a scathing restaurant review in the Los Angeles Weekly boldly stated that Chi Spacca, the revered Mozza Family restaurant, was not "World Class".

The review, published in the Dec.18, 2014 issue of the Weekly, highly-praised Chi Spacca for service and food, and even awarded it a rare four stars signifying it as "excellent", but stopped short of the top honor of five stars which the paper defines as "World-Class".

"To flat out deny Chi Spacca the world class status is a travesty," said Maurice Curnonsky, the  Prince of Gastronomy in Paris.  "If you picked up Spacca and dropped it on the Rue Royale it would be a smashing success. If it was plunked down in old London town, there'd be a line around the block to get in. Same thing for Rio, Tokyo, Khartoum, and Moscow. If that's not world class, then what is?" 

While the demonstrations for the most part were peaceful, several people were arrested Sunday night in Pyongyang, North Korea for carrying signs that read "Chef [Chad] Colby cooks better than Kim Jong-un".  Jong-un, a self-proclaimed "Grill Master" was said to be distraught over the signs.

In the Central African Republic, interim president Catherine Samba-Panza called for a six-week ban on the Weekly. "In times like these, we all need to come together and encourage each other, not deny dreams," said Samba-Panza at a unruly news conference held Monday morning in the capital city of Bangui. "Hell, Colby and  [sous chef] DeNicola make a Bistecca alla Congo that is to spear for."

Also, outside of Gallup, New Mexico, 13 Apaches were arrested Sunday morning when they threw tomahawk pork chops at passing tourists, one who sustained a black and blue eye. 

To the review's credit, the Weekly lauded Spacca for its steaks ("some of Los Angeles' great special-occasion dishes") , its charcuterie ("fantastic") and added chef Colby's "food should be considered a prize."

While many were upset Chi Spacca didn't get the five, others were astounded .the world, with all its problems, would react so vociferously.  

"What the big fuss all over the world about Spacca getting only four stars? " said Ludo Lefebvre chef owner of Trois Mec and Petit Trois, both of which were awarded four stars by the Weekly. "Get over it. It is four stars. Be happy. I was."

One customer was thrilled Spacca did not get five stars.

"I wish they only got two stars so it would be easier to get in," said Dan Pirelli, owner of the Wine Hotel on 3rd Street who did not eat at Chi Spacca on October 13, November 10th and Dec. 3rd. 

Chef Chad Colby, who had predicted Spacca would get six stars, could not be reached for comment.

****

The Weekly review -http://www.laweekly.com/squidink/2014/12/16/chi-spacca-review-artistry-well-beyond-the-butchers-block

The Folsom Best Seller List

I HAVE SEVERAL FRIENDS in prison. They are all black street gang members and shot callers who I've met over the past three decades, both as a crime reporter and as a fixture of the Fruit Town section of Compton in the 1980s. For the record, there is nothing “fruity” about Fruit Town. One of the roughest sectors of Compton and the home of the gang known as the Fruit Town Piru Bloods, it is so named because of the streets there: Cherry, Peach, Pear.

Fruit Town, like so many neighborhoods in ghetto America in the 1980s and early ‘90s, ran on crack cocaine. The economy of Cherry Street was dominated by the drug.

At 707 W. Cherry Street, where I lived on and off for several years, crack ruled with an iron pipe. The household was headed by a grandma with four daughters, one son, one daughter-in-law, and many grandkids. My memory is fading, but, let’s see. Daughter Jackie had two kids, Kathy had three, Cynthia, two or three, I think, and Addie Irene, my girlfriend, had three, the youngest being born in 1988 and named Michael Krikorian, Jr.

There were times, before Li’l Mike came along, when all four sisters were on the pipe. I dabbled myself, enough to know it was not for me. (I preferred my Jack.) To get away from the household where sometimes more than 20 humans slept in the small two-bedroom house, Irene and I would go to motels in Compton. There was and is a motel on Compton Boulevard, just west of Central, that didn’t have a name and where I – and I bragged about this to the boys way back when, and still do to this day – had credit. One time I didn’t have any money, but Irene and I went there. I asked the manager for the room — it was $12 for two hours — and told them I’d pay tomorrow. To my delight, they said ok. The next day I came back and gave them $15. In Compton, way back when, my credit was black label.

The routine was we’d rent a room, get a $20 rock, smoke it up, maybe fuck, often not, maybe get another rock, come back to the room, smoke it and go back to Cherry Street. One of those nights at the no-name motel, I watched TV and learned that Len Bias had died of a coke overdose. It wasn’t the death of the so promising basketball player that convinced me crack wasn’t shit. It was the realization that I was going to motels not for sex, but for a high that didn’t exist, except for the act of getting it, coming back to the room and smoking it. Inevitably, gloom descended as the rock dwindled. I’ve seen many portrayals of drug addicts on TV and in film — the heartbreaking Bubbles of The Wire, the fidgeting Breaking Bad speedsters, the Spicoli stoner from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I have never seen an actor nail a crack head. Usually the on-screen crack addict behaves like a meth freak. Unlike marijuana or booze or — and, I’m assuming heroin — crack provides no obvious, stereotypical high. The only remarkable thing about crack is the overwhelming urge to get more. I’m pretty sure that less than an hour after I heard about Len Bias, I made Irene’s radiant smile bloom by telling her I would go get another 20.

Fruit Town had some dull moments, but not many. People usually exaggerate when they describe a neighborhood as a place where there are shootings “every night.” In Fruit Town, there were shootings every night. Most of those shootings did not result in injury. The street was full of expert duckers. On top of it, the rival gang members, particularly the Palmer Block Compton Crips, were horrible shots.

But, of all my haunts, Cherry Street in the eighties, for all its death and gloom and devotion to crack, was one of the most alive places I ever spent time. There was the loveable smoke hound Donald walking up the street slapping me five, telling Irene and me “I’m on a mission” to score. Almost every night he was on this mission. There was Gilbert and his homeboys walking to the corner singing “So in Love” in sweet harmony. There was pure joy in the house when I’d walk in with a bucket of Church’s or KFC or Popeye’s or bags full of groceries. There was someone pulling a knife on me after I called him a “punk” and he proclaimed himself a “Trojan.” Irene’s grandmother, respected by the hoods in the hood, came to my rescue one night from, of all places, her bedroom window. There were gales of laughter when Irene’s sister Kathy would openly flirt with me in front of her and Irene would say “Michael, please, please go take that tramp to the motel. No one else will.” There were Irene’s kids, Marlon and Tyrell, piling in my car as we went off for the adventure of the drive-in. They loved the Sylvester Stallone film called Cobra. 

I bring this all up because it was there I first knew people who went away for many years. 

The thing about the guys I know in prison is — even if they were shot callers (gang leaders) — when they go away, very few of their homies write to them. I know how important it is to these guys to get a letter, to know someone is thinking about them, to be gone but not forsaken. So for nearly 20 years, I have been writing letters to inmates, the vast majority incarcerated in California state prisons, though three are in federal joints. 

I am no pen pal looking for some kind of vicarious thrill. These guys were my friends on the street and they still are inside. And while some of them may never get out, those that do say they owe me. Let it be known, I don’t do it for a return favor. On an average, I’d say I write eight letters a month. In addition, I occasionally send a book.

One cannot simply mail a book to an inmate. It must be ordered online and shipped by a third party. Only paperbacks are acceptable. I guess the thinking is a hardback would make a better weapon. Hell, some guys I know inside, like legendary Big Evil from 89 Family Swans (who recently had his San Quentin death-row conviction overturned and awaits retrial at Los Angeles' Men's Central jail) and Loaf from the Bounty Hunters of Nickerson Gardens (locked away for 20 years at the federal prison in Lompoc) are so tough they could hurt someone with not only a paperback, but a term paper. 

These books I send are sometimes a book the friend/inmate has requested. Sometimes it is a book I think they might enjoy and, for a while, get their mind outside the prison walls for a brief respite from California hell.

The single most asked-for book, requested by roughly 20 percent of the guys I know in prison, is a 6000-word glorified pamphlet called The Art of War, written in the 6th century by a Chinese guy named Sun Tzu. This book is such a prison staple that a California prosecutor tried to use possession of it as proof that an inmate was a gang member.

For a prisoner, The Art of War is a survival guide, another avenue to gain mental toughness in a place that demands it.  All of these guys are tough physically, some of them world-class bad asses, so that front is covered. One of the book’s key points is to avoid fighting through tactical mastery. General Douglas MacArthur, Henry Kissinger and Gordon Gekko were all big fans of the book, so why shouldn’t Big Evil and Big Cat want the knowledge? To deal successfully with prison life, a strong mind is much more useful than a strong left hook, despite what the bullshit movies say.

I’ve twice sent on request Alex Kotlowitz’s There Are No Children Here, the true saga of two children growing up in the Henry Horner housing projects in Chicago. Blue Rage, Black Redemption, the memoir of Stanley “Tookie” Williams, the founder of the Westside Crips who was executed in 2005 at San Quentin, has also been requested and sent out twice.

My namesake, Michael Krikorian, Jr. who is doing 40 to life for a Compton gang-related homicide gets the most letters from me. (It’s too long a story to explain here, but anyone interested can read about it here.) He just got out of “the Hole” at New Folsom and requested I send him The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. I did. It’s a sort of guidebook on how to achieve stature with tips from characters as varied as our boy Sun Tzu to Talleyrand to Casanova. 

Because my inmate friends are black, I usually — but not always — send books with black characters. Two favorite authors of mine  (and now theirs) are George Pelecanos and Walter Mosely. I have received letters from Big Evil and Daude praising Mosely's Little Scarlet (featuring his Easy Rollins and set right after the 1965 Watts Riots) and Pelecanos’ Hard Revolution (about a young cop, Derek Strange, set in D.C. after the 68 riots there).

Derek Strange, in more current times, appears in Pelecanos’ trilogy Right as Rain, Hell to Pay and Soul Circus, where he teams with a former white D.C. cop Terry Quinn. All three of these have made their way into various California state prisons. 

I have also sent Mosely’s Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, one of my favorites, which features Socrates Fortlow, an ex-con who tenderly cares for a troubled street kid. I sent it to a few guys so long ago I can’t even remember who got it. I’ll send it out again next week. 

I haven't sent any of another favorite of mine, Michael Connelly and his Harry Bosch books. I don’t think my guys would root for Bosch, an LAPD detective. Private eye books are good to send. Books featuring the LAPD as the good guys are not. 

One non-fiction work I’ve sent out was written by Bob Sipchen, a friend and an ex-colleague of mine at the Los Angeles Times who is now National Communications Director for the Sierra Club. It is titled Baby Insane and the Buddha, about a San Diego Neighborhood Crip whose Folsom-bound life is turned around by a tough but compassionate cop. Many years ago while he was at Soledad, Big Cat from the Rollin’s sixties Crips had some trouble with it as he told me he never ran into a “compassionate cop”. Still, he enjoyed the read.  Most recently he requested Form Your Own Limited Liability Company by Anthony Mancuso. My man Big Cat has some plans for the future.  I was gonna send it to him, but my cousin Greg, who is an investigator for the Federal Public Defender’s office and has known Cat as long as I have, sent it to him first. 

I’ve ordered Kevin Cook’s Titanic Thompson and sent to at least four prisoners who relished it. The book, subtitled The Man Who Bet On Everything, chronicles the life of Alvin “Titanic” Thompson, said to the be the model for Damon Runyon’s Sky Masterson. Myself, I wanted to readTitanic after its first line: “Is it wrong to gamble, or only to lose?” I love that line. The biography of this white guy has been enjoyed at Corcoran, Delano, High Desert and Pleasant Valley, the cruelest-named prison in the United States.

Years ago, probably in the late 1990s, I sent Melvin “Skull” Farmer from Eight-Trey Gangsters Crips Moby Dick. I don't know what I was thinking. I could have very well been drunk. Maybe I thought he would get so into it that his mind would drift from his cell to the ocean where Captain Ahab and The Whale rumbled. Skull had written his own book, The New Slave Ship, about being the first Californian to have his “three strikes” conviction overturned. He later told me he had seen part of the movie and knew it was “about fishing” and he didn't like fishing. He said he tried to read it, found it boring and when another inmate showed an interest, he traded Melville for six cigarettes, better known behind bars as “squares”. (Why squares? I have no idea.)

A couple months ago I got a letter from Grape Street’s Bow Wow from Grape asking if I could get him 50 Shades of Grey. I did not see that one coming. And a week ago, Big Evil said he wanted to read Crime and Punishment. Talk about the gamut.

I stated before that all the inmates I send letters to were black. I’ve recently added a white guy. My friend Gail Silverton told me about a friend’s son, one Gabriel Singer, who is doing a slew of years — currently at Calipatria down by the Salton Sea — for firing a gun in the air that may have lead someone else to fire a gun that killed someone. I haven’t had a book request from him yet, but I suspect I will.

Still, the most requested, umm, reading material is not a book but rather a catalogue of scantily clad black women from a mail-order firm in Long Beach. I once sent Li’l Cat (Rollin 60s) a $20 money order when he was at Corcoran doing life on another “three strikes” case. He was very grateful, but said if I ever have another twenty to send his way, use it to buy 20 photos from this Long Beach place. He said he could enjoy the photos, then sell them for three times what I paid for them. His big brother, Big Cat, most recently requested the same. In prison, as in the outside world, the right woman, even a photo of her, is more valuable than a book.\

ORIGINALLY  published in the Los Angeles Review of Books 

56-Year-Old Man Out Walking His Dog Is Shot To Death On 42nd Street and 7th Avenue

Every evening Larise Smith would  take his Lacasapoo dog Toby out for a five-block walk from his home on 3rd Avenue near 42nd Street where he lived for 50 years. Monday on that walk, the 56-year-old man, security guard at a Beverly Hills private school, stopped  to chat with a couple of ladies near 7th Avenue when a man approached him and asked a variant of that deadly question "Where you from?' .

A witness said the man actually said "What set are you from?", then produced a handgun and shot Smith in the head.  The shooter fled on foot south on 7th Avenue. 

Los Angeles Fire Department Rescue Ambulance 34 responded and transported Smith to California Hospital Medical Center where he  succumbed to his injuries.

At the shooting site Tuesday morning, stunned friends and relatives placed candles around a tree where Smith was shot. Among the loved ones was Larise's nephew, Anthony Smith.

"My uncle was a good, quiet guy who never bothered anyone and loved his dogs and his garden," said Smith, adding that his uncle had one daughter who lives in Georgia. 

Larise Smith, who turned 56 two weeks ago, took care of his father who passed away in March. 

Anyone with information on the killing can call LAPD Criminal Gang Homicide Division at (213) 485-4341

The Hollywood Leather Jacket Murder

PART I  -  "The Night the Crips Became Infamous"

In the week before  March 20, 1972, all you had to say on the Southside of Los Angeles was “You going?” and people would know what you were talking about. It seemed as if everyone would be "going", going to the Hollywood Palladium.  “Soul Train”, the popular Chicago-based dance show, was hosting its first Hollywood event. The buzz humming - through Watts, South Central, Compton Inglewood, Gardena - was electrified. I didn't go to the show, but, as a senior at Gardena High, I remember the excitement.

On that spring night in 1972, the Palladium’s marquee heralded Curtis Mayfield and Wilson Pickett and the promise of unrestrained soulful joy. This evening would be a groovin’, mass sing-a-long to Mayfield’s “Gypsy Woman”, “It’s All Right” and “Super Fly”. A night of hearing Pickett pound out “In the Midnight Hour”, “Land of 1,000 Dances” and “Don’t Knock My Love.” 

This was to be a concert to remembered.  And it still is. But, not for the music. 

##

The show lived up to the buildup. It was a smashing success. But, the aftermath turned out to be a tragedy of monumental proportions that still reverberates 42 years later.  

Shortly after the concert ended, on Sunset Boulevard, east of Vine Street, James “Cuzz” Cunningham saw a boy with the long black leather jacket. He told his crime partner, Judson Bacot, “I want that coat.”

The words sent a charge through Judson. He knew what was coming. He was ready. He put his hand on his Smith and Wesson .22.

The coveted leather jacket was known as a maxi coat, the type that goes nearly to the ankles, something Shaft would wear. Cuzz and Judson crossed to the south side of Sunset and zeroed in on 16-year-old concert-goer Charles Alexander Foster, whose two friends were walking slightly ahead of him. One of them was Robert Ballou, Jr.. 

In front of Mark C. Bloome Tires, Cuzz called out from about 20 feet away. “Hey dude, hey dude.”

 “Me?” said Foster.

 “Yeah. What’s up, man? I like that coat.”

 “I do too,” Foster said.

 By then, Bacot, 22, and Cunningham, 19, were on him..

 “Take it off. I want it,” said Cuzz.

Judson pulled his revolver and growled menacingly , “This is a robbery. Don’t make it a homicide.” 

Judson Bacot did not fire his gun.

The coroner’s office would summarize the death of Robert Ballou, Jr . as “Beating – Fists & Feet”

 ##

It was after midnight when the grandma entered the interview room at Hollywood Homicide, six blocks from the Palladium.  Inside waiting was her 16-year-old grandson and LAPD Detective Al Gastaldo. She told her kin "Tell him what you know."

The boy hesitated, shrugged his shoulders, tilted his head. Grandma knew he knew something. Tell him, she demanded. He said nothing. She moved in close and,without warning, slapped him hard. Then slapped him back handed. Then forehanded. All the while yelling at him in front of the stunned detective. "Tell him! Tell him what you saw!" Smack! "Tell him was happened." Smack!

Finally he did. "It was the Crips."

The Crips? What the hell is the Crips?, thought Gastaldo. He had never heard the word before. Most people in Los Angeles hadn't either. But soon, after the sun rose and the glaring headlines of the Herald Examiner and the Los Angeles Times hit the corners, the Crips, the black street gang now known the world over, were on the fast lane to infamy.

"After his grandma smacked him around and he said the Crips did it, that was the first time I had ever heard of them," recalled Gastaldo as he sipped a ice tea at a San Fernando Valley Marie Calendar's. "After the juvenile said that, everything fell into place. By the next day, we had all the suspects in custody. But, if it wasn't for that grandma, I don't know if we would have solved that killing.”

The killing was shocking. It was brutality in a tourist location. It featured an ominous gang of suspects that brought fear to the entire city. There might be gang killings in Watts and Compton, but in in the heart of Hollywood?  Was anywhere safe now? 

It became known as the Hollywood Leather Jacket Murder, the stomping of Robert Ballou, Jr. at the Palladium on Sunset near Vine.

As it turned out, It would be the paramount killing that spawned the deadliest gang war in the history of the United States - The battle of the Crips and the Bloods.  It is the sixth deadliest war in United States history after the Civil War, World War II, World War I, Vietnam and Korea wars.

In the way that the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria sparked World War I, the  war between the Crips and Bloods was ignited by the killing of Robert Ballou, Jr..

 "It was definitely a landmark killing,” said Ken Bell a retired investigator for the District Attorney’s Hard Core Gang unit. “Nobody doubts the impact of this killing.  That killing has become the status of the shot heard round the world in terms of gang killings.  We had entered into a different world.”

Lamb Chops at Athens Taverna Rated "Good Enough For Zeus"

My dining highlight during four days in Greece last week was at simple taverna in Athens  called To Steki tou Ilia in the neighborhood of Thiselo, if that means anything to you.

i savored  what I later learned had been rated by The International Panel  (TIP) as "Good Enough For Zeus" (GEFZ);  lamb chops, known here as "paidakia",  so tasty that i contemplated ordering another portion because I did not want this delicious dinner to end. 

The chops - marinated in thyme oregano. lemon juice, salt and  pepper then charcoal grilled to smoky, thin succulence   - are listed on the menu as a kilo (2.2. pounds) for 30 euro. But,  the owner/waiter he hooked me up with a single portion for nine euro!  One of the restaurant world's supreme bargains. 

I need to give credit to one Despina Trivolis who wrote an article for the excellent website Culinary Backstreets in September 28, 2012 that I luckily found.  Thank you, Despina. whoever you are. Here's her article  http://www.culinarybackstreets.com/athens/2012/paidakia/

To Steki tou Ilia (first branch) Address: Eptachalkou 5, Thiseio Telephone: +30 210 345 8052  Hours: Mon.-Fri. 8pm-midnight; Sat. noon-4pm & 8pm-midnight; Sun. noon-4pm NOTE I went on a Sunday and it was open at 9 p,m, so check 

There is a second branch nearby.

* This was the only dish I had in Greece rated GEFZ by TIP. However, TIP did give  a Good Enough For Ajax (GEFA) to a roasted lamb shoulder at a family cafe called Godfather in Corfu and a Good Enough For Agamemnon (GEFAG) to the octopus at To Kare Tou Meze in Itea, near Delphi.  https://www.facebook.com/ToKareTouMeze

** Zeus himself, who has a palace about three kilometers away, is usually at the first location on Tuesday for lunch and Friday for dinner at table 4, eating kilos of chops and deciding which worldwide calamities are worth his direct involvement. 

Lamb chops good enough for the gods