LAWT-7-1-2010

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July 1, 2010

SERVING LOS ANGELES COUNTY WITH NEWS YOU CAN USE

Vol. XXX, No. 1186

Grant Killing Garners Little Attention With Nat’l Media BY NADRA KAREEM ASSISTANT EDITOR

Photo by INDIA ALLEN

REMEMBERING HER SON — Jocelyn Mull stands next to a memorial of her late son, Eron Michael Mull. Eron, who was 18, was shot in West Los Angeles in 2008. Due to her son’s death, Mull said she “was one cocktail away from killing myself,” but she didn’t after receiving help from Juanita Matthews, co-founder of the Springs of Hope Grief Care Center in Long Beach.

FIRST COLUMN

Hope Springs Up From Life’s Unexpected Tragedies BY INDIA C. ALLEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Three-hundred-and-thirty-four homicides occurred between Jan. 1 and June 28, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office. Most of the homicides shared these commonalities: The victims were either black or Latino, mostly male, and their cases have yet to be solved. If these incidents didn’t become breaking news at the time, they at least made brief headlines. But few stories delved into how hundreds of Southland families were left coping and holding baggage — a burden Juanita S.

Matthews and her husband Larry know well. But despite the heaviness of death’s load, the Matthews are paying it forward and turning despair into hope with their nonprofit Springs of Hope Grief Care Center. Based in Long Beach, Springs of Hope offers an array of low- to no-cost grief care services, including various counseling options, workshops, grief support and even assistance in facilitating funeral services. The center also offers training to people who have experienced loss and wish to counsel and assist others. See HOPE, page 14

There are several reasons the Oscar Grant murder trial should have gripped Los Angeles, if not the nation. The case marks the first time in California history that a police officer has been tried for murder in the line of duty. Moreover, Grant was a young father, and he was killed on a holiday — New Year’s Day 2009 — a coincidence that meant that many bystanders were around to videotape his death with mobile devices. Despite these distinctions, the case has garnered little attention outside of the Oakland area, where then-Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle, who is white, shot Grant, who was black, as Grant lay unarmed and face down on a train platform. Due to the intense media attention and racial tensions Grant’s killing generated in the Bay Area, the case was moved to Los Angeles before its start on June 10 to ensure that Mehserle received a fair trial. But because few news media outside of Bay Area-based outlets covered the case, Angelenos and Americans overall seemingly know little about this history-making trial. So, what’s to explain for a case with several compelling features going largely unnoticed by the public, and will the inattention to it lessen the impact of its verdict, which is expected as early as July 2? “This case hasn’t really been

U.S. Senate Report Says Haiti Rebuilding Has Stalled BY JONATHAN M. KATZ AP WRITER

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti has made little progress in rebuilding in the five

months since its earthquake, because of an absence of leadership, disagreements among donors, and general disorganization, a U.S. Senate report says.

Photo by JOAN E. KRETSCHMER

REBUILDING — A man helps rebuild a road in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Hundreds of thousands in the Caribbean nation were killed when a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti Jan. 12. The Associated Press reports that “little progress” has been made in rebuilding the country.

Obtained June 21 by The Associated Press, the eight-page report is meant to give Congress a picture of Haiti today as U.S. legislators consider authorizing $2 billion to support the country’s reconstruction. That picture is grim: Millions displaced from their homes, rubble and collapsed buildings still dominating the landscape. Three weeks into hurricane season, with tropical rains lashing the capital daily, construction is being held up by land disputes and customs delays while plans for moving people out of tent-and-tarp settlements remain in “early draft form,” it says. The report was written by the staff of Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and other Democrats who interviewed U.S., Haitian, U.N. and other officials and visited resettlement camps, See HAITI, page 6

publicized (locally) with the exception of two back-page articles in the L.A. Times and one front-page story in a Sunday issue. Also, you’re not seeing the case be routinely covered in the black press,” said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, community activist, author and syndicated columnist, including for the L.A. Watts Times. Those who’ve attended the trial daily, such as crime expert and streetgangs.com founder Alex Alonso, say that the only news media they’ve seen regularly appear at the trial hail from Northern California. Google.com backs up these assertions, as the search results generated by typing in “Oscar Grant” almost exclusively link to Bay Area news agencies. Additionally, in Los Angeles, other news stories may have pushed the Grant case out of the spotlight. “The news media is so saturated with so many things going on, and celebrity news has reached an apex, even during this trial,” Alonso explained. “The Conrad Murray trial regarding his medical license and the stalker case with the young lady from (a reality TV show) — those stories have trumped this case.” But celebrity news may not be the only culprit. Since four police officers were acquitted of beating Rodney King in 1992, cases of police brutality have become more common in the news that they’re now not as likely to stand out to the public. “We deal with so many police

NEWS IN BRIEF THE SOUTHLAND School Reformer Named to Top L.A. District Job (AP) — A top official with the country’s leading school reform foundation has been named as the No. 2 leader of the nation’s second-largest school district. The Los Angeles Board of Education on June 22 voted to name John Deasy, deputy director of education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as deputy superintendent, effective Aug. 1. District Superintendent Ramon John Deasy Cortines said Deasy’s experience as superintendent of three school districts will have “a profound and positive effect on the daily operations of LAUSD.” Prior to his position at the Gates Foundation, Deasy ran the Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland, where he developed a pay-for-performance plan for teachers’ salaries. Several members of the L.A. school board are in favor of

murders that a lot of people brushed (Oscar Grant’s killing) off,” said Aidge Patterson, an organizer with the L.A. Coalition for Justice for Oscar Grant. “They chalked it up as another brother being killed. They didn’t think it was special. We hear about so many of these cases that, for a lot of people, it went in one ear and out the other.” The crux of the case is as follows: On Jan. 1, 2009, BART officer Johannes Mehserle, now 28, responded to a call about Grant, 22, and his friends scuffling on a train. After a heated exchange with Grant and his acquaintances, Mehserle managed to get him splayed across the train platform, hands behind his back. Then, for a reason that remains unclear, Mehserle pulled out his gun and mortally wounded Grant in front of dozens of witnesses. Mehserle’s defense team argues that the former officer — who was fired after the shooting — did not mean to shoot Grant but to tase him. But Grant supporters argue that Mehserle intentionally killed the young man. Although a variety of video footage of the incident can be found on YouTube.com, the national news media haven’t aired the footage repeatedly as they did with the video of Rodney King’s beating. “They don’t show the video over and over again,” Patterson said. “The Rodney King video created a huge uproar around the country. See OSCAR GRANT, page 10

adopting such a model in Los Angeles, but teachers have adamantly opposed it.

L.A. County-USC Hospital ‘Dangerously Overcrowded’ (AP) — A report finds the emergency room at CountyUSC Medical Center was “dangerously overcrowded” for more than 10 percent of the month of May. The report was presented to Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on June 22. Supervisor Gloria Molina represents the district CountyUSC is located in and says the overcrowding is a serious problem. The new $1.02 billion hospital was built after tough seismic safety standards were passed for hospitals in the wake of the 1994 Northridge quake. The emergency room has 40 percent more beds than the old hospital, which still stands and houses offices. But the old hospital could admit 824 patients to regular hospital beds, while the new facility has a maximum capacity of 600 patients.

www.lawattstimes.com

See BRIEFS, page 4


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