L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

by John Buntin

  Prosecutors tried to put: Lieberman, “Noir Justice Catches Up with Mickey Cohen,” Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2008.

  The Whalen shooting quickly: Blake, “First Such Convention in City Brings With It Host of New Problems,” Los Angeles Times, May 30, 1960.

  The convention began under: “Kennedy’s ‘Pad’ in L.A.—Dirty Shirts and Disorder,” San Francisco Call-Bulletin, July 15, 1960.

  From the start, Parker: “Noise, Cheers, Applause, Songs—and 3 Candidates,” Kansas City Times, April 11, 1960; “Big Squeeze Boosts Police for Kennedy,” Los Angeles Mirror, July 11, 1960.

  The LAPD also proved: Fleming, “Stevenson Supporters Try to Invade Arena, Extra Police Rushed to Entrance as Chanting Crowd of 600 Mills About,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1960.

  By all accounts, the: See, for instance, “The Bright Badge of the L.A.P.D.,” Los Angeles Times editorial, August 9, 1960, B4.

  “Eating out of the …”: Russo, The Outfit, 407.

  Parker was delighted.: “Parker Hails Kennedy as Crime Foe,” Los Angeles Times, December 17, 1960, 12; “Chief Parker May Head US Crime Probers,” Los Angeles Herald-Express, December 22, 1960.

  To the sixty-six: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 114.

  “I have a high: “Chief Parker May Head US Crime Probers,” Los Angeles Herald-Express, December 22, 1960; White, “Parker Takes Swipe at FBI,” Los Angeles Mirror, December 22, 1960.

  Ethel was a prankster: Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life, 117.

  To Mickey Cohen, the: More specifically, prosecutors charged Cohen with evading roughly $30,000 in taxes between 1956 and 1958 and also with avoiding another $347,000 in taxes (plus interest and penalties) between 1945 and 1950, in addition to several other infringements of the law. See Korman, “Convict Cohen a Second Time Tax Offender: Guilty of Beating U.S. out of $400,000,” Chicago Tribune, July 1, 1961, 3. Cohen’s previous tax conviction had been for avoiding $130,000 in taxes between 1946 and 1948. The decision to charge Cohen with concealing even more income in the immediate postwar years reflected new discoveries about Cohen’s gambling income from that era.

  “There’s no question about…”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 195-96.

  The first investor appeared: “Cohen’s Story Contract Presented at His Trial,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1961, 30; “$9,000 Advance for Cohen, Screenplay Told,” Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1961, 11; Korman, “2 FILM COMICS ADD SPICE TO COHEN’S TRIAL: Jerry Lewis, Skelton on Witness Stand,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 25, 1961, A7; “Ben Hecht Sees Cohen as Top Book Material,” Los Angeles Times, May 18, 1961, B2.

  The next witness after: “Candy Barr Tells About Being Cohen’s ‘Sweetie:’ Jailed Stripper Testifies How Ex-Hoodlum Helped Her Flee U.S. to Mexico Hide-way,” Los Angeles Times, June 3, 1961, 12.

  The answer was yes: Caen, “Another World: Search for the Prize Topper,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1960, B5; “US. Rests Cohen Income Tax Case,” Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1961, 9.

  “I feel it’s now …”: “Cohen Defense Claims He Was Losing Money,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1961, 11.

  Mickey responded by instructing: Cohen, In My Own Words, 205.

  Reporters noted that he: “Mickey Cohen Jaunty Again—in Volkswagen,” Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1961, 26.

  Then, two weeks later: “Mickey Cohen, 4 Others Indicted in Murder Plot, All Accused in Dec. 2, 1959 Slaying of Jack Whalen in Sherman Oaks Cafe,” Los Angeles Times, November 1, 1961, 2.

  Chapter Twenty-five: The Muslim Cult

  “‘Civil disobedience’… simply means …”: Manion, “Anarchy Imminent,” May 30, 1965.

  Police lieutenant Tom Bradley: Indeed, Bradley’s promotion and appointment to Wilshire Division was widely seen as a promotion in the black community. Lomax, “Bradley Makes ‘Loot,’ Just in Time for the Vote on the Police Pay Raise,” Los Angeles Tribune, October 31, 1958.

  Poulson, meanwhile, struggled with: Los Angeles has nonpartisan primaries. Any candidate who wins more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary automatically wins election to the office in question. If no candidate wins an outright majority, then the two top vote-getters meet for a rematch in the general election. The top vote-getter in that election then claims the contested office.

  In his public appearances: See “All Elections Promises Kept, Yorty Asserts. But Black Leaders Flat Contradict His Claim That He Never Promised to Fire Chief Parker,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, July 9, 1962.

  In fact, Yorty did: Ainsworth, Maverick Mayor, 129, 132-33.

  The next day, newspapers: Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1961. See “Two Cited Under Lynch Law After Park Riot,” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1961, for an account of the case. See also “This Is not Alabama,” Los Angeles Times editorial, June 1, 1960.

  “I have confidence in…”: Gottlieb and Wolt, Thinking Big, 364-65; “Yorty, Parker Clash: Chief Denies Charge of Ballot ‘Gestapo,’” Los Angeles Examiner, June 9, 1961.

  Rumor had it that: The rumor seems to have started with councilman Carl Rundberg, who after the mayor and police chief’s meeting, expressed a desire to know “what Parker had on Yorty.” Parker denied the allegation, but Rundberg rejoined that he personally had heard Parker play back recordings of negative remarks made by Yorty about the police. See Hollywood Citizen-News, February 18, 1963.

  Daryl Gates would later categorically deny that Parker collected dirt on Yorty and other politicians. Perhaps this is true (although Yorty’s allegations seem similar to those leveled by Norris Poulson in 1952). What is striking, though, is that most observers at the time believed he did and feared the chief accordingly. Author interview with Daryl Gates, December 10, 2004.

  The officers had heard: “Six Muslim Suspects Held in Row at Market,” Los Angeles Times, September 3, 1961; Branch, Pillar of Fire, 4-15.

  Malcolm X’s efforts put: Branch, Pillar of Fire, 11. See Los Angeles Sentinel, May 17, 1962, for a slightly different account.

  In early June, a: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 476.

  “The Negro community here …”: “Parker Assails Bishop’s View of Negro Policy,” Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1963, A1.

  “This city can’t be …”: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 475-76.

  Chapter Twenty-six: The Gas Chamber

  “Don’t worry”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 214.

  Cohen’s indictment arose from: Reid, Mickey Cohen, 69; “Officers Out to Get Cohen, LoCigno Says,” Los Angeles Times, March 22, 1962, A2.

  Although he was willing: “Under Table, Didn’t See Slayer, Cohen Says,” Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1962, 30.

  Cohen’s attorneys did not: “Cohen’s Defense Closes Murder Trial Argument,” Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1962, 34.

  “This is a crazy town…”: Coates, “A Cool Customer in a Hot Spot,” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1962, B7.

  “Although much testimony of…”: “Mickey Cohen Murder Charges Dismissed,” Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1962, 2. LoCigno’s earlier conviction had been vacated by an appeals court. However, he did not go free. Later that fall, he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to one to ten years’ imprisonment. “Lo Cigno Rules Guilty of Manslaughter,” Los Angeles Times, November 15, 1962, B8.

  Cohen had dodged the: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 278-79, 280-81.

  “Don’t worry about me,”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 214.

  In October, Cohen was: “Mickey Cohen Sues U.S.,” New York Times, February 18, 1964, 22; Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 284-86.

  “Violence in Los Angeles …”: “An Analysis of the McCone Commission Report,” California Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, January 1966, LAPD official records box 84638, CRC.

  “I doubt that Los …”: “Police Chief William H. Parker Speaks,” a compilation of Parker statements prepared by the Community Relations Conference of Southern California, 2400 South Western Avenue, Los Angeles, California, available in Parke
r’s FBI file, 62-96042-109.

  Chapter Twenty-seven: Watts

  “This community has done …”: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 475-76.

  Minikus told Marquette that: My account of the beginning of the riots comes from Robert Conot’s Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness (6-29) and from the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots report (the so-called McCone Commission), issued December 5, 1965, reprinted in Robert Fogelson, ed., Mass Violence in America (10-23). Frye would later challenge this account, claiming that the Highway Patrol officer had been preparing to release him until other officers arrived with a nastier attitude. See Horne, The Fire Next Time, 54.

  It was a sweltering: Conot, Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness, 6.

  Gates had enjoyed a: Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, June 2, 1965, CRC scrapbook.

  What he saw was: Gates, Chief, 90.

  The police had regrouped: In fact, thanks to the strike at Harvey Aluminum, L.A. County sheriff Peter Pritchess had also placed a sizable number of deputy sheriffs on alert near the area—roughly two hundred. Nothing prevented Deputy Chief Murdock from calling them in as assistance. Yet no calls were made that night to the sheriff’s department. Conot, Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness, 50, 65.

  This characterization of the early morning comes from the McCone Commission report, cited above. Gates, Chief, 90-91, portrays events of the first morning in a less positive light.

  Chief Parker did not: “‘Pseudoleaders Who Can’t Lead,’ Blamed by Parker,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, August 15, 1965; “Los Angeles Police Chief William H. Parker 3d,” New York Times, August 14, 1965.

  Around midnight, the comedian: Gregory, Call On My Soul, 111.

  They didn’t. By 4: Gates, Chief, 99.

  At 9:45 a.m., Parker: Parker would later claim that Colonel Quick, the National Guard liaison present at the 9:45 LAPD staff meeting, had received the request and promised the chief to submit it immediately. Colonel Quick, in contrast, would recall a more general conversation, one that did not include a direct and specific request for the Guard.

  At 11 a.m., Governor Brown’s: Anderson did order the Guard to marshal forces at local armories at 5 p.m. Friday afternoon, in the event a call-up was necessary. Anderson would tell the McCone Commission that he had been advised that a five o’clock call out was the earliest time feasible for a guard deployment. Unaware of the location of the Third Brigade, the lieutenant governor thus felt that he had the afternoon to investigate and deliberate.

  To Parker, it was: Gottlieb and Wolt, Thinking Big, 378.

  The other important freeway: Author interview with Harold Sullivan, July 26, 2007.

  Friday night brought something: Horne, Fire This Time, 72.

  Desperate to restore order: According to the McCone Commission, the maximum deployment of the LAPD during the riots was 934 officers; the maximum for the sheriff’s department was 719 officers. For an account of Parker’s television appearance, see Conot, Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness, 348-49.

  To groups like: Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel, xv

  Still, King tried to: Horne, Fire This Time, 183.

  To Mayor Sam Yorty: Parker’s concerns about communist agitation would at one time have been quite understandable. According to Horne, during the 1940s, Los Angeles “had one of the highest concentrations of Communists in the nation,” with roughly 4,000 card-carrying members. However, by 1965, the power the party once held over Hollywood’s unions and the city’s trade unions—and in L.A.’s African American community—had been broken. In comparison, the Nation of Islam (which Parker insisted on viewing as some adjunct of the party) emphasized an almost Booker T. Washington-like ideology of black self-sufficiency. Horne, Fire This Time, 5, 11. See also Hertel and Blake, “Parker Hints Muslims Took Part in Rioting,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1965.

  At 2 a.m. on the: LAPD informant Louis Tackwood would later claim that he had instigated the call at the department’s behest. Horne, Fire This Time, 126; Erwin Baker, “Mills Tells Parker to Explain Raid: Chief Denies Councilman Has Right to Quiz Him on Muslims,” Los Angeles Times, November 9, 1965, 3. Parker later agreed to testify. “L.A. Councilmen to Hear Parker,” Valley-Times, September 11, 1965.

  The following day, the: Horne, Fire This Time, 127-28.

  On August 29: “Chief William Parker Speaks,” Parker FBI file.

  California governor Pat Brown: Fogelson, “White on Black,” 114.

  The testimony of many: Fogelson, “White on Black,” 124, quoting testimony of Mervyn Dymally, “statement prepared for the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots,” October 11, 1965, 2.

  Parker, Ferraro, and Yorty: Fogelson, “White on Black,” 126, quoting testimony of Mervyn Dymally, “statement prepared for the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots,” October 11, 1965, 2.

  Civil rights leaders attacked: See Rustin, “The Watts ‘Manifesto’ and the McCone Report,” 147, for the typical reading of this statement.

  “I have my suspicions”: “Riot Hearings Boil, Parker, Bradley in Row Over ‘Mystery Man,’” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, September 14, 1965. See also Dallas Morning News, September 14, 1965.

  Parker’s combative appearances belied: Memorandum from Acting Chief Richard Simon to Police Commission, “Subject: Request for Five Additional Positions of Lt of Police to Be Community Relations Officers,” October 12, 1965, CRC.

  But the commission raised: See the section of the McCone Commission report entitled “Law Enforcement—the Thin Thread;” Rustin, “The Watts ‘Manifesto’ and the McCone Report,” 153.

  “I think they’re afraid: Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1966.

  Parker’s popularity dissuaded the: von Hoffman, “L.A. Chief Overlooked a Bad Heart to Serve,” Washington Post, July 18, 1966, A1.

  Privately, however, many recognized: FBI memorandum to Mr. Felt from H. L. Edars, “Subject: NDAA Midyear Meeting, Tucson, AZ,” March 4, 1966, Parker FBI file; “Parker Out of Hospital, Will Rest,” Hollywood Citizen-News, March 15, 1965.

  The memo concluded by: It should also be noted that Parker believed that, after rising 130 percent in nine years, crime had “plateaued.” Newsom, “Men Efficient, Vigilant, Brave, Chief Relates,” Hollywood Citizen-News, June 20, 1965.

  On the evening of: West, “Chief Parker Collapses, Dies at Award Banquet, Stricken During Standing Ovation by Marine Veterans,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1966.

  His death will be: Houston, “Police Chief Parker’s Death Mourned in City and State, Meeting May Be Today to Name his Successor,” Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1966; “Friends, Critics Praise Parker,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, June 18, 1966.

  At the funeral home: “6000 Pay Last Tribute to Parker, Chief Eulogized in Congress,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, July 21, 1966, A16.

  Chapter Twenty-eight: R.I.P.

  “I don’t want to …”: Lewis, Hollywood’s Gangster Celebrity, 318.

  “The notions in it,”: Domanick, To Protect and to Serve, 155-56; Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 502.

  Four LAPD patrol cars: Gates, Chief, 147-53. Information about the LAPD’s secret policy of providing police escorts to visiting dignitaries comes from an author interview with former police commissioner Frank Hathaway, February 17, 2008.

  “I’m gonna use you …”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 233.

  “I got a definite …”: Cohen, In My Own Words, 234-36.

  Once again, a crowd: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 307.

  Then it was on: Cohen, In My Own Words, 238-43.

  In September 1975, Mickey: Lewis, Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, 325.

  Epilogue

  “This city is plagued …”: Mydans, “‘It Could Happen Again,’ Report on Los Angeles Riots Blames Police and City,” New York Times, October 25, 1992.

  In 1969, LAPD: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 504.

  Just before: “Politics and the LAPD,” Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1
969, C6.

  Reddin’s decision to step: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 505; Cannon, Official Negligence, 88.

  It took Bradley: Dominick, To Protect and to Serve, 160, 294.

  In January 1978, after: Cannon, Official Negligence, 90. After his resignation in 1978, Davis did run for office, winning election as a Republican to the state senate in 1980.

  Mayor Bradley didn’t want: Gates, Chief, 174.

  “You know,” Gates replied: Gates, Chief, 176.

  There were three passengers: Lou Cannon’s Official Negligence provides a convincing—and strikingly revisionist—account of the Rodney King beatings. For anyone interested in the history of Los Angeles, the LAPD, or policing in general, Cannon’s book is a must-read.

  The LAPD hierarchy was: Gates, Chief, 316, 318.

  The Police Commission, whose: Gates, Chief, 340.

  Three months later, on: Cannon, Official Negligence, 142-44.

  One of the commission’s most: Gates, Chief, 348-49; Cannon, Official Negligence, 139.

  Gates immediately recognized that: Gates, Chief, 351.

  At least, that was: Cannon, Official Negligence, 264.

  The mood at police: Cannon, Official Negligence, 300.

  Gates did not return: Cannon, Official Negligence, 305, 341.

  On June 2: Cannon, Official Negligence, 356; “Final Election Returns,” Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1992, A20. See also Sahagun, “Riots Transform Campaign on Police Reform,” Los Angeles Times, May 31, 1992, B1; and Berger, “Elections ’92 LAPD Disciplinary System to Undergo Major Restructuring Police,” Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1992, B3.

  Select Bibliography

  A Note on Sources:

  Many of the periodicals cited in the Notes and below came from the LAPD scrapbooks at the City Records Center (CRC) in Los Angeles. Often these clippings lack page numbers or even headlines. I have tried to provide the most complete citation possible, citing the paper’s name at the time of each article publication. (The scrapbooks may be reviewed in person at the City Records Center at the Piper Technical Center downtown.)