by John Buntin
As watch commander, Bradley had considerable authority. Soon after moving to Wilshire Division, he gave the order that henceforth all radio cars in that division would be integrated. But Bradley knew he would need the chief to back him up. At least some white officers were sure to complain and resist. So he sent a request up the chain of command asking Chief Parker to support the new policy. Bradley’s proposal was tough: If officers didn’t go along with the new policy, they would be out of a job, “just like any other type of insubordination.”
Parker refused. Without backup from the brass, Bradley’s integration was doomed. Just as he had feared, some white officers under his command complained loudly of reverse discrimination and sabotaged assignments by calling in sick on the days they were paired with black officers. Without support from his superiors, Bradley was unable to respond effectively to such disobedience. Bradley’s efforts to integrate Wilshire slowly withered. As for Bradley himself, with a law degree in hand and pension eligibility fast approaching, he began to consider a new career—in politics.
IN JUNE 1959, at roughly the same time Lieutenant Bradley was beginning to seriously consider a political career, Officer Francisco Leon responded to a report of an auto theft. He soon spotted the stolen car and set off in pursuit. The car chase ended with a hail of bullets and the sixteen-year-old African American car thief dead. The shooting of an unarmed teenager led to demands for an investigation. County coroner Theodore Curphey announced that he would convene a coroner’s jury to determine whether the shooting had been justified or an act of criminal homicide. He then made a provocative announcement: The coroner’s jury, he declared, would be composed entirely of Negroes.
The NAACP immediately objected. For years the group had protested the selection of all-white coroner juries, but this was reverse segregation, the group argued. So Dr. Curphey amended his plan. The coroner’s jury would have six black jurors—a majority—and four Caucasians. On June 29, 1960, the coroner’s jury handed down the recommendation that Officer Leon be prosecuted for homicide.
Chief Parker exploded. The coroner himself had originally stated “that he saw no basis for prosecution in this case,” Parker stated. The intentional selection of a majority Negro jury was, Parker charged, a reckless experiment in whether “a Negro jury could be unprejudiced.” As far as Parker was concerned, by recommending that Officer Leon be prosecuted for murder, the jury had essentially answered the question—in the negative.
Soon after the verdict, Parker addressed the issue of why groups like the NAACP and the ACLU were always on the attack against the police department. It was not because of actual police brutality, Parker told his audience. No, complaints of police brutality represented something else entirely; they were an example of that most nefarious of totalitarian propaganda techniques, “The Big Lie,” an untruth so colossal that most people were unable to grasp that it was wholly fabricated. Pioneered by the Nazis, adopted by the Communists, this was the technique now being deployed against the LAPD. Those who used it—notably the NAACP and ACLU—did so knowingly, as part of a plan to undermine American democracy. As Parker told the Bond Club, “The type of democracy they [the NAACP and ACLU] are trying to sell is represented by People’s World,” the weekly newspaper of the Communist Party of the United States.
Whether because of the department’s actions or the “Big Lie,” by early 1961 one thing was certain: Chief Parker had become a deeply unpopular figure in the black community—even as the black community was be coming an increasingly important part of the city. A mayoral election was fast approaching, and the conduct of the police department under incumbent mayor Norris Poulson promised to be a significant issue. That presented Poulson’s primary opponent, Rep. Sam Yorty, with both an opportunity and a danger.
Yorty was one of the oddest figures in California politics. Elected to Congress in 1936 as a radical liberal, he had run for mayor of Los Angeles during the 1938 mayoral recall as the favored candidate of Red Hollywood. He’d been soundly thrashed. Two years later, he ran for a seat on the city council and lost again. Instead, he settled for a seat in the California assembly. There he reinvented himself as a hard-core anti-Communist. It didn’t help. In 1940, he failed in his attempt to win election to the U.S. Senate. In 1945, he lost another mayoral election. He returned to Congress in 1950 and, four years later, promptly lost another Senate election. During the 1960 election, Yorty, ostensibly a Democrat, endorsed Richard Nixon. Kennedy’s victory promised two years of misery in Washington. So he decided to run for mayor again instead. In January 1961, he formally entered the race.
This time, Yorty’s timing was good. After two terms as mayor, Poulson seemed burnt out. A few months earlier, he’d announced that he wouldn’t seek a third term. The resulting cries of anguish from the downtown business establishment persuaded him to run one more time. Yorty now took aim at that establishment, which was led, as always, by the Los Angeles Times. He positioned himself as the champion of the “little guy” and as someone who would pay attention to the needs of the fast-growing San Fernando Valley When Poulson supporters mocked him for enthusiastically discussing new methods of trash collection, Yorty embraced the moniker “Trashcan Sam.” The candidate’s populist message played well. So did his direct, colloquial style, which was highly effective in the still newish medium of television. One of Yorty’s supporters was George Putnam, the news anchor at KTTV (and the inspiration for the character Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show), which was actually owned by the Los Angeles Times. In the old days, the Chandlers would never have tolerated a mixed message. Now, for whatever reason, they did. While the Times took the mayor’s side, Putnam was allowed to tout Yorty.
Poulson, meanwhile, struggled with rumors. A long-standing throat ailment was alleged to be cancer. Yorty’s team also maintained that Poulson had acquired a $250,000 ranch in Oregon during his time in office. (In reality, it was a much smaller property owned by his wife.) Then, in the final weeks of the campaign, Poulson came down with laryngitis. Photographs of the incumbent mayor in the hospital filled the papers in the days leading up to the primary election, which the mayor lost. Under Los Angeles’s system of nonpartisan elections, a runoff election was scheduled for June 1.
The anti-Yorty forces, led by Times man Carlton Williams, played tough, delving into some dubious ties between Yorty, the Teamsters, and Las Vegas gambling interests. The day after Yorty placed first in the primary vote, Poulson contended that Yorty’s campaign was “backed by the underworld.” Yorty responded by filing a $2.2 million libel suit. He countered that Poulson was controlled by an “overworld” consisting of Carlton Williams and the downtown business establishment. Yorty also stepped up his attacks on the police.
In his public appearances, he was always careful to distinguish between Chief Parker, whom he promised to keep on, and the Police Commission, which he criticized mercilessly. But as election day approached, Yorty sharpened his rhetoric against the chief, describing the current police commissioners as “Parker’s appointees,” promising to clean house, and insinuating that Parker would probably resign as well. In private, and to select black audiences, Yorty may have gone even further. Many Parker foes certainly believed they had received a firm promise that as mayor Yorty would force Parker out. Yorty also promised to fully integrate the department. Not surprisingly, candidate Yorty soon noticed that he was being trailed by plain-clothes officers from the LAPD intelligence division.
In fact, Yorty did have some worrisome connections. One of his earliest and strongest supporters was Jimmy Bolger, the man the Shaws had put into former chief James Davis’s office as a secretary (and minder). After Davis’s forced resignation, Bolger had found refuge on the Board of Public Works, which for many years was the bastion of the old Frank Shaw camp. Bolger was a notorious figure, one widely considered to have been a direct link to the underworld in the 1930s. It was natural that Parker would be concerned about his reappearance. Yorty was less understanding. Like Poulson before him, he
was soon fuming about the LAPD’s “Gestapo-like tactics” and complaining that the incumbent mayor was attempting to scare law-and-order voters with the specter of Parker’s dismissal.
Ultimately, however, it was race that decided the election.
One day before the general election, on May 30, Memorial Day, a black youth attempted to sneak onto a merry-go-round at Griffith Park. An attendant tried to make the seventeen-year-old pay. At this point, accounts of what happened diverge. The attendant and his employer claimed they were assaulted; others claimed that the seventeen-year-old fare-jumper was roughed up. A fight broke out; police officers rushed to the scene; and soon a mini-riot was under way, pitting roughly two hundred black rioters against a considerably smaller number of policemen. Dozens of black rioters and four LAPD officers were injured in the brawl.
The next day, newspapers splashed news of the incident across their front pages. The Los Angeles Times insisted that the incident was not a race riot—and that Los Angeles was not Alabama. But the city’s African American voters drew a different conclusion. Voters in South Los Angeles shifted decisively toward Yorty, who won by sixteen thousand votes. That shift, wrote the Los Angeles Times one week later, was “perhaps the single biggest factor in Mayor Poulson’s defeat.”
It now fell to Mayor Yorty to decide what he would do with his police chief. At his first postelection press conference, Yorty’s tone was harsh.
“I have confidence in [Parker] as an administrator, but as a public relations expert I think he could stand a lot of schooling and a lot of direction,” Yorty told the press. In the days that followed, Yorty was even more outspoken in his criticisms of the department. It was “perfectly obvious,” he told reporters, that “the department was used to check the history, from childhood to current date, of everybody even remotely connected with my campaign and even my [law] clients.” Asked if the mayor-elect thought Parker was aware of such activities, Yorty replied, “[H]e had to be.” Yorty further described such activities as illegal and vowed to investigate the department further after he was sworn in on July 1. There was thus considerable anticipation about the outcome of the two men’s first private meeting. Reporters observed a grim-faced Chief Parker heading into his conference with the mayor. They also noted what reporters described as “a bulging briefcase.” The two men emerged all smiles. An understanding had been reached. Yorty would replace most of the men on the Police Commission, but Parker would stay on as chief, with the mayor’s full support.
Rumor had it that Chief Parker had shown Mayor Yorty his file.
“BLACK AND BLUE” brawls at Griffith Park were just one of Parker’s worries. By the time Mayor Yorty took office, Southern California police agencies had identified a new and altogether more worrisome adversary. Police called it The Muslim Cult. Its members preferred the Nation of Islam.
In the fall of 1959, the LAPD circulated a briefing and training memo from the Culver City Police Department that set forth the basic facts about the organization (as law enforcement understood it):
Briefing and Training Memo from the Culver City Police Department, Classified and Restricted, 11/1/1959
Introduction
Nation of Islam
Or
The “Muslim Cult”
In 1931, a pseudo-religious group was organized in the United States and called the “Muslims.” This group adopted, in part, many of the rituals of the true Islamic movements. The Muslim cult, however, is not a legitimate member of the Moslem religion and its existence is denounced by the leaders of the true Moslem Church in the United States….
Relatively little has been known of the “Muslims” until recently, partially because it has been a secret organization and partially because it was felt that any attendant publicity would create some fanatical attractiveness to its recruitment program. However, within the last three months, this cult has been exposed in scores of national magazines and newspapers and by many national and local TV commentators as a purveyor of racial tensions and unrest.
It has been determined that the “Muslim” cult is nation-wide—well-organized and well-financed, militant, and growing. The known membership in New York is over 3,000, in Indianapolis over 500, and in Los Angeles, membership figures range from 600 to 3,000.
There are reportedly 3,000 Muslims in the Los Angeles area associated with either Muhhamed’s Eastside temple at 1106 V2 E. Vernon Street, Los Angeles, or Muhammad’s Temple of Islam No. 27, located at 1480 W. Jefferson Blvd, Los Angeles. Both temples are headed by Henry X, minister. None of the members use their last names but use the letter ‘X.’ The reason being that their last names are not really theirs but names handed to them by the masters of slaves. They supposedly will continue to use no last name until the Caucasian race is eliminated.
THE REPORT acknowledged that “to date, there have been relatively few ‘incidents’ attributed to the ‘Muslims’ on the local scene;” however, it predicted that it was only a matter of time until a clash occurred.
“Any organizat ion that advocates racial hatred must provide violence and action to satisfy the appetites of its members and to stimulate its program,” wrote the Culver City police. When it did, police predicted that officers would find a formidable adversary in the group’s paramilitary arm, the so-called Fruit of Islam.
“These men are selected for their physical prowess and are adept at aggressive tactics and Judo,” continued the memo:
They are almost psychotic in their hatred of Caucasians and are comparable to the Mau Mau or Kamikaze in their dedication and fanaticism. It has been reported that many temples have gun clubs in which this militant group are trained in weapons…. It has been stated locally, that the members of this cult will kill any police officer when the opportunity presents itself, regardless of the circumstances or outcome.
Little did the Culver City police anticipate that the LAPD would fire the first shot.
AT ABOUT eleven on Friday night, April 27, 1962, Officers Frank Tomlinson and Stanley Kensic spotted two Negro males standing behind the open trunk of a 1954 Buick outside of the Muslim Temple at 5606 South Broadway, Mosque 27. The two men seemed to be examining something in a black garment bag. Despite the fact that he was getting married the next day, Kensic decided to stop and ask the two men some questions. Tomlinson, who was completing his one-year rookie probation period that very night, flicked on the cruiser’s lights, and the officers double-parked near the two men. Kensic asked if the men were Black Muslims.
“Yes, sir,” came the prompt reply.
The officers had heard about the dangerous new cult before. Seven months earlier, two Black Muslims had gotten into a brawl at a market on Western Avenue near Venice Boulevard, when the manager attempted to stop them from distributing their newspaper, Mr. Muhammad Speaks, outside. Since then, police had received regular warnings about the Muslims at roll call. As a precaution, Kensic and Tomlinson decided to frisk the men for weapons. They found none. They then checked the Buick’s tags against their hot list of stolen cars. Again, nothing. The officers asked the two men where the clothes came from. Monroe X Jones was beginning to explain that he worked for a drycleaner, when the officers decided to separate the two men. Kensic would later testify that he said, “Come with me.” Fred X Jingles, the other party present, heard something different: “Let’s separate these niggers.”
Jingles pushed away Kensic’s hands. Although he wasn’t fighting back, the attitude worried Kensic, who promptly grabbed Jingles’s arm and spun him around, slamming the man onto the trunk of the Buick. A bystander ran into the temple to call for help. Instead of going limp, Jingles fought back. Jones now slipped away from Officer Tomlinson and pulled Kensic off his friend. A fight broke out. As Tomlinson ran to help his partner, he was grabbed by another Muslim. The scene was briefly interrupted when a black off-duty special deputy driving down Broadway stopped and fired a warning shot. Officer Tomlinson now had a chance to regain control of the situation. But instead of composing himself, drawing h
is gun, ordering the crowd to freeze, and then radioing for help, Tomlinson pulled out his sap and attempted to hit the nearest Muslim. At that very moment, the black special deputy motorist fired into the crowd, wounding Jingles. In the confusion, Jones grabbed Kensic’s gun—and shot Tomlinson. An African American policeman who happened to be driving by jumped out and fired a shot into the air to disperse the crowd. Then he radioed for help. Meanwhile, Black Muslims were racing back to the temple from across the neighborhood.
Police cruisers poured into the neighborhood. Instead of sealing off the area and ascertaining just what had happened, officers charged the building, swinging nightsticks wildly. Two Muslims who fought with the police were shot. So were two who sought to flee or surrender. One died; another was permanently disabled. Four more men were badly injured. Other Muslims fought back, ineffectually. Inside the men’s room, police beat a dozen of the men who’d been involved in the melee. The battle was over.
The following day, Chief Parker went to visit Officer Kensic at Central Receiving Hospital. Afterward, Parker called the Friday-night incident “the most brutal conflict I’ve seen” in his thirty-five years on the force and described Kensic’s injuries as the result of a vicious attack by a “hate organization which is dedicated to the destruction of the Caucasian race.”
The Nation of Islam sent in one of its most prominent leaders too—its “national minister,” Malcolm X. At a press conference at the Statler Hilton Hotel (which Malcolm X began with the sobering words “Seven innocent, unarmed black men were shot in cold blood”), the controversial Black Muslim leader denounced Chief Parker as a man “intoxicated with power and his own ego.”
