Los Siete De La Raza; Goodbye Mr
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Marc1i1971 .,~ --c"'.- . Weatherman: Revised Forecast; Kopkind on Reich; Los Siete de la Raza; Goodbye Mr. Gomulka; Hollywood Capers 75c " .."1\ , -..,\ ~ .;' it,,'; ";~";~'f:',;~ ';C! -!!I . I j," ,!:;1 " ,;, I ": c . ~ . .aza T HE UPRISINGIN EASTLOS ANGELES last August, dur- B RODNIKWAS THE JUNIORin the plainclothes "Mis- ing which a cop killed journalist Ruben Salazar, sion Eleven" team. He and McGoran, his partner called national attention to the anger of chicanos of three years, reduced daylight burglaries in a in urban barrios. While the police riot and the death middle-class area near the Mission District by ask- of Salazar were making front pages, a less-publicized murder ing housewives to report all "suspicious persons" to police. trial in San Francisco was dramatizing the same chicano Known among their peers for "dedication," Brodnik and militancy and police brutality which clashed so violently in McGoran piled up over 400 burglary arrests and two dozen Los Angeles. bravery medals. The trial of Los Siete de la Raza-the young men who Like much of the Irish Catholic brass in the San Francisco became known as "the seven of the latin people"-was tak- Police Department, the two men had grown up in the Mis- ing place because for once the tables had been turned: in- sion District in the 1930s and '40s, when it contained pri- stead of cops gunning down brown people, as in Los An- marily Irish, Italian and German immigrants, most of them geles,a cop himself had been killed. As the defense attorneys unquestioning believers in the American myths of free enter- for Los Siete would point out, had the roles been reversed prise and social mobility. They attended Mission High and there would have been no trial-just a perfunctory inquest formed their political attitudes during the wartime years. and another verdict of "justifiable homicide." Brodnik, an all-city basketball star, led Mission High to its The trial of Los Siete began on May 1, 1969, on Alvarado first championship in 50 years. He married his high school Street in San Francisco's Mission District, when plainclothes sweetheart, settled down in a quiet neighborhood on the out- officers Joseph Brodnik and Paul McGoran stopped a group skirts of the Mission, and became a cop in 1956. "He had a of young latins on a burglary investigation. There was a fight, lot of friends on the force," said his wife; "it seemed like a and a call for help. By the time police reinforcements arrived, good life." Brodnik was dead, killed with McGoran's gun, and McGoran But the Mission District was changing. In the 1950s and was injured. All the suspectshad fled. '60s, thousands of immigrants arrived from Central Amer- McGoran told other officers he thought the suspectswere ica, and whites hurried out to the suburbs. The Inner Mis- hiding nearby at 433 Alvarado in a second-floor flat rented sion became predominantly latin: a mixture of Central by a family named Rios. The apartment was saturated with Americans, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, with some Fil- teargas and automatic weapons fire, wounding one of the ipinos, Samoans and American Indians. In the surrounding Rios children, a 14-year-old girl. When the police discov- areas, many European immigrants remained. Alvarado ered there were no fugitives inside, the search spread to other Street in 1969 was typical: among the eyewitnessesto the homes in the Mission. Flats were ransacked and hundreds May 1st scene were Salvadorians, Mexicans, Poles, Yugo- of teenagersinterrogated. Mrs. Rios was forced to point out slavs and Irish. friends of her son Jose, whom McGoran identified as one Brodnik's wife Jessieoften insisted they move to the sub- of the young men involved. The home of another suspect, urbs. Brodnik resisted. McGoran lived in a suburb, though Mario Martinez, was staked out, his 15-year-old brother his job took him to the Mission every day. When his first threatened at gunpoint, and his mother told by a cop, "When marriage broke up in 1966, McGoran returned to home we find them, we'll shoot them down like dogs." territory and began living with a waitress his partner had introduced him to. riding around the Mission and getting stoned. His older McGoran told his new girl friend, Thelma, that Brodnik brothers sometimes warned him about dope, but he consid- was too soft: he should have been a preacher, not a cop. For ered them square. At the same time, Jose respected the hard- his part, Brodnik thought McGoran too brutal and quick working values of his parents, and helped out with a jani- with his gun. These temperamental differences may have cre- torial job downtown. In May 1969, Jose was a high school ated personal friction, but they fitted Brodnik and McGoran senior, but far short of the credits necessaryto graduate. He perfectly for the good guy-bad guy roles they played (which decided to drop high school and go straight to CSM-the police call the "Mutt and Jeff routine" ) .As McGoran two-year College of San Mateo (in a town 30 miles south of later explained it: "Joe would always say, 'Let's give him a San Francisco)-where several hundred educationally crip- break,' and we would discuss it in front of the arrested per- pled minority kids like himself were involved in a College son, so that if he wanted to give us information and lead us ReadinessProgram. on to bigger arrests, we would let him go." Gio Lopez and Mario Martinez were both already in this McGoran, who bitterly resented the influx of nonwhites in program. Mario, who wanted to be a doctor, had been re- his district, liked to drive around, stopping young latins for cruited into it after almost dropping out of high school with "investigation." One evening in 1967 he drove into the park- the usual combination of terrible grades and destructive ing lot of a Mission Street hangout. Spotting a latin teen- counseling. Although he was quiet and reserved, Mario soon ager-presumab1y under-age-drinking wine, he yelled, became the program's most avid recruiter, bringing 50 broth- "Hey, punk, come over here." The young man was Danilo ers and sisters from the streets of the Mission into college. Melendez, known to his friends as "Bebe." A native of Hon- He insisted almost religiously that his people must have ed- duras, Bebe grew up in the Mission during the '50s-gang- ucation-they'd been denied it much too long. In this, Mario war days-when blacks and latins were moving into the city, was influenced by his father, a body and fender mechanic, and a lot of whites we~e still around to fight them. Bebe had whose main purpose in coming to the United States was to been smoking dope, drinking provide a college education for wine and trying to avoid police his children. for as long as he could remem- One of Mario's recruits was ber. He loved music and danc- his older brother Tony-bright, ing, made up poetry, and talked ambitious, popular with girls smart: "I don't see no punks and much attracted to fine here," he answered McGoran. clothes. Tony had gone to San "I mean you, greaser!" When Francisco City College over the Bebe-5'4" and 130 pounds-ap- strenuous objections of his ad- proached, McGoran-6'4" and visor and his soccer coach, both 220 pounds-grabbed his wine of whom insisted he wouldn't bottle, emptied it, then punched make it and should be a car- Bebe in the mouth, leaving a scar penter instead. Tony's program that runs under his lip. at City was difficult; he had no one to help him, and an eve- [THE BROTHERS] ning busboy job cut down on Nelson li odriguez studying time. In the summer of EBE MELENDEZ WAS ALSO one of the five latinos 1968, he began to participate with Mario in the Readiness Brodnik and McGoran confronted on May 1, 1969. Program tutoring sessions,and in the fall he transferred to The other four were Gary Lescallett, Jose Rios, Gio the College of San Mateo. Lopez and Mario Martinez. All but Lopez sub- sequently went on trial, along with two others who weren't A GENERALHOSPITAL ON MAY 1, 1969, McGoran even at the scene. identified photos of possible suspects: Bebe Mel- Gary Lescallett, known as Pinky, was a veteran of fights J' endez, Gary Lescallett, JoseRios, Mario Martinez with police; sometimes the cops would take off their badges and. ..Nelson Rodriguez, a familiar face to pefore the slugging began. Pinky's right little finger had been McGoran and, conveniently, the same height and weight as broken repeatedly in these and other casualties of barrio Gio Lopez. Nelson was, as he described himself, a direction- life-hence his nickname. Pinky had been arrested on more less "fuck-up" before Mario recruited him for CSM in the false charges than true ones: the only thing to do without fallof 1968. On May 1 he was in San Mateo County, driving money or legal help was to "cop a plea." This led to stays at around with another Readiness Program veteran, Ralph Youth Authority prisons-little duplicates of the infamous Ruiz, who would become an important figure in the group's California Adult Authority system, with inmates segregated escape and in the later founding of the Defense Committee. into black, brown and white, and the model for success the Nelson returned to his girl friend's apartment at 5 :00 PM, submissive prisoner who promises to pursue the mythical and learned by phone from Jose that he was wanted for mur- "steady job" in the outside world.