RES IPSA LOQUITOR:
(2-22-05)

Thanks to some cruel and strange twist of fate, a great writer deprived the world of his talents by blowing out his brains in the dead of winter on the grounds of his fortified compound in Woody Creek, Colorado.

Hunter S. Thompson, 67; hero, icon -- creative genius -- chose to end his own life Sunday Feb. 20, 2005. I feel an immense loss. And, I'm irritated by the selfish nature of the act. How do I explain to my six-year-old, named after Thompson, that his namesake, a man I always believed to be the epitome of bravery, exited this life in such a sad fashion?

Maybe I'll avoid the subject altogether, and tell my boy that Thompson was the man every journalist, reporter and writer of my generation wanted to be: Brave, cocky, in-your-face and honest; never cowed by authority -- always willing to question.

I said that to myself and think: Who, (among the living) in our once proud profession, do we look up to now?

Certainly not the Bill O'Reillys, Jason Blairs and other pretenders, grifters, liars and egomaniacs that began to fill the nation's newsrooms in the late 1990s filing innuendo, gossip and rumor that attempts to pass for news. When Thompson filed a story, we got the truth, no matter how painful or icky it might be to behold. Now we get spin. Cotton candy searching for an audiences that prefer cherry flavor in the midwest and bubblegum on the coasts.

Thompson didn't just change the lives and styles of journalists. He left an indelible mark on our culture as well. A simple Google news search Monday afternoon turned up 674 articles mourning his passing. By contrast, the passing of Sandra Dee, Gidget, generated 427 articles. John Raitt, the Brodway singer, a mere 187.

That's not all. In the blogosphere and usenet groups, Thompson's death was mourned in online comunities as disparate as Second Ammendment advocates; pot purveyors, and motorcycle maniacs.

No doubt, Thompson was a complex and iconic character. I'm most fascinated by this it relates to two pieces of his work. Both written in Arcadia, California during 1971. The first is his classic "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Much like previous generations can recall the classic opening of Melville's "Moby Dick," those of our generation can recite the first line of "Fear and Loathing..." verbatim: "We were somewhere in the desert around Barstow when the drugs began to take hold."

I often think about how the once vast desert that separated Los Angeles and Las Vegas in 1971 is rapidly shrinking. Becoming a land of mega outlet stores, Big Box supercenters and affordable housing for the shlubs who suffer three-hour commute times to get to their jobs in LA. THompson captured that freedom of dark space between the confines of glitter that now threaten to morph into one great megaopolis.

My 18-year-old son recently read "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." He was fascinated and replused by the massive drug use depicted in the book. But, I know he got the joke -- the Voltaire -esque satire. In fact, Thompson, had a lot in common with the Frenchman, who was known as a crusader against both tyranny and bigotry in 18th century France.

Which brings me to the Thompson second piece written during that frantic period holed up in an Arcadia hotel room in 1971: "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan." This chronicle of the "Brown Power movemement" tells the story of the death of KMEX-TV reporter Ruben Salazar, killed by a flight-rite tear gas canister as he sipped a beer at the Silver DOllar Bar on WHittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles. Salazar's death at the hands of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputies, sparked an outcry around the country, at a time when many were focused on the sensational Los Angeles trial of Charles Manson for the Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969.

In his piece, published by "Rolling Stone" in April 1971, THompson wrote about the aftermath of Salazar's killing and an inquest by then-Coroner Thomas Noguchi. The killing was so polarizing that the inquest jury of seven citizens ultimately came to two conclusions about Salazar's death -- four members voted to rule the killing a homicide; three voted to rule it an accident.

Ultimately, Thompson was taken aback and puzzled by the idea the LASO might have killed a prominent journalist who'd been giving them trouble. "The whole ... thing was wrong. It made no sense at all," Thompson wrote.

It doesn't appear there'll be any such vagaries in the death of Thompson. He was doomed. Suicide. Res Ipsa Loquitor, as he often wrote. The thing speaks for itself.

CORONER TO THE STARS

Snippet of Interview Notes; Dr. Thomas Noguchi 2-10-05 (SONY DIGITAL RECORDER) DENNY'S SOUTH VERMONT AVE AND THIRD STREET LOS ANGELES

I wanted us to becoem a leading agency Setting up standards (7:21) and moving into prevention programs (8:36 part one) You can imagine when i joined the department was small thre was ot enough full time staff or doctors we were totally dependent on the board of supervisors we only had two microscopes -- and just one of them worked.(9:00) I was determined I worked very hard.(9:25)May 12, 1969 --dismissed until July 31
(9:48)Scott: far ahead of your time in my opinion. You challenged the board.
(10:16) First of all you need to show a need. to get money you have to ask with a smile. Kenny Hahn a supervisor at the time was busy build swimming pools and parks in his district, because that's how you get people to like you. said it would be hard to get anything for the department, "Dead People don't vote for me."
Much of the foundation was done before me
(11:40) I was informed that I could return if i promise not to sue the county. made statement. The funeral directors backed him 100 percent.

NOGUCHI TIMELINE
1961 Hired at Coroner's Office
1967 Becomes Los Angeles County's CHief Medical Examiner
1968 Conducts RFK Autopsy
Nov. 1969 Despite County CAO's reccommendation, Noguchi gets additional funds from SUpes for Expanded coroner's office.(Many supes believe that crossing CAO will result in "exile to Siberia.")
-- INSERT ABOVE March 18, 1969 Fired by Supervisors for "insubordination, drug use and mental illness"
May 12, 1969 Civil Service Commission Hearing into firing begins -- Noguchi disputes claims. Among the tools used to asses competence is MMPI test -- END INSERT

From the Valley News Tuesday June 24, 1969 PAGE WEST 3-A
Morale in the coroner's office has been "shaky" since the dismissal of Dr. Noguchi, the Civil Service Commission was told yesterday. Ralph Bailey, a senior investigatorin the coroner's office, said before Dr. Noguchi was fired by the supervisors "morale was fine." "Right now," he said, "it is rather shaky because of the uncertainty Bailey, an investigator in the coroner's office for 17 years, said most of the staff was confident Dr. Noguchi would be cleared of charges which led to his discharge and would be reinstated in the $31,-104-a-year job

TIME LINE CONTINUES:

Hearing concluded June 26, 1969 21 days of testimony in the case. July 31, 1969 Noguchi reinstated with back pay.....

AUG 9, 1969 --- TATE, SEBRING, FOLGER, PARENT, FRYKOWSKI MURDERED
AUG 10, 1969 --- LENO and ROSEMARY LA BIANCA MURDERED

LAPD MAKES NO INITIAL CONNECTION BETWEEN THE CASES...

NOGUCHI (FROM 2-10-05 RECORDING) : "These were murders done by a nomadic band of hippies lead by a man with mystic powers."

HALLOWEEN 1993

Betty Sue Harris wanted to be a better person. She had survived a cancer scare and a couple of trips to the Los Angeles County Jail. All that mattered to her now was getting turned around so that she could spend more time with her three children.

That didn’t keep her from turning a trick or two. The motivations were simple. Money for rent, money for drugs – not necessarily in that order. Eventually, she would turn away from the life.

Maybe she could go back to school at Mt. San Antonio College. Maybe she could go back to being a secretary.

Harris knew how to type. All she needed to get by was $500 or $600 a month – that wasn’t too much to ask. It’s just that jobs are hard to come by when you’ve done time and your address is a no-tell hot sheet charging hourly rates on Holt Avenue in Pomona.

Turning tricks wasn’t easy work either. Almost 40 years old, Betty stood 5-foot-8-inches tall and weighed over 150 pounds. She competed for work with younger and prettier girls who shared her addiction to rock cocaine.

The west end of Holt Avenue where Betty Sue worked, and the surrounding neighborhood of Pomona, were built up in the mid 1960s as a refuge from the urban blight, crime and riots that plagued South Central Los Angeles 25 miles to the west. The hope behind this suburban utopia faded and the neighborhoods slowly decayed into a collection of cheap hotels, rundown housing projects and weather-beaten trailer parks.

Summers were dusty, hot and shade less; winters cold and foggy. The 1991 closing of the General Dynamics plant, which employed many of the city’s residents, didn’t help lighten the mood. In 1992, the three-day riot following a not guilty verdict for four Los Angeles Police Department officers accused of beating black motorist Rodney King spread east to Pomona spawning looting and sporadic arsons.

Originally the eastern portion of Rancho San Jose, a Mexican land grant from the 1830s, Pomona took its name from the Roman goddess of fruits and nuts. Vineyards flourished in the 1880s. Soon the area became dominated by citrus and fruit orchards.

The town became an incubator of sorts for the technological revolution of the early 20th Century. It was the first town in the west to supply alternating current electricity to businesses and homeowners, the first to install a semi-automatic telephone switchboard and among the first locations in the country to offer direct dial telephone service.

Massive churches were built; the town flourished. Rail lines coursed through, and when the automobile came into vogue, major highways linking the southwest with the rest of the United States made the town part of their corridor.

After World War II, a housing boom revitalized the community. General Dynamics, a prime defense contractor during the Cold War, moved in and put much of the town on its payroll. General Telephone employed the rest.

Slowly the vineyards vanished and the orange groves dwindled. The payrolls of General Dynamics and General Telephone began to shrink and the wealthier residents either died or moved on to tonier neighboring suburbs like La Verne, Diamond Bar and Claremont.

In the 1980s crack cocaine moved in and street gangs took over. They named their neighborhoods. “Ghost Town” covered the north, Cherryville and “Trey-Five-Seven” (as in the 357 Magnum revolver) were the middle of town. “Trece” or “Pomona Sur” to the south was primarily Latino gang territory. The neighborhood bordering the abandoned General Dynamics plant was where the prostitutes and drug dealers plied their trade. It earned a moniker all its own: “Sin Town.” Despite her misgivings and dreams of a better life, Harris fit right in.
In 1988 Betty Sue pleaded with a municipal court judge to give her one more chance. Locked up for a probation violation on a simple trespassing charge, Harris begged for the opportunity to make up lost time.

“I’ve been doing a lot of researching since I’ve been locked up,” Harris wrote in a March 24, 1988 letter to the court. “I’ve been through a lot of counseling and I’ve been working and going to school.

“I’m determined that my life is going to be much better and happier. I will go back to work and my life will be straighten (sic) out. I owe that to my children and myself. I have not been in any trouble and Only (sic) God knows if I can make it on the inside, I can make it on the outside also.”

* * *

Ivan Hill had been on the inside too -- for his entire adult life. As a teenager he had been sent to state prison for his role in a 1979 robbery and murder.

It was a botch job. The robbery occurred in the small town of Glendora, just minutes north of Pomona. A quiet suburb, Glendora seems stuck in a time warp. Tree-lined streets lead to a well preserved downtown populated with candy stores and malt shops. Storied Route 66, which linked Los Angeles and Chicago runs right through the center of town.

That small town atmosphere may have enticed Hill and his buddies Michael Benton and Venson Myers into making an easy score. The three men entered the town liquor store, stole money and cigarettes then shot the store clerk and a customer.

The customer, Thomas Leavell, a Glendora resident, died after being in a coma for 27 days.
Responding to a tip in the case, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Hill, Benton and Myers. The trio were convicted and sent to state prison. Hill did his time in Blythe, a desolate outpost in the desert on the California/Arizona border.

Thirteen years into his sentence, Hill, 30, was released. Even though he was on parole, he was free to roam his old stomping grounds. Hill got a car and returned to the Pomona neighborhoods he knew best.

SUNDOWN * * *

Halloween 1993 fell on a Sunday. Sin Town would have been busy with out-of-town customers making their way through to the annual top fuel funny car races at the Pomona drag strip. Through the course of the preceding week, temperatures had been unseasonably warm in the 90s and 100s. Wildfires raged in communities from Malibu on the coast to Banning in the desert.

Santa Ana Winds, blowing as hard as 25 miles per hour, stoked the fires and littered the sky with ash. Raymond Chandler’s quote about the winds that roar down through the canyons each fall is clichéd but appropriate.

“(The Santa Anas),” Chandler wrote, “curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband’s necks. Anything can happen.”

Just after midnight on the 31st, with the Santa Anas blowing, and a full moon high in the night sky, actor River Phoenix snorted drugs with friends in the bathroom of the Viper Room on Sunset Boulevard. He collapsed on the sidewalk outside the club, went into convulsions and died.

Throughout the morning, television and radio broadcasts were filled with news of the actor’s untimely death. Later in the day, 30,000 fans traveled to the Los Angeles Coliseum and saw the San Diego Chargers defeat the Los Angeles Raiders 30-23. The highlight of the game was a 102-yard touchdown run by Charger Donald Frank.

At sundown the sky turned bright orange, the mountains lost their color and loomed black on the horizon. The moon, which had been full the night before, rose nearly full just after sunset.
Around 9 p.m., in Pasadena, 20 miles northwest of Pomona, Blood gang members ambushed a group of middle school trick-or-treaters on their way home from a birthday party. Three teenagers were killed. The killers fled, leaving the mother of one of the victims to find her son dead on the sidewalk a block from home.

Throughout the day and into the night, traffic sped through “Sin Town.” Cars rolled down Mission Boulevard and Holt Avenue and out of Pomona. Somewhere along the line Betty Sue Harris stepped into Ivan Hill’s car.

Like River Phoenix and the three teenagers shot to death in Pasadena, Betty Sue’s life was about to end. Ivan Hill was about to be reborn as the man detectives and the press would call “The 60 Freeway Slayer.”