Skid Row health, cleanup, and gang history

Welcome to the Qumran Report, coming at you live from Skid Row Studios. May the peace and blessings of the life-giving creative spirit be upon you and upon your family. My name is Melvin Ishmael Johnson, and I'm in the studio with my co-host, Earlene Anthony. This week on the Qumran Report, we will be talking about the health of the Skid Row community with longtime activist and community organizer, Manuel O.G. Compito, and Ron Crockett, founder of the Fun Zone Reading Club. Also, we will be introducing a new section of the Qumran Report entitled, Gangs Are People Too, with actor-activist Lee Sharp. O.G., Ron, Lee, welcome to the Qumran Report. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Now, tonight we will be discussing the health of the Skid Row community, and I would like to read a section from last week's Los Angeles Time, dated June the 20th, 2012. And it says, The Los Angeles Department of Public Works, backed by police and firefighters on Tuesday, launched a major cleanup. A cleanup effort on downtown Skid Row to address urine, feces, discarded needles, and other health dangers cited in a recent county report. The operation requested by Mayor Antonio Villagosa is expected to last up to three weeks and is focused on the area between 5th and 7th Street and Gladys Avenue and Wall Street. Also, serving as a backdrop to our discussion, I would like to cite the following. Los Angeles Municipal Code 41.18D, which is the Street, Sitting, and Sleeping Ban, and then Los Angeles Municipal Code 56.11, which forbids leaving property on sidewalks, and also the 1977 settlement with the ACLU, which permits sleeping only between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. And finally, the injunction by Judge Philip Gutierrez that ordered the city to stop seizing and destroying apparently abandoned property. This is a backdrop for our discussion about the health of the Skid Row community. Now, O.G., can you update? What's happening here? Well, you pretty much said everything. I mean, I'm looking at the findings. I'm more concerned about the findings. I think you already listed the issues, you know, farming, rats running around, just filth everywhere that's been accumulated. I think they took out like 500 tons of trash off the street. So, we've been knowing this since 2008. So, I'm glad it came out. That's good. I like to say they haven't touched everything because even though you gave the boundaries, filth goes beyond Gladys. I mean, it's not like it didn't get to Central Avenue or it didn't get beyond 5th and 7th Street. So, I'm more concerned about the fact that people are still not taking it seriously. You know, I mean, it's a health report. It's biohazard. If you looked at the paper, you see them all strapped up wearing biohazard suits. Wow, the people are still sleeping on the streets. You know, so, I know there's been some discussion about a class action suit because the people have still been sleeping in these conditions over 10, 15 years. You know, there's been discussion. So, the county, and I'm not going to say they're exempt because even when you deal with the manholes, some of those manholes and sewage systems belong to the county. So, why are they telling the city to get their stuff together? They need to do it too. So, it's not like... I think people didn't know this was going on. Mm-hmm. You know, and, you know, we got to... If you go, I'd like to put a plug in for our website, www.OperationFaceliftSkidRoad.Webs.com because you'll see Commander Ron talk about the fact that it was an urgent need, and this was in 2008 and 2009. Here it is almost four years later, and you're starting to come out. I mean, yeah, it's good you're coming out, but it's going to bring the other question up. It said you need more time. Yeah. Toilets, those kind of things. You're never excited about the police station. Just go down to L.A. Central Division. There's pee all around the police station. Mm-hmm. You know, urine, deficit all around there. You know, people have to walk up and down and shop around there. Okay? So, it's not like that filth is not airborne. Mm-hmm. You know, so people need to take it a little more seriously. You know, I know some police officers went to jail. I mean, went home. Uh... Infected. All the people that go to work in the different missions are... At risk. At risk. Mm-hmm. Okay? You know, so this situation has been going on a long time. And I know if you look at the article, they said, well, the Streets of Sanitation Department wasn't picking up garbage because they couldn't decide if it was personal property. But it said if it was a direct threat to the city, it was a health problem, and you should be able to see deficit and urine as a health problem. They had the right to take it then. Okay? Mm-hmm. So, it's good that they brought the health department in. Other thing is, too, I'd like to point out on this health and welfare, that a community, when you talk about you getting into a mental health issue, because some of the people that's hoarding stuff, you know, I've seen... You know, we're downtown today. A guy was pushing a basket with five bags of trash. Now, yeah, maybe it's personal, you know, but we've seen the movie Hoarder. It got a problem. Come on. And he was on Main Street with these big old baskets. Okay? So, it's not like it ain't traveling around. Okay? Okay. Okay. People need to take it more seriously. Okay? So, that person have mental problems. And the mental health workers, I talk about, their outreach need to be improved. They need to be outside of the office, you know, and giving the community a hotline so we can contact you at any time. You know, I've seen a guy, a lady was in the park yesterday cleaning up butt naked. Took all her clothes off. Started washing. Mm-hmm. And we don't want to see that. You know, so, the same way we didn't want to see garbage on the streets and the city ignored it, we don't want to see these mental people, you know, suffering. You're ignoring it, you know, while you're making a handsome salary. Mm-hmm. Now, yeah, that's what I was going to ask you about your thoughts on the mental health outreach programs in terms of what do they need to do to make their outreach more effective in terms of the mental health, who are the most vulnerable in the Skid Row community. Well, you know, there's all kinds of opinions. I mean, I think what happened with Reagan letting everybody out unsupervised. That was a problem. Mistake right there because the people who were not capable of taking care of themselves. But the other thing too is that with the mental health system, a lot of times the mentally ill people have to say they're going to kill themselves or they're going to kill somebody else. And all communication is not verbal. If someone lay down in your office who said, urine or walking down the street butt naked, you know, stopping traffic, something wrong with that person. You can't be waiting on that person to tell you he's trying to kill himself. So those are some of the things you got to be considered with the mental health system. They got all these little guidelines, you know, waiting on some verbal communication or waiting on somebody to come knock on the door saying something wrong with me. That is not going to happen. Okay. And they're supposed to be specialists. They should already know that's not going to happen. Mm-hmm. So those are some of the things, you know, talking to some of the workers, yeah, they know laws got to be changed, but that takes a long time. People are going to suffer while you try to change the laws. Mm-hmm. Now, also, let me ask you, Rob, first of all, you want to chime in, Ron, on a few things we're talking about? Coach Ron? Hey, our viewing audience, our listening audience. You know, one thing I can really say is that when people come together, you can make change. Yeah. Yeah. This is what we're seeing now. The momentum is there. The newspapers are making the public aware. It's a great tool to recruit the necessary interest to make a change. Mm-hmm. Look, okay, let me ask, today's downtown news say the police will start enforcing the Code 4-1.18-D that's forbidding the sleeping or sitting on the streets from 6 to 9. Mm-hmm. And I'm interested in what happens to the homeless during those 15 hours. You know, what's happening between those time periods? Well, since the injunction is very new, I mean, right now there's a lot of undecisiveness when it comes to the homeless population. So there's really no resource they can return to. Mm-hmm. So what do you think can be done during those 15 hours? Because we're talking about from 9 p.m. at night. That's when they get ready to go to sleep. Six o'clock in the morning when you wake up. And then all during the day, nothing or is there any kind of program or emphasis on how to program the homeless, especially the one who's not mentally ill during those 15-hour period? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, they already have established services available for the community. But just address this urgent need now. No. Yeah. Because I haven't seen anything between those times. Where I see a lot of homeless go, they go down to the library. They try to get up out of the area during that time period. That was before they allowed them to just lay there all day with that. But now they're getting ready to since they didn't come in with all this clean up stuff. They decided now that they wanted to decide to enforce these codes about you can't sleep on the street between the hours of six in the morning to nine at night. Well, they also going to have a place for the person. The person wake up at six in the morning, he's worrying about having something to eat. He's got to put his property somewhere so it don't get seized. That's not an easy thing to do. Where are you going to put it at? That might take all day long. You're trying to eat, trying to go to a GR building, trying to get to Social Security, trying to get your ID. It's only been going on for the last few days. Basically, the homeless have moved from one street to the other. The people on Gladys moved over to Stanford. Then when they got to Stanford, they moved over to town. They just got through town and Crocker. The other thing is they're hoping that this action would drive the people into the program. That's basically all, whether it was SCI or whatever, to provide them, to provide a tool to get the people to go into the mission. It hasn't worked so far. It's not working. That part is not working. We got some ideas about it too. It should be some positive activity. It should be going around. That activity should be going on at night too. There should be a place where people could go and do something positive. Those that are still on the street. That's something that when we talk about Operation Facelift or we talk about the Security Road Brigade, those are the type of things that we try to even the whole cleanup campaign. I want to get into that now. Can you go back and give us a history of Operation Facelift? The Security Road Brigade. Start from the beginning. The reason for setting it up. What's happening with it now. The plans for the future. The Security Road Brigade, which is the greatest volunteer unit in downtown Los Angeles, is a part of OG's and Service Association. Our motto is we get up and get busy. When there's something going on that really needs some attention, it's not like it's a hundred of us. You know, both of us are commanders in this area. We got other commanders that is about leadership and organization. It started really when Tony Varagosa was getting ready to become mayor. We were still dealing with feeding. Feeding was a big issue at that time. Then we got involved with the funky trash can. Once we said, well, we want to clean up the road and there wasn't no trash can, we got involved in that. We got involved in the league long before that. So then we got involved in the league. You know, me and Mr. Crockett, we also involved in the Security Road 303 league. But one day we were coming toward off season in about 2007. And me and General Jeff was walking down San Junior and he was saying, man, the Security Road needs a facelift. So I said, you know, we're going to start Operation Facelift. That's how it started, you know. And, you know, we went back, you know, and got the best of the people that we had. You know, Crockett was there at the time. Mr. Lawrence was there. Miss Theo and Miss Renee was there. You know, a lot of women, too, out there cleaning up the streets. And Profitt was out there. I mean, Mr. Alexander and Mr. Jordan. And we started cleaning up the streets, OK? And also did, as you know, Miss Earline over there came out there with Drama Stage Coomera and got involved with Operation Facelift, painted a mural up there on San Julian. Other people came out, you know, just, you know, it just grew like that. And then Pastor Ron got involved in it in 2008 and 2009. And so we always, you know, we were trying to keep Skid Row clean. But one of the things, you know, we always try to, Skid Row Brigade is much more than a cleanup tool. We're not, I don't live on San Julian, but I had to walk up and down San Julian. So our thing was to empower the people. Let me ask you this. I'm looking, it said Operation Facelift. Skid Row is designed to uplift the community residents to increase their self-esteem and to change their mindset from negative to positive. Now, what are the structure for pulling that off? That was, that was the result, you know, because as we looked around our neighborhood and people were so depressed, and people were telling, I want to get off of Skid Row and all this kind of negative stuff about Skid Row, it was because of the condition. People, even people that had jobs, going looking for jobs, were depressed, walking up and down Skid Row. The self-esteem, you don't even feel good about being on Skid Row. So that was the first thing. Let's try to, you know, operate the face level again was to change the mindset of the people. To start talking to people. So when we started talking about trash cans, one of the things, I mean, that's a simple thing. Most people got a trash can, and we found out that the city and a lot of other people said, well, people are not going to use trash cans. They burn them up. And I know people burned up trash cans on Skid Row. They're going to burn them up. They're not going to use them. And I was like, well, you know, I see people doing it, but most of them is mentally ill. Well, unless it's cold or something, you know. So anyway, when we started talking to people, and I was telling them, man, you know, they say y'all don't want to use no trash cans. Y'all are like animals. That was one of the reasons why people started cleaning up the street. That's why you see people, because they try to show the city we're not animals. We don't want, so really, cleaning up the streets become an act of rebellion. Really? It is a way of resistance. So now your self-confidence is up. When you're living and you're doing things positive, your self-esteem is automatically going to be affected. Okay? And that's what started to happen. People started feeling better. When people were walking up and down San Diego, looking at the mural, there was a time people wouldn't even park by the mural. It's like walking by looking at it. But it brought pride to them. Okay, so this is the difference between not working with trash cans, and not working with trash cans. Okay? You're not working with the people and working with the people. You know, you're getting to the point where it's like everybody wants the people to be dependent on them. Go to the missions. I don't have nothing wrong with the missions. Go over here and let us help you. You don't have enough sense to help yourself. You know what I'm saying? Go everywhere. You go to AANA, they tell you you're a drug addict. You're always going to be that. You know, that kind of thing. So another thing about Operation Facelift, we tell you, it is a space. It's a spiritual movement with social implications. That's why it's so powerful. It's a spiritual movement with social implications. Let me ask you this. Because you guys have had this program running for a number of years, as you mentioned. When the mental health department got ready for this last push, this survey that they were doing, did they contact any, did they contact anybody from, from you guys' organization to get any input on what you've been doing, what you're cleaning up? Are you talking about the county or? Yeah, the county, city, anybody from them that, that, that. No, they didn't talk to me. Or anybody that's doing any, that was doing any of the, the cleanup program to see. Well, I don't know. I mean, I would think, I know it was a cleanup campaign. It came out earlier, that community campaign. I know, you know, the police department was involved in it and Midnight Mission has something to do with it and Mr. Medcalf has something to do with it and the conservation people were out there. So I'm pretty sure, you know, you know, the county should have been looking at this long ago. I mean, it's not like trash has not been there. Yeah. You know, I mean, come on, man. So. Now, how do, I'm looking here at things that are needed. You know, you get brooms, garbage, garbage bags, dustpan, plastic, garbage bins, face masks, gloves, you know, organization, business, companies that want to donate this to you. What's the process? How would they get? Well, they would, they would, they can go to the Facebook, they can go to the website, but they also can call Mr. Commander Ron Crockett over here. You know, he's be in contact with, so that's, you can give him the number, you can send over there. 626-277-3457. The one and only. Now, Ron, let's talk about, let's focus a little in on the, because you got a reading program, which I think is great, especially as an after school program to enhance the reading of the young people, especially the young people in the Skid Row area. How do the overall effect, overall health of the Skid Row community affect your reading program? Once again, it's Operation Facelift. And the reading program is affected to the point where it's better. It's an enhancement. Clean Streets brings out families. And when the families come out, it gives them opportunity to be a community. Now, have you said, this is, I'm just throwing this out. Have you seen, have you seen an increase in sickness and disease in the Skid Row area? Oh, gee, Ron. Yes, I have. Okay. Now, also, can you talk a little about the survey? I was looking at a little survey in terms of seeing that the majority of the Skid Row community want the cleanup or want something done about, can you want to talk a little bit about the survey? Yeah, well, we got a preliminary. How it was conducted. We got a preliminary finding and, you know, it's been a lot of talk about beautifying. That's the other thing about what we want to do. We want to beautify Skid Row. So there were some things we had on our list and we decided we should get the community involved in it. So there were 16 questions, you know, like, are you a resident of the community? So 85% of the people were residents. One thing that was fascinating, the age group was from 35 to 55. 63% of the people were between the ages of 35 and 55. So I say, that's a mature group in our neighborhood. 70% were males. 27% were females. 63% of the people had physical disabilities. 95% of the people believe that Skid Row streets and sidewalks should be kept clean of unnecessary trash. 92% of the community believe that Skid Row communities should have low-income housing for families. This was interesting. It said 56% of the people believe that the local service providers were providing the best possible service possible. 42% disagree, but 56%. And 54% believe that the LAPD Central Division was providing the best possible service too. Only 44% disagree. We also asked questions like, if you wanted to be helpful. Who would you want to help to? And they were put into various categories, such as housing, families, and social providers, religion, and stuff like that. Also, 61% said they trust the organizations here on Skid Row. 82%, they said there should be some different not-for-profit organizations here on Skid Row to help the people. So 82% went to see different organizations come in. Different one or more? Wanted to see other organizations come in. 84% supported benches on Skid Row. So when you see the homeless talking about where do they go, they ain't got nowhere to sit. Sometimes I'll be standing up there talking to you, and I don't even want to sit down. So we see that 84% of the people wanted benches, of course. 86% of the people wanted public toilets. So when you look at some of the recommendations from the county, they did say, Skid Row need to have more public toilets. 87% of the people wanted more trees and more flowers. So you know what I mean? It's like walking the concrete jungle around here. And so that affects your self-esteem and your attitude. If you really look around, look at all the barbed wire that's around Skid Row. It's like walking a level four penitentiary yard. Mm-hmm. OK, so those are some of the things that we talked about beautifying. OK. So we're going to talk about the other questions. If you had anything to say, other questions about Skid Row, people had their .. OK. So it was a good survey. But I do want to add this too. The next survey will be coming out part of Operation Facelift. It will deal specifically with what kind of jobs people have, what kind of skills they have now, and also the education level. Again, I said earlier, can't nobody tell how many plumbers on Skid Row, how many, how many people died, you know what I'm saying? Nothing. You can't seamstress. We got all kind of people down here that could do a lot of different things for themselves and organize. Because one of the things I hope that we talk about too is about co-ops. Mm-hmm. We need to have more co-ops. You can't look for the city to get you out of every situation you in. Mm-hmm. You know what I'm saying? So those are some of the things too that will be coming out on another survey. OK. What we're going to do, we're going to do a survey. OK. We're going to do now, let's take a break for our community calendar. And then we'll come back with our other in-studio special guest, Mr. Lee Shaw. This is the community calendar for the month of July. Sunday, July the 8th, 6 PM, Drama Stage Cone Run will present a forum on prison reform and realignment. The location, The Exchange, 114 West 5th Street, Los Angeles. For information on this event, you can call 323-850-4436. On Monday, July the 9th, 8 to 9 PM, on the Cone Run Report live internet radio show, our special guest will be General Jeff. General Jeff is a member of D-Lake, which is the downtown Los Angeles neighborhood council. He'll be speaking on mental health issues in the Skid Road community. On Thursday, July the 12th, Drama Stage Cone Run will be at The Exchange hosting the monthly arts walk. We'll have exhibits by the military veterans and special musical guests will be the Passion Band. And this will be at The Exchange. Sunday, July the 15th, at 3 PM, Drama Stage Cone Run presents the Nasana Play Reading Series. A stage play. Stand your ground. Stand your ground. Stand your ground. Written by Joelle King. The location is The Exchange, 114 West 5th Street. For more information, 323-850-4436. And on Sunday, July the 22nd, at 3 PM, Drama Stage Cone Run presents the Memphis and Chicago Style Bluesman Art Walk Jamal. The location, The Exchange. 114 West 5th Street. For more information on this event, you can call 323-850-4436. And a reminder, if you have a community event that you would like announced on our show, send the information to Dramastage1 at yahoo.com, Attention, Earlene, Anthony. And once again, our call in number for the show is 800-893-9562. Now, back to our host. Thank you for joining us, Joelle, for this episode of Drama Stage Cone Run. We're going to go into a bit of a synopsis, and if you're interested, go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and And once again, our call-in number for the show is 800-893-9562. Now back to our host. Thank you, Earlene Anthony. Now, we're back with the Qumran Report, and you can call into our show at 800-893-9562. We have with us in the studio Lee Shaw. He's an active actor and community activist. And also the stage manager for Drama Stage Qumran. This week, we're going to launch a new section of the Qumran Report entitled, Gangs Are People Too. We want to get into different issues in relationship to gangs to try to show the total picture. And also, over the next few weeks, we'll be looking at solutions, job training programs, etc. Anything in relationship. To so many of our young men who have gotten caught up in the gang life and who's trying to get out of it. Now, this week, I would like to focus in on two points in relationship to this section. Number one, the influence of the Black Panther Party on gangs. And the two gang figures influenced by the Black Panther Party. A bunch of Carter and Fred. Hampton. So, I want to jump off into that talking with Lee. Let's start with the first point about the influence of the Black Panthers on a lot of the gangs. Like the Crips and the Bloods. What's the development of them? Well, let's start with Bunchy Carter. Okay, Bunchy Carter was recruited when he was in prison. He was like Elvis Cleveland. Bunchy Carter and Fred Hampton. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. The reason for it is because they were, I would say, students of Malcolm X. Right. They spoke well. Right. And the words that they use attracted the people. Right. So, in L.A., Bunchy Carter, they were one of the biggest gangs there was. That's first and foremost for the recruiting thing. Right. when you got 5,000 people up under the bottom of you and you leading 5,000 people, you a leader. Mm-hmm. The businessmen or the slossons. Slossons. Mm-hmm. Now, Munchie Carter also kept a good rapport with other gangs, right? So the makeup of the Black Panther Party in L.A. was a strong suit of strong. They come out of the businessmen, the pebblos, the parks, you name it, and Watts, everywhere. So they all came, most people come out of there because, hey, and that was one of the reasons for his, he had to be exterminated. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, these, but people don't really realize that the Black Panther Party was the last to politicize, right? And there's no other movement after that right there that politicized, not even today, not like that. Mm-hmm. See, and what they did for a bunch, Munchie Carter, Geronimo Pratt, they didn't go and try to get the, say, just say the people that were 30, 40 years old, or 20 years old for that fact. They stepped down and they went into the junior high schools so that this political movement would have longevity. Mm-hmm. They would move on, right? And because of that, that's when, Hoover and others decided, we got to stop this because it's getting, it's getting, it's getting going too far, you know? Mm-hmm. And this thing that I'm talking about with the younger people was the same thing that Mandela was doing, right? Mm-hmm. He had young people, man. Martin Luther King had young people. This is what, this is why your movement will last. And because they were not afraid, right, of confrontation, made it more even appealing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We're dealing with other social issues. We're dealing with homeless problems. We're dealing with feeding, everything. Just like what OG was talking about. It's almost the same thing. It's almost two different things coming from the same thing, just two different issues, two different places. You know what I'm saying? Because they deal with the community, not just in L.A., in Oakland, Chicago, all over the United States. You know what I'm saying? And these cats, man, were some of the realists. You know what I'm saying? Because they followed. When they handed them the baton, they kept it moving, man. They kept that thing moving. You know what I'm saying? Now, in a minute, we're going to talk about, we're going to go back and lay the foundation for where J. Edgar Hoover developed his tactics to deal with all of these youngsters. Yeah, a bunch of Carter Daphne. Under the influence of Eldridge Cleveland when he went to Quentin and also recruited by George Jackson and Huey P. Newton who saw his skills, pulled him in. Because at that time, they hadn't really laid the foundation for the Panther Party in Los Angeles. Mostly up north, they was going strong. And they saw him as the person who could really plant the seed. And as a matter of fact, this tactic created the problem between the other, one of the other major black organization called U.S. Slaves known as us, you know, Ron Coringa at the time, Dr. Molina, now that really created the conflict between these particular organizations at that particular time that in a way led to the assassination of the death of a bunch of Carter. I also want to talk about, because here, we're talking about the West Coast and we saw something that was happening with the influence of gangs introducing them how to organize politically. But the same thing was happening with another brilliant young man who was also involved in gangs and who ended up a leader in one of the most important areas that had a long history of gangs. We're talking about Chicago and the Blackstone Ranges, who became the Elk Rookies. If you keep saying the Elk Rookies who keep saying the Elk Rookies. If you keep saying the Elk Rookies who keep saying the Elk Rookies. If you keep saying the Elk Rookies who keep saying the Elk Rookies. If you keep saying the Elk Rookies who keep saying the Elk Rookies. If you keep saying the Elk Rookies who keep saying the Elk Rookies. If you keep saying the Elk Rookies who keep saying the Elk Rookies. If you keep saying the Elk Rookies who keep saying the Elk Rookies. If you keep saying the Elk Rookies who keep saying the Elk Rookies. If you keep saying the Elk Rookies who keep saying the Elk Rookies. If you keep saying the Elk Rookies who keep saying the Elk Rookies. the know-how, to be able to collaborate with other people, you know, different things. Fred Hampton was in the process of unifying the gangs in Chicago. This is the same thing that Bonchicardo was going to do, unify all of them, you know what I'm saying? Even today, if possible, it would bring fear to people for this thing to happen all over again. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. It just, now you just have to form. But anyway, back to Fred Hampton. Not a lot of knowledge about Fred Hampton, except for, you know, what he was trying to achieve, his goals were, you know, and him having to be exterminated. And I use the word exterminated because that's what it is. He was just straight out killed. You know, you can't sugarcoat death. You can't sugarcoat the foolish people being influenced by the FBI. They were just foolish people. They wanted to help so much that they would go out there and kill. You know, and racism was involved. It just wasn't the political thing. Racism was involved too. And one of the things that happened with Fred, Hampton, is after the laws came out with the Freedom of Information Act, when they were able to go through the documents, one of the things that they found out is that, you know, part of the conspiracy that led to his death started right out here. It was a document called the Glasshouse Tapes that they had. And they had a member of the Black Panther Party out here who was arrested, who gave up. And they had, you know, all of the diagrams of Fred Hampton's apartments, et cetera, like that. They found all that later on in the, through the Freedom of Information Act, these documents. I wanted to bring this here. This is why in cities they go and get the blueprints in the houses, right? They want to know how many rooms you had at home. Because if they have to come in there, they would hate to come into the wrong room. This house has been remodeled. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So they didn't know exactly where he was at. Yeah. And not only that. And then I'm going to go over to O.G. It's a fact that they know now that when they came to Fred Hampton's room, he was in the bed with his wife who was pregnant. And another one of the undercovers who had slipped some kind of sedative, you know, in him that had knocked him completely out when he was in the bed. Yo, O.G., you wanted to say something? No. Well, basically I wanted to say, you know, one thing we have to learn from all of this, is we have informants. You know, and I look at Harriet Tubman. Like I said, what you said earlier, a lot of stuff is just the same thing in a different time and place. I mean, Harriet Tubman transported people back and forth and never got caught. That's right. You know, can you hear me? Yes. So things like that are going to happen if you don't take precautions, you know. And we kind of operate, you know, like today, you know, we got a lot of agency, a lot of groups around, and they function as though none of this is all that's a thing of the past. So when they wonder why certain things don't get done, why some of my things don't get done, because you done told everybody what you're going to do. You know what I mean? That's right. You got somebody in there listening to everything you're going to do. You know, so if you're going to be a serious organization, and you're going to be a serious organization, you're going to be a serious organization. And our future depends on a lot of stuff. We need to learn from a lot of those lessons, because a lot of stuff could be avoided. Yeah. And what I want to say is, maybe it's the time, let's talk about the tactic that was used to destroy the movement of the 60s, to lead to the assassination of a lot of these particular individuals. And the foundation for it. Go all the way back to one of the largest mass movements ever created. Not just a national movement, but an international movement. And this was the Universal Negro Improvement Association under Marcus Goddard. Now what made this such an important organization to study is because this is where the young J. Edgar Hoover got most of his training and development. And he was the first to learn the techniques that he would use later on. Here's what Hoover did. He developed a technique called infiltration and disinformation. Where he would take an infiltrator, infiltrated the Marcus Goddard movement, and out of this movement he developed the tactics of disinformation to split the movement into warring parts. And this is how he brought down the... The Universal Negro Improvement Association negated the influence of Marcus Goddard in that huge movement, that huge international movement at that time. And then later on, this technique of infiltration and disinformation, Hoover turned it into the counterintelligence program, better known as COINTELPRO. And he never... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... would use. He knew if he put in an educated person, real smart in these movements, that was always his technique, that person would always rise to the top and be able to control the movement, move them in the direction that they want to take them in. And this is exactly what happened. Now, we find out what Hoover did to Malcolm X, is he had a FBI, a young man who had been in the FBI academy as a young man, and a lot of people in the nation of Islam thought that he had left that academy to join the nation. But what they didn't realize is that for almost 20 some years, this individual, I won't call his name, just read the book called The Judas Factor, and to find out all of his documents about him. This guy rolled up to be the national secretary, the one who would actually organize, the hit team to take out Malcolm X, this particular individual who had been there for such a long time. And if you notice what happened between in the nation of Islam at the top, is that they were able to split the two most important people in that movement and create a war between Malcolm X and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, which really led to, et cetera, the assassination of Malcolm X. And then, what he did with Dr. King is the national secretary of SNCC. You know, you find that in the book called Baring the Cross by David Garrow, who points out this individual name. I won't mention the name on the air, but he was also an informant for J. Edgar Hoover, and the one that was given all of the information where Dr. King was going to stay at days before, so that he could always go in and bug the rooms and all that kind of stuff. I point all of this out, especially since we're talking about gangs as people also, to understand what they did to these gangs that came out of the Slausons and the businessman club. You know, it became the Crips and the Blood. All you have to do is look at them now, especially the Crips, as they were growing, you know, so powerful, they were unified. So what happened? They split them up into. Into a hundred warring parts where you got Crips killing each other, et cetera, like that. See, that's why I so. Go ahead, Lee, you want to pick up. I want to tell you about an incident. I was up one night. I was going over to my cousin's house, and I started to walk back. I'm coming down 51st Street. I'm just about to approach Broadway. It's about 100 yards from Broadway. And I hear a lot of gunshots. A lot of them. You know. And I see this car coming down the street. It's moving pretty fast. So I'm, you know, I'm just, I'm slowing up a little bit. But this car hit the corner going north on Broadway. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there was a North car right behind it. And he was just cruising along. And that, at that particular time, I said, they got, people got problems. Because I knew then, just like with the Black Panther Party, the law enforcement had gotten to the actual crime scene. They had to act, too. That's just one incident. The Sheriff's Department. You go to Old County Sheriff's. Out there at Wayside. They had a guy used to be out there at W. Sheriff's. He used to sit on the bench and ask these youngsters, right, to, hey, let me take a picture of your tattoos. Pull up your gang sign, right? And I'll get you a cheeseburger and a malt. Right? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So, yeah. Everybody was in it. You got to cross. You got to come in. You got to disinformation. Lie. You know what I'm saying? To get what you want to get. Now, I can just, like, go find me a 23-year-old that looks like he's 16 years old. Mm-hmm. Show him everything he needs to know from my record books. And send him and some older people ready to move into the community. Right? Mm-hmm. And what he do? I'm from, you know, I'm here. So. So, hey. I come to this conclusion. You know, I stopped even trusting people like that. You know, just because you don't know who you next to. Yeah. You don't know who you are. Now, this is not something that I can just say somebody told me. I see this with my own eyes. Mm-hmm. You know what I'm saying? And it was kind of hard for me to believe. But I seen that car pull ready behind that car with speed and what. And pull ready behind it. And they cruised on down. And that's what brought me going north. Mm-hmm. You know what I'm saying? Now, let me expand this and ask OG and Coach Ron something. Because, you know, one thing I've noticed with the, what you guys have been able to do. With your three-on-three, your different programs. The three-on-three basketball. When you say it's more than a game. One of the amazing things that you've been able to do is almost to try to turn that cycle around. Of. These particular gang members. Now we see them working together. Well, how were you able to achieve that? How did you lay the foundation for them to get past all of the things that had happened that separated them and make them work together? Well, when you look at it, it's such a unique situation. Because Skid Row is one of the. It's such a phenomenal holy ground community. Where you can actually have Crips and Bloods. And, you know, we're just co-mingling. And we just piggyback off of that environment. Mm-hmm. OG. Well. One of the things about down here is that nobody was born down here. That's number one. Everybody comes from other neighborhoods. And it's been kind of like a mutual respect. Basically, what Coach Ron was saying, we kind of piggyback off. Because when we started the. The league. There were some warring fractions that were doing the league. And I talked to them about it. I was telling them, you know, I don't think it's going to work. Mm-hmm. I was really trying to find a way to get out of it. And they went back to their neighborhood. And they came back. And they said, we're going to try this. So that's what really kind of motivated me. You know, to move down this line. Because they were willing to try to get along. And so basically, when you're talking about trying to get along, it was about mutual respect. That's what really came into play. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, Pete. Yeah. Yeah. Bell, Peter Bell, and Sway Ford. They were our first two presidents. One was blood and one was a crip. Mm-hmm. You know, so they went out and did most of the major organizing. And then you got people that's from Chicago, New York. I mean, other neighborhoods, too. You know, they just did the same thing. So basically, it was mutual respect. You know, enforcing that. You know, in our league, we talk about these words like respect, family, teamwork, and all these kind of things. We get down to what it means because a lot of people never had family. A lot of people never had friends. A lot of people don't know what camaraderie means. Mm-hmm. A lot of people don't know what sacrifice means. Okay? So we get into those things. We go around and we find out people have different definitions and stuff like that. But the respect, the mutual respect, leads to people finding out they got more in common than they have differences. Mm-hmm. That's why when you get to the Skid Row Artists Collective, you'll see rappers that's blood and crips on the same platform, you know, rapping together. Mm-hmm. Because they find out that they got more in common than they have differences. Mm-hmm. You know, so that's basically what we do with there. Okay. I want to go around. I want to have a chance to everybody have some closing comments. One thing about what you were talking about and what the OG was talking about in terms of informants and the stuff you were talking about. When I came back home in 86, I was talking to one of my nephews. And he was showing me. He was in the neighborhood. And he was saying, you know, that guy over there is a snitch. That guy over there is a snitch. That guy over there is a snitch. He's done about 20 snitches. And so, you know, I was just looking at him, you know, because, you know, back in the day, you know, they didn't last long around here. You know what I mean? I'm like. I said, are you sure, man? He said, yeah. I said, well, you know, what's going on? He said, they outnumber us. Most snitches out here than real people. Okay. So. So you're looking for this stuff now. And you're talking about trying to do some secret stuff. Yeah. You know, so go back to when we first put together OGs and Services in 1996. That was the one thing you had to have was a criminal record. We needed to check who you was. You ain't never did no time. Nobody knows you. That's all right. No, you can't join this right here. No, that's all right. It's funny, but it was ironic. You know, that was the one thing we all had in common. Mm-hmm. We can find out who you is. Mm-hmm. Okay. Let's talk a little about your programs, what you got upcoming that you want to inform the community about so they'll be aware of your upcoming programs. Well, I'm just going to say I'm going to really let Ron take over. He got the funds on Reading Club going over new, I guess, can I say that on the air? New Building Block? Yes, you can. Yeah. He's doing great things over there, so I want to encourage everybody to support him on that. And go over to New Building Block over there on Jefferson Avenue around by Arlington and get involved over there. It's pretty close to Crenshaw up in that area. Tell us a little about it. Well, it's a great program. Every Thursday from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., we read out loud to the kids. We do calisthenics. We do memorization, and we also reward prizes to them like cupcakes, popcorn, candy, cookies. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They're favorites. How do you get your volunteers? Does someone want to volunteer to be one of the readers, et cetera, like that, to get involved? Well, we definitely need books. You can reach me at r-o-n period c-r-o-c-k-e-t-t at yahoo.com. Yeah. Well, I know when you be out there on that basketball, Coach, you sound like Chick Hearns on this now. You got the little low. The low. The low. The low. On that Fun Zone Reading Club, we got a couple DVDs out on the Crocodile. I was calling it Crocodile. Mm-hmm. You know, and so you can get a chance to actually see how he do work with the kids, man. It's really fantastic because kids, you got to really be able to hold their attention. Yeah. Yeah, they are very important. Maybe you can say something about the Peace Kids that you work with over there in USC. What's happening with them? Oh, yeah. I got to piggyback on the Fun Zone. We have a group up at USC at the United University Church, a group called the Peace Kids. And they're going to be starting up again around July the 9th coming up. And we teach them and do some of the same things that you're doing with the Fun Club. And they're like from first through fourth graders all the way up. Some of the teenagers, you know, they hang with us for a while, but they, you know, they're so cool, they don't want to, you know, participate. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Matter of fact, we did some of their artwork exhibit at one of the arts walks, a couple of arts walks ago, and it was great. Lee, let's talk a little about what we will be doing with this section on gangs. We're going to have a little section every week. Next week, we're going to continue. We're talking about Fred Hampton and a bunch of cod. And I want to get into some of the tactics, how these individuals, these young men, were able to organize and have such a deep influence. We want to look at that, and then some of the later things. We want to talk about some of the job trainings and what's happening in the community. Well, I want to ask the OG, you know, because that's my OG over here, you know what I'm saying? What do you think, like today, the political, the lack of the political, the PE classes? What do you think the Black Panther Party used to have, as opposed to what the, you know? One of the things that people, most in the gangs, they lack is discipline, man. See, being in the party, you're going to be disciplined. Just like in the Nation of Islam, they had discipline. You know what I'm saying? But today, I can do what I want to do. Well, you can't do what you want to do. You know what I'm saying? So, with some discipline, because I know most of everybody in this room probably may have heard this thing. I've heard it somewhere before, that the Crips was supposed to be the offshoot of the Black Panther Party. You know what I'm saying? Because the answers to most of your questions, you'll find them in South Park. Go find the OGs in South Park, you'll find your answers. Yeah, we love them over there. Birds all over there. You go there, you find your answers. You know what I'm saying? I was a baby slosh in myself. No. Interesting. Interesting history. It's a lot. You know, I say you... Today, for the lack of discipline, if we can gain that discipline and communicate from the street to the prison, because you've got to deal with the people going and coming. Mm-hmm. And this is a whole California-type thing. The communication table's got to be open. Mm-hmm. And once you can open it, and what the goal would be, for me, would be to unify Crips and Bloods and give them an agenda. Right? Go up to Oakland. Work with Kumi. Work with Jama. Right? And then stretch your hand all the way across America. The United States and all of these communities that's in need. Everyone. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. I would like to extend a special thanks to our in-studio guests, Manuel G. Compito, Coach Ron, and Lee Shaw. And a special thanks to Jeremy, Sonia, Nicholas, and the Skid Row Studios. You can check out our past shows of the Coomeraun Reports on iTunes. Facebook, Twitter, Skid Row.la. Thank you for tuning in to the Coomeraun Report. And may the peace and blessings of the life-giving creative spirit be upon you and upon your family. Thank you. Okay. Good stuff. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.