| The Los Angeles Times would do well to consider that famous quotation of former United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in reviewing the paper's factually accurate and well-written coverage of the case involving the murder of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Juan Escalante by members of the violent Avenues street gang. (Driver in deputy's slaying provides details of attack in testimony, 9/23/10 -- see full story below).
It is a universally well-known fact that it is extremely difficult to get people to cooperate in gang cases by testifying in court. Understandably, witnesses often have deep fears of retaliation by other gang members. That didn't dissuade Times Staff Writer Victoria Kim from exercising extremely poor judgment in reporting the names of witnesses who testified at the trial. The Times even named a 15-year-old boy who is trying to disassociate himself from the dangerous and often retaliatory Avenues gang. He cried several times on the witness stand while testifying against the alleged shooter and an accomplice. Inexplicably, the article discusses his testimony at length, yet never mentions more material and relevant evidence that officials had obtained jail recordings, wiretaps and other confessions from the defendants in the case. Why not?
Here is a question for the Los Angeles Times : Why was it important for the public to know the name of the witness who testified? His name added nothing to the story and, in fact, the overwhelming majority of the people who read it would not know him. However, that name did have significance to the scant few who did know him, and with potential troubling consequences we outlined above. Further, if the purpose of the story was to tell the readers the strength/weakness of the case, shouldn't the public have been informed of the additional evidence which bolstered the case?
Through her careless reporting, Kim and the Los Angeles Times handed a “green light list” to the Mexican Mafia and other Avenues gang members, needlessly compromising the safety of the witnesses named in the article. We join LAPD investigators, Los Angeles County Sheriff deputies and the District Attorney's office in being appropriately outraged by what we see as a serious lapse in journalistic judgment and ethics.
There is an old saying, “Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel” and some have suggested that we not upset the Times with such a critical blog. Our view is simple: freedom of the press allows the Los Angeles Times to report what happens in a court of law. However, the simple question that apparently was not asked by Ms. Kim was, how does what she included and decided to exclude from this story advance readers' understanding and evaluation of this case?
Going forward, we implore the Times to consider the safety of the witnesses in their coverage of gang member trials.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Here'e the story the LAPPL is writing about:
Driver in deputy's slaying provides details of attack in testimony
Arnoldo Pineda says the suspected shooter, Avenues member Carlos 'Stoney' Velasquez, had believed that Deputy Juan Abel Escalante was a gang member when he was shot dead in 2008.
by Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times
September 23, 2010
Arnoldo Pineda navigated through the narrow back streets of Cypress Park as the sky grew brighter with approaching daylight, his car full of men he knew to be members of the Avenues gang. From the Chrysler's stereo, Mexican ballad singers crooned of war and violence.
His passengers, he testified this week, were on the prowl for rival Cypress Park gang members.
"There's one right there," he quoted Carlos "Stoney" Velasquez as saying about a bald man in a white T-shirt standing next to an SUV. Pineda said Velasquez told him to stop the car and then jumped out. Pineda said he heard gunshots, but he didn't look. " Pelate , pelate, pelate !" Velasquez demanded after getting back in the car. Go, go, go!
"Did you see the way he dropped?" Velasquez allegedly said as they sped away.
As it turned out, the man killed that morning in 2008 wasn't a rival gangster. He was 27-year-old L.A. County sheriff's Deputy Juan Abel Escalante, a U.S. Army reservist and father to three young children who was described as having overcome the odds of growing up in a gang-plagued neighborhood. Pineda offered up an account of the slaying at a preliminary hearing this week as the deputy's widow, his childhood sweetheart, watched from the audience.
Velasquez, 26, and Guillermo "Flea" Hernandez, 22, an Avenues member who was also in the car at the time, were ordered Wednesday to stand trial in the deputy's killing, which led to a massive crackdown of the notorious Avenues by federal and local authorities. Pineda, who said he wasn't a gang member and claimed he was ordered at gunpoint to go along with the others, agreed earlier this month to plead no contest to voluntary manslaughter and testify against his co-defendants.
The deputy's slaying on Aug. 2, 2008, puzzled authorities for months, with investigators looking into the possibility that the shooting was related to his personal life or his job guarding inmates at Men's Central Jail, where he was assigned to the "high-power" unit.
But Pineda, in his testimony, said the morning's events began with a whim at the drive-thru of a McDonald's, where gang members who had been up all night drinking had gone to get some cheeseburgers about 5 a.m. One Avenues member, Robert "Blockhead" Salazar piped up and said "Let's go banging," Pineda testified.
"I told them, I don't want to go banging," he recalled.
Pineda said they next headed to Salazar's house where Velasquez met the group, carrying a gun. When Pineda said he didn't want to go, Velasquez pointed the gun at him and ordered him to get in the car, he testified. He said Velasquez gave him directions from the passenger seat, leading them to the street where Escalante was gunned down.
Later, as Pineda lay napping at a gang member's house, he said he overheard Velasquez tell Salazar that Velasquez wanted to "smoke" Pineda.
"I thought they were going to kill me," he said. "I was just playing the part."
Pineda, who faces a 14-year sentence under his plea agreement, admitted that he initially lied to investigators and said he wasn't the driver of the car. In cross-examination, defense attorneys attacked his credibility, questioning him about the lie. Authorities conducted extensive wiretaps of gang members' phones and confronted Pineda with information from those calls.
In the hearing, which lasted more than two days, prosecutors also called to the stand 15-year-old Greg Mondragon, an Avenues member. Mondragon testified that he heard Velasquez say "I [messed] up" after he found out a sheriff's deputy had been killed, saying he thought the man was an " enemigo ," an enemy. He said older gang members ordered him to dispose of a .40-caliber gun nicknamed "Mickey's," which he believed was used in Escalante's killing.
Velasquez's wife, Vannessa Arellano, testified that her husband did not express remorse or regret after the shooting, and that he told her to ask a fellow gang member to set up an alibi for his whereabouts. Arellano, who married Velasquez at Twin Towers jail last year, was pouting and in tears during her testimony.
A third man charged in the shooting, Jose "Snapper" Renteria, accused of supplying the murder weapon, was ordered earlier this year to stand trial. Warrants are outstanding for Salazar and Armando "Chivo" Albarran, who were also in the car, said Deputy Dist. Atty. John Colello.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-deputy-murder-20100923,0,94299.story |
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