Report: Rubén Salazar Killing An Accident, Documents Yet To Be Released

Rubén Salazar was a journalist critical of the powers that be in Los Angeles when he was hit in the head with a gas canister fired by a Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputy in 1970 and killed instantly — but it was all a bad accident, according to a report released to The Los Angeles Times. The paper received a copy of the 20-page report prepared by an L.A. Sheriff’s Office civilian watchdog that reviewed eight boxes of documents related to the Salazar slaying and found that there was no plot to kill Salazar for his lambasting of the Sheriff’s Department.

According to The Los Angeles Times:

The Sheriff’s Department “circled the wagons around its deputies, offered few explanations and no apologies” in the aftermath of Salazar’s death, the report states. “That posture fueled the skeptics.” The department concluded its investigation finding no wrongdoing by its deputies…

“Certainly, there was plenty of ‘ball dropping’ with regard to this part of the episode,” the report says. “Unlike with the protocols of today, no one in the department was ever held administratively accountable for the poor response of personnel to concerns that there was someone injured inside the bar.”

Overall, the report says, the outcome of the investigation into Salazar’s slaying would have been different if it had been conducted today. “A wider and deeper investigation into the circumstances surrounding Mr. Salazar’s death undoubtedly would have revealed more facts, better answered lingering questions relating to this incident,” the report said, “and likely would have held persons accountable for poor performance through the disciplinary process.”

In a word, this report is bull. The very fact that the Sheriff’s Department has been so reluctant to release this documents — 40 years after the fact — and that the only access the public gets to them is through an inherently biased agency (their jobs are pegged to the Sheriff’s Office longevity and success) begs the question: What’s in those eight boxes?

I want to know what’s in those eight boxes, I don’t want some bureaucrat who’s keeping tabs on what I “need” to know to tell me. I want to see it for myself. I find it pathetic that, in an era where there’s a Latino sheriff, Latino city council members, Latino journalists and Latino mayor in Los Angeles, that these sort of delay tactics are being tolerated. One of my favorite things about our founding documents is the freedom of the press, and what goes along with that, public records.

Why does it matter that these documents haven’t been released? To me, it’s very simple. If they did it to Rubén Salazar, and 40 years later, they can continue to do whatever they want with that truth, do you think they’ll do it to you? To your loved ones? Who else’s truth will fall victim to the L.A. Sheriff’s Department (or insert your sheriff’s office here) apparent need for control over something which Sheriff Lee Baca has “nothing to hide”?

Really? Nothing to hide? You sure got a funny way of showing it.