Understanding Skid Row's Tensions After A Fatal Police Shooting

Transcript

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

On March 1, police here in Los Angeles responded to a call in a place called Skid Row - a place right in the middle of downtown LA where thousands of homeless of people and people with mental illness and drug addiction live on the street, in tents or in subsidized one-room apartments.

The police approached a man named Charley Leundeu Keunang. He went by the name Africa. That day, Africa fought the police. Somebody standing nearby started filming. You might've seen this video because here's what happened next.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Unintelligible).

(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Oh, my God.

MCEVERS: Police say Africa was grabbing for an officer's holstered gun. Africa's friends say he was mentally ill, on drugs and having an episode. Either way, three officers fired shots, and Africa died.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: They just shot that man right here, man. They just shot that man right here, man. Yeah.

MCEVERS: We've seen a lot of these shootings lately - an unarmed black man or kid killed by police. When it happens, there are often two sides to the story - the police version and the victim's version - and it's hard to get either one. The police won't talk because the cases are under investigation, and the victim is dead. So we decided to get as close as we could to these two sides - the police and the people who live on Skid Row. We wanted to understand the disconnect between the two. And when I say we, I mean me and my colleague, producer Tom Dreisbach.

TOM DREISBACH, BYLINE: Now, our plan was to be embedded with the police and with the people on the streets.

MCEVERS: Right. So I started out by walking around Skid Row about a week after the shooting. And let me just say it is an intense place. It's basically a tent city. There are thousands of people just hanging out on the sidewalk. Some people are drinking and doing drugs. Other people are just sleeping. People told me they were really upset about the shooting. But they did say the police were trying to do more to connect with the community.

DREISBACH: Then we went to the police - the LAPD - and asked if we could spend some time with their officers. They put us in touch with two guys.

MCEVERS: Right - these two officers, Officer Andre Linnear...

DREISBACH: Say your name again.

ANDRE LINNEAR: Linnear.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

...And Delano Hutchins.

DELANO HUTCHINS: And actually, I think my mom got it after Roosevelt - Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

MCEVERS: Here's a little taste of what it's like to be out on Skid Row with officers Hutchins and Linnear.

LINNEAR: Hey, how're you doing today?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: All right. How're you doing?

LINNEAR: Oh, all right. Good to see you.

HUTCHINS: Hey, how have you been?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: What's going on?

HUTCHINS: What's up, baby girl? How're you doing?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Officer Friendly and Officer Friendlier.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: You know I'm going to pour that out, man, all right?

HUTCHINS: Give me that, man.

MCEVERS: Oh, he just grabbed his beer out of his bag and poured it out.

LINNEAR: He caught you sleeping, huh?

All right. How're you doing today?

HUTCHINS: Diane, Diane.

MCEVERS: Checking if she's breathing?

HUTCHINS: You all right, sweetie?

DIANE: Yeah.

HUTCHINS: OK.

LINNEAR: Hey, how're you doing, sir?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: I'm doing wonderful.

LINNEAR: Good to see you.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: Hey, she's looking for you.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I come for my lap dance.

(LAUGHTER)

HUTCHINS: You know I give out free ones.

DREISBACH: Now, it's not just about glad-handing. It's also about issuing citations and making arrests.

MCEVERS: A lot of the police down on Skid Row, including two of the officers who shot that man earlier this month, are part of what's called the Safer Cities Initiative. This is a program that put 50 extra cops on the streets of Skid Row over the past several years.

DREISBACH: The idea is to cite or arrest people for the little stuff - jaywalking, drinking in public, blocking sidewalks.

MCEVERS: You know, that whole broken windows approach that was made famous by ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

DREISBACH: If you stop people from committing the little crimes...

MCEVERS: ...They'll be less likely to commit the big crimes.

(SOUNDBITE OF POLICE RADIO)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Any units in the area of 1412 East 5 Street.

DREISBACH: We actually see this play out. Officers Linnear and Hutchins get a call from another police officer.

MCEVERS: His name is Deon Joseph, and he's a pretty big proponent of Safer Cities.

DREISBACH: We see him citing a guy for allegedly selling loose cigarettes - loosies.

DEON JOSEPH: He's not going to jail, but the next time, he will go to jail.

MCEVERS: And the guy - his name is Ladell Stuckey - is not happy.

LADELL STUCKEY: I'm being harassed right now because he's seen me pick up my cigarettes off the ground. Just 'cause you see me pick up my cigarettes doesn't necessarily mean that I'm selling cigarettes.

JOSEPH: Next time, I'm going to have to...

STUCKEY: I'm going to be here every single day.

JOSEPH: I know you will.

STUCKEY: So get used to it. As soon as you let me go, I'm going to have to go to the store and buy me some more cigarettes.

MCEVERS: It might sound like Ladell Stuckey is just talking trash here. But two hours later, we walked right back past the same spot, and who do we see?

Same dude, same spot, six more packs of cigarettes.

Ladell Stuckey.

STUCKEY: I know, I know, I know. I'm sorry, y'all. I apologize.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #6: Come on, now.

DREISBACH: And the thing is this time Hutchins and Linnear don't cite him, even though it looks like he's selling loose cigarettes again.

HUTCHINS: So you're giving them away for free, right?

STUCKEY: Yeah, no. If you want one, you can have one.

HUTCHINS: It's donations, right?

STUCKEY: I accept a donation.

HUTCHINS: (Laughter).

DREISBACH: We walk down the plot and ask Hutchins and Linnear why they didn't give the guy another citation or arrest him.

LINNEAR: What do you think our biggest job is?

MCEVERS: For him to not do that anymore.

LINNEAR: No, no.

MCEVERS: No.

LINNEAR: Really? Is our big job is to worry about him selling loose cigarettes on the sidewalk? Our biggest job is safety.

MCEVERS: OK.

LINNEAR: If we just go out, and then we just - (yelling) - just pounding everybody every second of the day, then we're not really doing our job because now no one trusts us. You know, we can't solve those unsolved crimes because no one would talk to us about it.

DREISBACH: So we have lots of extra police down on Skid Row. Some apply the Safer Cities approach. Some don't.

MCEVERS: But still, you have this divide between many of the people who live on Skid Row and the police.

DREISBACH: We wanted to see how all this plays out at night.

MCEVERS: People told us that's when more crime happens and when policing can be tougher.

DREISBACH: And what we saw was a lot different.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DREISBACH: The plan was that I would spend the night with the police on the overnight shift.

Check, check, check. All right.

MCEVERS: And on the same night, I would be out on the streets - check, check - with the people who live on Skid Row. My guide is a guy who goes by the name T.C.

T.C.: I'll tell you, sister.

MCEVERS: Yep.

T.C.: I love Skid Row. Am I on?

MCEVERS: Yes.

T.C.: There's no people in this world more realer than people on Skid Row.

MCEVERS: T.C. has lived on Skid Row off and on since the '80s. He used to be in a gang. He's a glad-hander, too.

T.C.: Hey, sister, how're you doing? All right, all right, baby girl.

MCEVERS: He also volunteers for a group that organizes protests against police.

Have many times of you been arrested down here?

T.C.: I got arrested 13 times in 2012.

MCEVERS: For things like sleeping on the sidewalk, he says, or sitting on a crate.

They say that the more you arrest people, you know, the more likely they are to change or maybe leave and go somewhere else.

T.C.: Oh, teach you lesson. Leave - leave and go where?

MCEVERS: Leave and go back home.

T.C.: Go back to where they got - ran away from? Go back to the same misery that they left? I find that ridiculous.

MCEVERS: Walking down a dark side street, we meet a guy named K.B., which he stands for Cowboy. He tells me the police stop him and handcuff him a lot, too.

K.B.: Usually, it's for jaywalking or drinking in public 'cause that's all I do is drink in public, and sometimes, I might jaywalk.

MCEVERS: So how many times, like, this year have you been stopped?

K.B.: Probably about 10 times.

MCEVERS: But K.B. has a different reaction to this than T.C. He says getting stopped and arrested all these times actually changes the way he does things.

K.B.: Yeah, it does. In a certain way, it lets me know that I am being watched. And I need to straighten up my act, slow down on alcohol and stuff like that because I need to start respecting myself.

MCEVERS: So it does change - so it makes you behave differently.

K.B.: It gives me ideas to behave differently.

MCEVERS: But K.B. says it still doesn't mean he's any closer to leaving Skid Row or that he trusts the police to help make Skid Row a better place while he's there.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MCEVERS: One thing I keep hearing is that ever since police shot and killed Charley Leundeu Keunang, the man who went by the name Africa, a lot of people here are just mad. And the arrests and citations are making them more mad.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DREISBACH: While Kelly's out with T.C., I'm walking around with a couple different officers, including Michael Orozco.

MICHAEL OROZCO: You got 30 minutes, man, to get a light lit on that.

DREISBACH: He's talking to a guy biking without a light on. A little after the sun goes down, we walk past a group of men sitting on the sidewalk. One of the men has a closed, red Nalgene bottle at his feet. Orozco stops to talk to him.

OROZCO: What's your name? Do I know you?

TERRY JACKSON: No, you don't know me.

OROZCO: Do me a favor, man. Stand up. Is that your bag? I'm going to grab this seat and come over here and sit down with you. I want to talk to you.

JACKSON: I ain't did nothing. What the reason I do?

DREISBACH: Orozco grabs a chair and the red Nalgene bottle, and they walk a few feet down the block, away from the other guys. The man sits in the chair. He gives his name as Terry Jackson, and he asks why he's been stopped.

OROZCO: It's because I believe this to be...

JACKSON: Hey, man, it's not in a - it's not an open container.

OROZCO: ...An alcoholic beverage.

JACKSON: It's closed.

DREISBACH: He opens the lid, and he and I can smell the beer.

OROZCO: Do me a favor, man.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #7: Stand up.

OROZCO: Dude, stand up. I'm tired of you. I'm tired of your mouth.

DREISBACH: Jackson stands up, face to the wall. Orozco puts him in handcuffs.

OROZCO: So check it out. You're going to get a ticket for that...

JACKSON: What?

OROZCO: ...For that concealed alcoholic beverage.

JACKSON: It ain't in no can. It ain't even...

OROZCO: All right.

JACKSON: It's not even mine.

OROZCO: OK.

DREISBACH: At this point more people start coming by, and Terry Jackson, the man being stopped for the alcohol, starts yelling. If it's not clear already, the police shooting earlier this month is on his mind.

JACKSON: You put these handcuffs on me all you want. What you want to do - beat me, too?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Unintelligible).

JACKSON: You want to shoot? You want to shoot me?

DREISBACH: Now, about five or six people have gathered around, taking videos on their cell phones, and the officers call for back up.

JACKSON: Yeah, call more back up, so y'all can kill somebody else.

DREISBACH: A third officer pulls up in a patrol car, and things eventually calm down. Orozco uncuffs Jackson. He's not under arrest, but Orozco gives him a citation for an open container. And that was just one of the stops that night for the police.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #8: You guys called?

DREISBACH: The police get a call about one man who says he has depression and schizophrenia. He breaks a window at the building where he's staying.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #9: Possibly suffering from a seizure.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #10: Come on, man. Let's get you inside.

DREISBACH: Police and paramedics see him, patch up his bloody hands and release him.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #10: You're going to be all right, man.

MCEVERS: So it's obviously not just crime that police have to deal with on Skid Row, but also people with mental illness and drug addiction.

DREISBACH: Several people told us that's what the man who was shot by police earlier this month was dealing with.

MCEVERS: So it's 1 a.m., and T.C. and I go back to the place where Africa was killed.

And some candles and some posters, and there's a poster...

It's also where Africa lived in a tent. His friend Mecca Harper runs a storefront church right there. She was outside the day Africa was shot.

MECCA HARPER: Yeah, 'cause I was like, oh, my God, when I seen how many police officers was on him, and they couldn't handle him. They couldn't handle him. Or is it that they couldn't handle their self?

MCEVERS: I ask Mecca what the police can do to regain the people's trust.

HARPER: I don't think the people will ever trust them again/ Honestly, I don't think that they will trust them again.

MCEVERS: That sounds pretty bleak. But Mecca does say one thing police could do is patrol Skid Row alongside mental health specialists who know how to deal with people like Africa.

DREISBACH: It's funny. The police actually said this, too.

MCEVERS: Right. I mean, one officer told us they do walk around with mental health specialists about once a month. And he says he wishes they had the resources to do it more than that.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DREISBACH: So it's about the end of shift. It's 2:30 a.m., and I'm in a police car.

MCEVERS: I'm out in the streets with T.C., and something happens.

Interview people who hear the real...

(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOT)

MCEVERS: OK, that was a gunshot.

I see a handful of people run away.

DREISBACH: Kelly texts me about the gunshot, then inside the police car, we hear about it on the radio.

(SOUNDBITE OF POLICE RADIO)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #11: Looks like it's across the street. (Unintelligible) male wearing a white shirt T-shirt, black pants, black shoes, armed with a gun and a knife.

DREISBACH: Police dispatch four cars.

MCEVERS: I saw those cars drive by.

A couple of the black and white are kind of milling around.

DREISBACH: Someone calls and says a security guard has been shot and stabbed at a shelter. But the shelter says no, everyone is fine.

(SOUNDBITE OF POLICE RADIO)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #12: All security guards are accounted for at this time.

DREISBACH: The police say they investigate the scene and get nothing.

MCEVERS: But I'm at the shelter, and I don't see them get out of their cars or talk to anybody.

DREISBACH: In the end, the police say, with no witnesses and no victims, there's no case.

MCEVERS: This is the problem, some people on Skid Row say. This is that divide we were talking about. The police are supposed to protect and serve, they keep telling me. But then they're there when you don't need them, like busting you for jaywalking, and they're not there when you do need them, like investigating a potential violent crime like this one or more sensitively handling a mental health crisis.

DREISBACH: One police sergeant told me that people on Skid Row want it both ways. They want the police to stay away, to ignore the petty crimes until the moment a gun goes off. They say they can't be everything to everybody. They're not social workers. They're not therapists. They're just the police.

(SOUNDBITE OF POLICE ANNOUNCEMENT)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #13: Time to wake up. Break down your tent.

DREISBACH: A few hours later, it's 6 a.m. The sun's coming up, and the next shift of police are driving around.

(SOUNDBITE OF POLICE ANNOUNCEMENT)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #13: Wake up, wake up, wake up.

MCEVERS: After six, it's illegal to have your tent set up on the sidewalk.

DREISBACH: It's another one of those small crimes you can get cited for.

MCEVERS: But the police don't always enforce that rule.

(SOUNDBITE OF POLICE ANNOUNCEMENT)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #13: Get up. Break down your tent.

DREISBACH: Some people are out and haven't even gone to sleep yet.

MCEVERS: Other people are about to start another day. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.