Ex-Black Panther Challenged Southland Police Agencies
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zinzun12jul12,
LOS ANGELES TIMES
OBITUARIES
Michael Zinzun, 57; Ex-Black Panther Challenged Southland Police Agencies
By Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Times Staff Writer
July 12, 2006
Long after other revolutionaries of his day had retired or found less-confrontationa
In frequent clashes - some on the streets, others in the courtroom - Zinzun challenged the practices of law enforcement agencies in Southern California.
Those battles won him the respect of some, the scorn of others, and led to changes in the Los Angeles Police Department. In 1986, Zinzun lost the sight in one eye in a
confrontation with Pasadena police. He later won a $1.2-million settlement.
"I'd rather lose an eye fighting against injustice than live as a quiet slave," he told a Times reporter in 1986. "I just can't see myself standing back."
Zinzun, who protested police brutality, worked with at-risk youth and was the host of a cable television program, died Sunday in his sleep at his home in Pasadena, said his wife, Florence. He was 57. The cause of death has not been determined.
"Michael became an icon [because of] an uncompromising commitment to doing this work, the courage to follow his convictions, and being unafraid to challenge power and authority - at times at dramatic personal costs," said Anthony Thigpenn, a longtime friend and president of Strategic Concepts In Organizing and Policy Education, a social justice organization in South Los Angeles that teaches residents to understand and participate in public policy formulation and decision-making. "There's a real question who will carry on that work now that Michael's gone."
Zinzun came of age in the highly politicized days of the late 1960s.
The beginning of his radicalization came when he was an auto mechanic, operating his own small repair shop behind a gas station in Altadena. A large oil company purchased the station and evicted Zinzun, putting an end to his entrepreneurial endeavor.
In 1970, he joined the Black Panther Party, found it politically stifling, and left less than two years later. He later referred to his time in the party as "an educational experience," one that clearly influenced his life's path.
By the mid-1970s, there was "almost an epidemic of either shootings or beatings" of
African Americans by police, said Thigpenn, who was director of campaign field operations for Antonio Villaraigosa during the 2005 L.A. mayoral race.
Zinzun was working on issues in Pasadena, Kwaku Duren in Long Beach and Thigpenn on a case in Pacoima. The three men came together in the Coalition Against Police Abuse, Thigpenn said.
When an allegation of abuse arose, coalition members would meet with the victim's family and the community and search for ways to achieve justice, Thigpenn said. The coalition also documented incidents of abuse and sometimes accompanied community members to the police stations to file complaints.
A key element of the organization'
police review board in cities throughout Los Angeles County, a call that reached its height after the controversial 1979 police shooting of an African American woman, Eula Love, outside her home in South Los Angeles. The coalition collected thousands of signatures but failed to obtain enough support to place the issue on the ballot.
By the late 1970s, Zinzun's organization had attracted the attention of the Los Angeles Police Department's Public Disorder Intelligence Division, which infiltrated the group with undercover agents. The coalition joined with other organizations and sued the police. In the fallout surrounding the lawsuit, the LAPD disbanded the division. The coalition received part of a monetary settlement.
Sometimes, instead of observing and documenting police actions, Zinzun was in the
middle of the fray.
In 1982 he was present when Pasadena police officers attempted to arrest a man for public drunkenness and another for allegedly striking a police officer. Police later arrested Zinzun, accusing him of making threats against five officers at the scene, an allegation he denied.
"I been around police long enough to know what you can and can't say to the police," he told a Times reporter in 1982. The case was later dropped.
The 1986 incident, in which Zinzun lost his sight, began when he heard the shouts of a man being arrested by police. A crowd gathered and in the commotion that followed, police said Zinzun punched an officer.
He injured his eye, they said, when he fell while being chased by police. Zinzun denied striking an officer. He said that he was pushed down on the pavement and that officers had beaten him with a flashlight.
After Zinzun lost an election for a seat on what is now the Pasadena City Council, he
successfully sued the city of Los Angeles and an assistant police chief for defamation. A lawyer for Zinzun argued that during the campaign the city and the assistant chief disseminated information in a way that wrongly suggested that Zinzun was the subject of a file in the Police Department's anti-terrorist division. A jury awarded Zinzun $3.8 million, but in 1991 a judge overturned the award.
Interest in Zinzun's efforts to combat police abuse increased after the beating of Rodney King and the 1992 riots. Mainstream leaders were much more accessible to members of the coalition. "Before you couldn't even get them on the phone," he told The Times in 1992.
Zinzun was born Feb. 14, 1949, in Chicago and spent part of his childhood in the Cabrini-Green housing projects His father died when he was 8, and his mother sent him to Pasadena to live with an aunt.
In addition to his wife, Florence, whom he married in 1982 after his divorce from his first wife, Zinzun is survived by his mother, four sisters, two brothers and six children and stepchildren.
Though he continued to work on police issues in recent months, Zinzun had turned his attention to the kitchen. He was enrolled in a Pasadena culinary school, studying to be a chef. "He just wanted to learn everything," his wife said.
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http://www.whittier
Victims' advocate dies
Ex-Black Panther led crusade against police brutality
By Emanuel Parker Staff Writer
Whittier Daily News
PASADENA - Michael Zinzun, the former Black Panther who devoted years to campaigning against police brutality and who won a landmark lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department, died Sunday. He was 57.
An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death. Zinzun died at home in his sleep and was not ill or under a doctor's care, family members said.
Zinzun had enrolled at the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena this year, the school said, and was taking classes and looking forward to becoming a chef.
Long a bane to law enforcement in Los Angeles County as a fiery younger radical, with few friends on police forces, Zinzun was seen to have mellowed over the last 15 or so years. He had two children, four step-children, almost 20 grandchildren and was known as a loving father figure to young people in Pasadena's Northwest.
"He was more compassionate and showed a lot of concern for the community," said
Pasadena police Cmdr. John E. Perez, who talked to Zinzun three times over the last few years to defuse situations between police and members of the African-American
community.
"He asked me questions and wanted to get the facts out to the community so people
wouldn't believe rumors," Perez said.
"I heard about his death and I was really shocked," said Councilman Chris Holden. "I knew Michael a long time and he certainly pushed the envelope to address the needs of young people in the community.
"He was always ready to take on their cause and be as aggressive as he needed to be to make sure their rights and interests were protected. He had passion and he will be missed," Holden said.
Although it was seen as a friendly rivalry, Zinzun and Holden competed for the same
Pasadena Board of City Directors' seat in 1985 in a race later won by the woman who
would become Pasadena's first black mayor, Loretta Thompson-Glickman. Zinzun made two more unsuccessful bids for the body that was the predecessor of today's City Council, including a 1989 race against Holden and others that would lead to even more controversy.
Zinzun entered the world of California radical politics when he joined the Black Panther Party in 1970 just three years out of Blair High School. Never a prominent leader in the separatist group, he left in 1972 to spend more time on local community affairs.
In 1976, he and several others formed the Los Angeles-based Coalition Against Police Abuse, which aided victims of police brutality.
On June 22, 1986, Zinzun lost partial sight in one eye after a melee with Pasadena police at the Community Arms housing project.
Zinzun filed a federal lawsuit against the department and was awarded $1.2 million in an out-of-court settlement. As part of the settlement, Zinzun was to receive $1,750 a month for the rest of his life.
In 1989, Zinzun was again running for a seat on the Pasadena Board of Directors when LAPD Assistant Chief Robert Vernon used a department computer to gather information about Zinzun.
Vernon, a Pasadena resident at the time, gave the information to his neighbor, John
Crowley, a Board of Directors member.
The information was leaked to the Los Angeles Times, which published a story implying there were files on Zinzun in the LAPD's Anti-Terrorist Division.
Zinzun lost the election, which took place one day after the story ran. Zinzun filed a
lawsuit against the LAPD, claiming defamation and violation of his right to participate in an election.
It was the start of a five-year legal battle. In 1991, a jury awarded Zinzun $3.8 million, but a judge threw out the verdict, saying the evidence didn't support Zinzun, who appealed the ruling.
The Los Angeles City Council rejected a $450,000 settlement before agreeing to pay
Zinzun $512,000 in 1994.
The coalition also received $1.9 million from a lawsuit against the LAPD's Public Disorder intelligence Division over keeping files on the group's activities.
Because of the lawsuit, the city was required to pay substantial damages to victims of the unit's spying. The unit was later disbanded.
Zinzun's community activism included trying to help young people find their way out of gangs and drug use. Prior to the opening of the Jackie Robinson Center, he ran the
Pasadena Community Information Center, formed to keep youngsters off the streets and out of trouble.
But in the late 1970s, he also started a program in his home to feed kids on their way to school.
In 1988 he began producing and hosting "Message to the Grassroots" on Channel 56. The program produced 45 shows, including "The L.A. Uprising," "Police Abuse," "Crisis in Cocaine" and "The Life and Times of Paul Robeson."
In April 1992, following the acquittal of the officers involved in the Rodney King beating, Zinzun was one of the leaders of a protest at Parker Center, the LAPD's headquarters, that turned into a riot when police confronted protesters. More than 50 people died in the days of rioting that spread across the city.
Later that year, Zinzun traveled to Europe on a speaking tour, talking about his
experiences during the riot. He also visited many U.S. cities, South America and Africa to discuss racism, police abuse and social oppression.
Zinzun also testified before the Christopher Commission investigating LAPD use of force during the riots.
He launched a free program, "Off the Roach," which sprayed more than 3,000 homes to fight roach infestations in the city's Northwest neighborhoods. Retired firefighter Jacques Hinton helped Zinzun with the spraying.
"We were like the `Roachbusters,
Zinzun continued to live in his modest home on North Marengo Avenue, filled with books and framed pictures of black activists such as Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X, where he and his wife reared six children.
Zinzun was born Feb. 14, 1949, in Chicago, the son of a partly Apache father and an
African-American mother. When he was 8 his mother, trying to get him away from
Chicago's tough streets, sent him alone by train to live with an aunt in Pasadena.
He attended Washington Middle School, graduated from Blair High School in 1967 and became an auto mechanic. His first wife, Lelwellyn Perry, died young and unexpectedly.
He married his second wife, Florence, in 1982. He is survived by her; his mother, Jean Ornelas of Fontana; two children and four step-children: Robert, Randy, Michael Jr.,
Kindra, Tony and Michele, along with 19 grandchildren.
He also is survived by seven siblings, Linda Smith of Duarte, Mateo Ornelas of Chicago, Raquel Ornelas-Barlow of Atlanta, Juanita Edwards of Fontana, Carmen Ornelas of West Covina and Antonio Ornelas of Atlanta.
Funeral arrangements are pending and will be handled by Woods-Valentine Mortuary in Pasadena.
emanuel.parker@
(626) 578-6300, Ext. 4475
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