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The Gang Truce: A Movement for Social Justice
MICHAEL ZINZUN is the chairperson of the Coalition Against Police Abuse, which was organized in 1975 after a wave of shootings by the Los Angeles Police Department and other law enforcement agencies in the area. Zinzun, who was blinded in one eye by a police attack, has been an outspoken advocate of community control of the police. He was very instrumental in forging the truce between the Crips and the Bloods in Southern California, which grew out of the work of the Coalition. In this interview, he discusses the work of the Coalition, the truce, and efforts to broaden the truce into a movement for social justice. The interview was conducted by Nancy Stein.
Q: How did the Coalition develop?
Community activists found out that we were very ineffective when we would respond to a particular shooting in a particular community. However, we were very effective when we mobilized various communities to converge on one particular community, to give that community support. It was important to document the case, identify the officers involved, come up with alternative solutions to police abuse, and fight the "us against them" mentality. We formed defense committees, or justice committees. We let the people in that community chair their own meetings, set their own structure, and become part of the Coalition Against Police Abuse. That's how we initially set it up.
We have since been successful in collecting over 9,000 documents on police officers. We are able to assist attorneys in prosecuting officers who may have had prior shootings or beatings on their records. The attorneys are often unable to get this information through the legal process. We have some 14,000 documents that we collected on police complaints so we can monitor where the shootings and beatings are taking place: in the Black community, the Latino community, and so on. We still take approximately 10 complaints a day, every day of the week.
Q: Are all communities involved in this effort?
No one is set aside. Black, Latino, and white communities contain individuals who have been abused by the police. In addition, we not only try to get people involved, but we also try to appeal to them for support, including financial...