Jumped In Read online

  My profession has begun to sound like it is starring in a 1940s comedy. But despite the fact that Hillmann is a cross between Ronald Reagan and Captain Marvel, I like him. There is something perversely dignified about him. And then there is the charisma. The full head of silver hair, the watery blue eyes, the strong jaw, the chiseled features; he is central casting for the role of LAPD Deputy Chief. And he presents me with an unexpected gift—a letter of introduction and a list of LAPD gang lieutenants that he asks me to interview. Along with this, he invites me to every meeting and every conference, large or small, involving gangs and their suppression. I have even been sworn in as an LAPD Specialist Reserve Officer. I find myself gripping my ACLU card to remember who I am.

  “I want you there riding right next to me,” he tells me. “You can learn all you ever want to know. Really. I promised Mark I would do everything I could for you and I am going to.”

  “You really don’t have to,” I begin, and he cuts me off.

  “Mark is a good man. He was my boss for four years. He helped me—that’s why I still call him boss. And you—you’re very special.”

  I laugh. I am expecting to hear about my status as a UCLA professor, my slowly growing reputation as a gang expert, my credentials as an “aca-dame.” I have forgotten that up here on the sixth floor of LAPD headquarters, it is 1950.

  “You married Mark and you’re taking care of that little girl of his. There must be a special place in heaven reserved for you.”

  I know that Mike Hillmann means every word that he is saying. And I am trying desperately not to burst out laughing. There is a special place reserved for me, I think. But probably not in heaven. I’m feeling a little bit anxious, a little bit like the cheating wife I once was.

  After hanging out with gangbangers, I am now consorting with the enemy. That night, I look at my interview notes from the week before. “You just can’t trust the cops, any of them,” one homie told me angrily. Another insisted, “It’s not just that cocksucker Pérez at Rampart—they’re all like that—all of them. They lie, lie, lie, all the time. And the next thing you know, you’re locked up. I wish those Rampart guys were locked up. But we is the ones who’s gonna get locked up.”

  Even interventionist Bo Taylor, a favorite of LAPD captain Charlie Beck, counseled, “You can only trust a few of them. The rest are no good.”

  I had good reason for not announcing I was living with one. And now I would be spending time with them. But the offer was too irresistible to refuse. I could go out at night. I could visit crime scenes. And I could get Mark off my back—temporarily. Maybe once I did this, I reasoned, he would feel more comfortable with me spending time with the interventionists and the homies I was meeting.

  I spend several months under the watchful eye of Mike Hillmann. I fly in helicopters at night and see gang members spotlighted from above as the LAPD moves in to arrest them. It is as if some avenging light is shining through the night air to assist the cops on the ground. “Those gangbangers,” a pilot grunts during one flight. “They’re on the freight elevator to hell.” I watch while suspects are interviewed. Mark and I go together to gang call-outs and I see more dead bodies than I can count. After spending two months with Mike Hillmann, I thank Mark profusely for setting this up. In turn, Mark laughingly relates what occurred at a senior staff meeting that afternoon. “Hillmann loves you.” Mark adds, “He went on and on about how smart you were. Bratton finally had to cut him off.”

  Things grow peaceful at home. I am surprised—and confused—by some of the things I discover during the interviews Hillman has requested I conduct. In the past, law enforcement in Los Angeles practiced a kind of zero-tolerance response to gangs. If you were suspected of being a gang member, you were pretty much guilty until proven innocent. All the violence and mistrust festered into one enormous sore that erupted with the Rampart scandal of 1999—when it was discovered that something happened to the notion of the cops as the thin blue line between good and evil. Instead, that thin blue line got stretched so far in certain places, it snapped. Cops were planting evidence, shooting suspects, and had taken up permanent residence on the other side of the law.

  These are not the cops I am spending time with in early 2004. Rampart, indeed all of the LAPD, is in the midst of being reformed, operating under a federal consent decree. But as I nose around, holding up Mike Hillmann’s letter as my paper shield, I find the LAPD is not “all better.” Instead, it appears to be suffering from multiple personality disorder. Some cops are paramilitary zealots, some are social workers with guns, but the majority are caught somewhere between the two. It is an organization in transition—and not a pretty sight. Probably the most striking example of all this could be found at Devonshire Division, deep in the San Fernando Valley.

  When I meet Captain Joe Curreri, despite the turquoise bracelets wrapped around his wrists and his effort to appear supportive of community policing, I know our discussion is dead in the water. For one thing, Captain Curreri does not meet with me alone. Instead he has his sergeant, Vic Masi, sit in on the meeting. He controls the entire interaction—which turns into a forty-five-minute monologue featuring a sleep-inducing combination of war stories and crime statistics. When Curreri finally pauses to ask if I want coffee, I decide I will bring up the work of gang interventionists. I figure things can’t get any worse. But the minute I hear the clipped tone of Curreri’s response, I see that there is still room for deterioration.

  “There are people in the LAPD who think those gang interventionists like Blinky Rodriguez and Bobby Arias walk on water, but the fact is all the interventionists have gang connections. You should stay away from those guys, Mrs. Leap, they’re no good.” I listen, speechless. When I don’t respond, Curreri continues.

  “Lemme tell you—with gang connections, it’s serious. I am almost sure Blinky is connected to the Mexican Mafia. In fact, most of them have ties to Eme, not just Blinky.”

  This is the default position of certain folk in the LAPD. I am sure it appears in their unofficial handbook: Here’s a helpful hint: whenever someone mentions an interventionist in the world of Latino gangs—link them to the Mexican Mafia. Blinky Rodriguez was about as closely tied to the Mexican Mafia as I was.

  “Well, thank you so much for your time,” I say sweetly, hoping this will end the discussion. But Curreri suddenly looks hopeful.

  “We do some gang prevention that’s good for our kids. That’s the Explorer Program.”

  I try hard to hide my disbelief and it looks like I succeed, because he goes on with his spiel.

  “This is such a great program. Do you know, forty in our Explorer classes have gone on to law enforcement careers?”

  I find myself wondering what drug I was on—here was an LAPD captain insisting that their police internship program was a worthy antidote to gang involvement. While there were exceptions, this was a program for wannabe cops, not at-risk kids. With a belief system like that, I knew that Joe Curreri was going to need more than turquoise bracelets to save him.

  By this time, I am beginning to worry. Despite riding around in helicopters and interviewing cops, I still cannot quite figure out exactly what the LAPD anti-gang strategy is—beyond “hook ’em and book ’em.” When I confess this, Mike Hillmann quickly reassures me, “Don’t worry; go see Ron Bergmann.” I hear the name and my heart sinks. I have already been introduced to Deputy Chief Bergmann and I don’t particularly like him. He is old-school LAPD. A week later, sitting outside his office in the San Fernando Valley, I tell myself, I will spend thirty minutes with him and then I’m out of here.

  But something happens.

  Ron Bergmann starts to talk and I wonder if I have been lobotomized: I am agreeing with every word he is uttering, my head bobbing up and down as he speaks. What the fuck is the matter with me? I keep thinking. The trouble is, the more he talks, the more I nod; it gets so bad that I start planning how to speed dial an exorcist—for him! My thoughts seem to be coming out of Bergmann’s mouth as he
describes working with the community and collaborating with gang interventionists.

  “Blinky has my home phone number and I have his—we call each other anytime, day or night, whenever there is a problem. We need the street interventionists out there talking to gang members, helping to stop the shooting. The cops can’t do it alone. We need partners. We need the interventionists, we need social workers, and we need small businesses—all working together to stop the violence. But that is not enough. We have to help these youngsters go back to school. And we have to help them find jobs. The problem is never going to be solved by law enforcement. We’ve had decades to get the job done—and it hasn’t worked.”

  After this initial meeting, I drive out to the Valley several times to have lunch with Ron Bergmann and talk about gangs. He is an unlikely ally. He looks like a basset hound—with doleful eyes and a cynical view of human behavior. But gangs are his passion, and I cannot fail to recognize the kindness in his face. He is as gentle as he is controlling; he reminds me of Mark. He is a mixture, like everyone, but I genuinely like and respect him. In the meantime, I am making a serious mistake and it’s happening so gradually, I don’t realize it. I am slowly, inexorably drinking the LAPD Kool-Aid. However, reality intrudes two weeks later during lunch. Ron and I are eating Chinese food when I mention Joe Curreri and his denouncement of the interventionists.

  “Too bad,” Bergmann tells me. “I decided, and they’re gonna have to do it. I don’t care. I’m the chief, I’m in charge. The cops are gonna listen. The community is not the problem—but some of these cops are. But I think their attitudes are gonna change when they see all the positive things Blinky and Bobby do for the community. And y’know—Joe Curreri is gonna have to listen. I’m calling the shots.”

  Later, driving home to Mark and Shannon, I am struck by his unintentional pun. I nearly rear-end the car in front of me when I realize it’s still LAPD über alles. Here is the truth no one wants to face, least of all me. In the rock-paper-scissors world of power plays, the guys with the guns trump all. I am furious—at the LAPD, at Mark, at myself.

  “I love Ron,” I tell Mark later, “but he is a cop.”

  “And your point is?”

  “My point is—he thinks he should be in control.”

  “I agree with him.”

  “What?” I ask, half-hoping Mark is joking.

  “Look, the LAPD ultimately should be out in front of any community effort—you know that—it’s common sense.”

  Once again, I feel as if I am having a stroke and have lost the power of speech. But it is momentary.

  “What are you talking about?” I finally ask.

  “I’m saying that we are probably the most well-equipped to bring together different groups in a consensus.”

  “You all have the same mentality—and even if you work with the community, you still think you’re first among equals. He still wants Blinky and Bobby reporting to him. Charlie Beck—out in South LA—he still wants Bo Taylor reporting to him. And you still want me reporting to you.”

  “I’m not talking to you anymore,” Mark says quietly. “I have to make dinner.” He takes a pizza out of the freezer. “Then I am going to cigar night.”

  I am so angry, I can feel the blood pounding in my veins. What is happening here? It’s the domestic bad dream, Part 4. I will babysit while Mark sits around smoking cigars with his cronies from the LAPD, talking politics. No way.

  “You’ll have to take Shannon, because I’m leaving,” I announce.

  Mark continues looking inside the oven as if his gaze will cause the frozen pizza to heat up more quickly.

  “That’s fine,” he finally says.

  “You know, I don’t know what is going on with us, but our relationship is really in trouble. I want to talk to you and you don’t respond. I tell you I am leaving and you don’t care. You. Don’t. Care. I can’t take you anymore!” I stop screaming abruptly when I see Shannon out of the corner of my eye.

  “Are you leaving us?” she asks tearfully.

  “Just for tonight.”

  “Don’t go. Please.”

  I can’t take her pleading, and look at Mark.

  “We’ll all go to cigar night together,” he announces. I am still enraged but I can feel Shannon’s anxiety so I compromise.

  “You go ahead, I’ll come in an hour. I need to calm down.”

  Things do not get better when I join them later. Two hours into cigar night, Mark points at his watch and tells me, “You need to get Shannon home.” He is taking full advantage of the fact that we have driven separate cars. I am being punished for being a very bad LAPD wife.

  After a sleepless night, I get up early the next morning. In a miracle of bad timing, I am scheduled to attend a “Gang Summit” organized by Bill Bratton. What is billed as a two-day executive session on gangs is actually a forty-eight-hour showcase for the chief of police. Bratton does an excellent job—he is smart, innovative, and a masterful self-promoter. Chief Mike Hillmann has no place at the table—literally. An elite group of law enforcement executives sit in a square-shaped arrangement of tables and chairs. Meanwhile, Hillmann sits with me in the “observers’ section.” We know where we are—it’s the bleachers—but Hillmann is a good soldier, dutifully accepting his status. Later in the morning he one-ups Bratton with newly minted statistics regarding the location and prevalence of gang crime in Los Angeles and I wonder if this is as innocent as he is playing it. “Dumb like a fox,” my grandmother used to say, and I am once again impressed with Hillmann. On the other hand, I try to figure out what the fuck I am doing with this roomful of national experts who have not been anywhere near the streets in Los Angeles.

  The second day of the summit, I’m still not talking to Mark and overjoyed to have a reason to leave the house early. Later, while I am adjusting to another day of sleeping with my eyes open, the conference is crashed by three interventionists who stand against the wall, clad in black, wearing sunglasses, looking very gangsta. I immediately recognize one of them. It is Khalid Washington, who acknowledges me by raising his chin in the direction of where I am sitting on the opposite side of the room. While the street threesome remains silent throughout the morning, everyone at the summit has noted their presence and is trying to figure out what the hell to do with them. Except Hillmann, who has other plans. He abruptly leaves the executive session before lunch is served. He doesn’t really belong, and more importantly he doesn’t want to be here. Instead, he goes off to address the LAPD mechanics at Air Support Division. Off to the cockpit again, I grimly think while he prepares to abandon me.

  The session wears on into the afternoon. I can’t control myself and raise my hand. I talk about the need for community outreach and the chief nods. Later on, when Bratton refers to something I said, he forgets my name and refers to me as “the young woman from UCLA. I think we should discuss what she is talking about—”

  In the middle of this valedictory, Khalid starts laughing and interrupts Bratton. “You’re talking about Dr. Leap, sir,” he shouts. “You should use her name. And you should know that she is out there in the community, spending time with gang members, not sitting around some table, talking.” There is a small buzz as the seminar participants try to figure out who he is. Bratton listens attentively and then says, “I think it’s time for a break.”

  We all know what this means. It’s a convenient excuse to get Khalid and the two other interventionists out of the room. I follow and we stand outside the USC meeting center, where the executive session is now grinding on without us. Khalid tells me to follow him down to South Central. “There’s someone I wantcha to meet.” I immediately start trotting off to my car.

  “Jorja!” Khalid yells. I feel a frisson of excitement and terror.

  “Yeah?”

  “Homegirl—doncha want to know where we’re going? You just gonna follow me into hell?” Khalid is laughing.

  “Okay, what are we doing?” I ask, not really caring about the answer.

&
nbsp; “You gotta meet Big Mike.”

  Five. Big Mike

  I love these children. Every last one of them. The badder they are, the more I love them. I was one of them.

  —Reverend Mike Cummings

  Mike Cummings is about six feet tall and, I am sure, easily tips the scales at three hundred pounds. His skin is so black it shimmers violet, and his neck is huge, muscular. I keep glancing over at his neck and arms while I ride shotgun, holding on for dear life in a white Chevy Suburban with We Care Outreach Ministry stenciled in gold calligraphy on either side. Big Mike is at the wheel, and it is safe to say he completely lives up to his gang moniker. Grinning, with a mega-watt smile to match his girth, he pilots this enormous SUV through the streets of South LA while talking, occasionally taking his hands off the wheel to emphasize a point. It’s been two weeks since Khalid took me to meet him, and I’m spending the day in the hood with Big Mike.

  “I’m just here tryin’ to save the children, trying to keep them out of the life I lived. We’re using our love and Scripture to do the job.” He resembles an NFL blocker—huge, strong, and running for daylight. “I am at it 24/7, workin’ with these children. Praise the Lord.” Big Mike is part preacher without portfolio, part tow truck driver, and part savvy businessman. “I don’t need much,” he tells me, “just enough to buy gas, and every once in a while I gotta go buy my wife some Louis [Vuitton] or Gucci.” We both laugh—he’s a reformed gangbanger on a first-name basis with several European designers. But even with his grin and bonhomie, I still wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley. I feel both thrilled and reassured to be under his protection.

  Back in the day—the late 1980s and early ’90s—Mike Cummings was notorious in Watts. Before both the Lord and three years in county jail saved him, Big Mike was one of the scariest, baddest gangsters in South Los Angeles. On the street he is recognized as the real deal—an OG—Original Gangster. “I’m gonna school you in the neighborhoods,” he tells me. “It’s time for you to understand what’s goin’ on here. Because y’know, things are bad, really, really bad. We got innocent youngsters dyin’ every day.”