In light of the recent spree of mass shootings across the country, focus is once again directed to the topic of gun control. All of this is well and good, but tends to overlook the reality that American violence is a fact of life with or without the inclusion of firearms.
On Saturday, a special screening of the HBO documentary “Tales of a Grim Sleeper,” will be held at Otis College in Culver City as part of the school’s Graduate Fine Arts series, and underscores the reality of our nation’s hunger for carnage, regardless of the methodology of slaughter.
After the film, a discussion will be led by Nana Gymafi, a lawyer specializing in human rights and social justice, and Margaret Proscod, founder of the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders. Proscod started her group back in 1985, when in her words, “11 women had been killed, before the LAPD would even acknowledge there was a serial killer.”
Prescod remembers the apathy that greeted her, when she went down to Parker Center to make her concerns known.
“Why are you even worried about it? They’re only hookers,” the officer who received her retorted.
It bears remembering that there were at least five serial killers now known to have operated in the metropolitan area during that time period (FBI experts conservatively estimate between 25 and 50 such predators active within the United States at any given time). Complicating investigations were the concurrent turf wars associated with the crack cocaine scourge that Los Angeles was experiencing during the era.
Among the serial killers were:
—Lonnie David Franklin (the Grim Sleeper), subject of the documentary and the suspect now held in the murder of 10 Black females, circa 1985 to 2007. His 2010 arrest was facilitated through the newly developed forensic technique of familial DNA analysis.
—Louis Craine (aka ‘the Southside Slayer”) convicted of five murders between Nov. 1984 and May, 1987, and died in prison of undisclosed causes.
—Michael Hughes, sentenced to life without parole for killing four women in a commercial area of Culver City between 1986 and 1993.
—Daniel Lee Siebert (a White suspect, who also died in prison) confessed to killing two women in South Los Angeles circa 1985, while on trial in Alabama for unrelated homicides.
—Chester DeWayne Turner, sentenced to death in 2007 for 10 murders between 1987 and 1998, mainly along the Figueroa corridor of motels and transient apartments south of Slauson Avenue, and believed responsible for nine more, giving him the dubious title as L.A.’s most prolific serial killer.
Extradited from Kentucky on unrelated charges, Samuel Little was sentenced to three consecutive life prison terms in the deaths of three women (one sentence each) killed in the same geographic area between 1987 and 1989.
Committing crimes concurrently to them, Ivan J. Hill was arrested in 2003 for murdering nine people along the 60 Freeway between 1979 and 1994, and was sentenced to death in 2007.
The trial for Franklin has been stymied by delays and shuffling of attorneys, with court scheduled to reconvene on Dec. 15. During his apprehension, police uncovered a trove of hundreds of photographs, videotape, and other paraphernalia, much of it of a sexual nature, in a trailer at his home on 81st Street in South Los Angeles. These items are still being examined, and there is an indication that more victims have yet to be identified.
Aside from these serial killings, the same problems exist—a disconnect between the police and community, says Gymafi.
“I don’t see the LAPD [being] any more accountable to Black people in Los Angeles, and in fact what I see in the most important ways, the accountability between the department and the Black community has never been worse.”
“If it had not been for the efforts of the Coalition, there would not be a suspect today,” claims Gymafi, who became involved in the Grim Sleeper proceedings in 2008, two years before the defendant’s arrest in 2010.
Commenting on the current legal proceedings, she has reservations about the state’s handling of courtroom procedure.
“It appears as if the prosecutor is not really prepared for the type of defense attorney (Seymour Amaster) she is opposing,” said Gymafi referring to the accomplished barrister’s thorough exploitation of anything benefiting his client.
As far as the whole scenario revolving around the safety of the community itself, Prescod takes an equally pessimistic view.
“There are 200 women missing and as many as 100 killed since the early to mid 1980s (unaccounted for),” she notes.
On Oct. 3, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law directing peace officers to collect and make public the ethnicities of persons they encounter in an effort to address growing concerns about racial profiling, a measure that has already drawn backlash from law enforcement entities.
Citing this example, Prescod said “I think this tells you a lot about relations between the Black community and the police.”
“Tales of a Grim Sleeper,” will be shown on Saturday, Oct. 10, at 3 p.m., at Otis College of Art and Design Graduate Studios, 10455 Jefferson Blvd., Culver City.
