officers - The Black Vault

•
cheered; some gave ~he same armwhirling,
approving whoops they
had seen on the Arsenio Hall Show.
A small Latino man with a dan delion-puff
of white hair like conduc-
. tor Leopold Stokowski's led his
own verbal orchestra with two
forefingers, cheerfully directing
the chant "Gates Must Go!"
. Two people, both from Van
Nuys, stood up for the LAPD.
Into a hailstorm of boos, Lynne
Exe said: "I support the Police.
Department."
"I wish you had some black
·grandchildren-you wouldn't even
be saying that!" yelled a woman <
behind her.
Afterward, out in the lobby, l!:xe
was still shaking. "I have to lean up
against something," she said wanly.
The other pro-police speaker,
Mark Isler, led her to a pillar ..
In one of those codas of great
events, Cheryl Wossenau ·bad just·
finished her remarks and gone to
the lobby for some fresh air.
0
n her chest, she wore buttonphotos
of her children; Angela
and Michael Baker, one in the Air
Force, the other aboard the battleship
Missouri. On a three-by-five
card she had printed, GATES OUT,
and pinned that on too.
And there, in the Parker Center
lobby, she had seen him, her ·first .
boyfriend, a man she had not seen
for nearly 20 years. He did not
want hjs name used. .
They grew up. together jn the '
77th Street Division. He had taught
her how to drive. Their first date
was at his father's church.
And here he was-on duty in a
civilian job for the Police Department.
"If you had told me back in high
school I was going to · be in the
Police Department, I'd have
slapped your face," be said,
laughing.
"And if you'd told me I'd be an:
advocate ...,"said Woss~nau,just
as cheerily.
Fqr half an hour, as the speeches ;
flared and roared inside, they stood l
and talked. They talked about the '
old days, the old neighborhood.
And they talked about the way
.each had chosen to make changes.
"It's interesting," he said finally .
."You've chosen to be visible. I've
chosen to' be invisible, and as
·effective as I can."