officers - The Black Vault

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"Let Mr. Sharpton do what he's
going to do," said Cmdr. Robert Gil,
the department's top press officer.
"We're trying to get going in a
. positiv~ way, moving forward and
getting the department back :to
c. more of standard operating procedure."
.
· Sharpton was invited to Los
AngeJes by Elizabeth. Munoz, last
year's Peace and Freedom Party·
candidate for governor, and Lawrence
Grigsby, a lawyer and
South-Central Los Angeles community
activist who ran for Congress
last year. Grigsby said he and
Munoz believe Sharpton can bring
a national perspective to the King
beating, and possibly turn out more
protesters than local civil rights
groups have. ·
, "I hate to criticize them [the
local activists] but I certainly am
not pleased," Grigsby said. "If
Chief Gates can raise between
• 3,000 and 4,000 people to say he
should stay, how come these people
can't :raise 600?"
But a spokesman for the Brotherhood
Crusade, an African-Amer-
. ican civic group that has been
organizing protests against Gates
said the demonstrations have gon~·
well. "I think that there is a very
forceful, organized effort . here "
·said Ralph Sutton, "and I thi~k
that the pressure is beirig felt."
"We are so involved and focused
. on what we are doing that we
really haven't been paying any
attention to Mr. Sharpton's visit
here," Sutton said.
In New York, Sharpton has been
involved in ·Countless protests in
which race has been a factor. After
white youths attacked three young
blacks in Howard Beach, Queens,
he led massive "Days qf Outrage"
demonstrations that shut down
traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and
halted subway service in Brooklyn
and Manhattan. In ~anuary, Sharpton
was stabbed in the chest as he
prepared to lead a demonstration
through the -Bensonhurst section of
Brooklyn, in protest of the death of
Yusef Hawkins, a black youth slain
by a white mob.
In Los Angeles; however, Sharpton
said he does tlOt expect to even
meet with King, the black motorist·
whose brutal beating at the hands
of white Los Angeles police officers
'has touched off a national
outcry over police misconduct. "I
-don't think King is the issue," he
said. "I think Gates is the issue."