He Doesn’t Like Plot’s Ending

Derek Debowski , a Polish general’s son who likened his recent defection to the United States to the plot of a popular Hollywood movie, had intended to spend this week touring Southern California.

Instead, he was back home in Milford, Conn., Thursday morning, having cut short his visit here after he was robbed of $450 at gunpoint and slashed with a broken bottle in a Hollywood motel.

“I am here less than one hour when it happened,” said Debowski, 21, still in amazement. “I don’t like being in a place where people are hurting me.”

His bad luck began late Sunday upon arriving at Los Angeles International Airport when he paid $15 for a van ride and asked to be taken to a motel near UCLA, where he had considered applying for admission.

Instead, he was driven to a motel in the 6700 block of Sunset Boulevard in a neighborhood where, police say, “a lot of seedy characters and prostitutes hang out.”

“I’m new and I don’t know anything,” Debowski explained later as he recounted the incident in accented, but fluent, English.

Early Monday morning, an hour after he checked into his $40 room, two men--one armed with a gun, the other with a broken bottle--burst in through his window, he said. When he resisted turning over his wallet, they slashed his back and neck and fled with all his money.

“This . . . this is like Hollywood movie, like (the television show) ‘T.J. Hooker’ or something,” he said.

It was the second time since coming to America that Debowski felt like a character in a movie.

The first time was last May in Connecticut, when he was about to apply for political asylum and saw the film “Moscow on the Hudson,” the story of a Russian musician who defects to the United States.

“You know the scene in the movie where people in Russia are so happy to get a new roll of toilet paper?” Debowski asked. “That reminds me of life in Poland. There, life is just being a survivor day to day.”

Later, after Debowski himself had requested asylum, a local newspaper mentioned his comments about the movie. He then received a phone call from actor Robin Williams, who played the Russian musician.

“He spoke in a Russian accent to me,” Debowski recalled. “He said, ‘You grounded in America? So am I.’ He was very funny.”

Debowski, who was active in the outlawed Solidarity movement in Poland, was granted asylum in June. The State Department ruled that he had a “well-founded fear of persecution,” his attorney, David Zitzkat, said.

For the young Pole, it was a dream come true.

“You only have one life, and I don’t want to waste mine,” Debowski said. “Here, you can feel the freedom. Some people here, some young people, don’t appreciate how good they have it.”

Before he came to America--ostensibly to visit his aunt in Milford--he told his father of his decision to defect.

His father has since been expelled from the Polish army, he said.

A chauffeur in Connecticut--he now lives with his aunt--Debowski hopes to study computers at a university. That is why he had wanted to see UCLA on this visit.

Ironically, when he eventually got to the school, it was to be treated for his wounds at the UCLA Medical Center. UCLA police took him there after being contacted by Los Angeles police.

Debowski said he was “very thankful” for the help he received after the robbery. UCLA police put him in touch with the school’s International Student Center, which called Skip Smith, director of the Christian Center for International Students. Smith housed Debowski, who had no wish to return to his motel room, at no cost.

“Mr. Smith is so good to me,” Debowski said. “I have very nice memories--of my second day.”

Nevertheless, Debowski flew home Wednesday, taking two unfortunate mementos of his visit--snapshots of his wounds taken by UCLA police.

After thinking it over, however, he has decided to come back to see UCLA again next month. But he won’t be alone.

“I come with my aunt,” he said.

“Maybe,” he added, laughing, “I hire bodyguards, like (rock star) Prince.”