Unity Also a Victim of Shootings

It is difficult, but not impossible, to imagine a more disturbing communal drama than the one unfolding at Chung’s Liquor Market in the 7900 block of Western Avenue in South Los Angeles.

Earlier this month, 42-year-old Lee Arthur Mitchell, a neighborhood resident, was shot to death by the store’s owner, Tae Sam Park. According to accounts by Park, his wife, Kumoch, and an employee, Mitchell insisted on paying part of the cost of a wine cooler with a piece of jewelry. When Kumoch Park twice refused his proposition, Mitchell allegedly reached into his pocket as if it contained a weapon.

He reportedly went behind the store’s counter and attempted to take money from the cash register. A struggle ensued, and Park, who by then had sustained three broken ribs, drew a pistol and shot Mitchell five times in the chest.

The store’s surveillance camera, which might have recorded these events, was not working. However, police investigators say they believe Park acted in self-defense. A coroner’s spokesman says preliminary tests found traces of cocaine in Mitchell’s blood.

The Parks are Korean-Americans; Mitchell was an African-American. His death was the fifth in just three months to occur as the result of incidents involving blacks, a majority of the area’s residents, and Korean immigrants, a significant percentage of the area’s merchants. The dead include a 15-year-old African-American girl, who was shot by a shopkeeper subsequently charged with murder, and two Korean liquor store employees killed by a robber police say was black.

Whatever the official investigators’ conclusions about Mitchell’s death, a coalition of African-American churches and civic organizations has refused to accept them. They have demanded that the district attorney reopen the investigation and, in the meantime, have mounted a 90-day boycott of the Parks’ store.

Tae Sam Park, who speaks little English, declined to be interviewed for this column. But, earlier this week, he told my Korean-speaking colleague John H. Lee: “I have done nothing more than defend my wife and my business. The crime they are accusing me of is based more on racial differences than fact.”

The Rev. Edgar E. Boyd is one of the boycott’s organizers. He also is pastor of Bethel AME Church, directly across the street from Park’s store. Boyd says the protest is “a response to many things. It is a response first of all to absentee shop-keeping. It is a response to insensitivity and intolerance demonstrated by absentee shopkeepers. It is a response to the death of Lee Mitchell.

“We are not looking at this as a racial issue. It is all about economics. Anyone who does business in the community ought to be responsive to the community as well as responsible to the community. . . . We do have tremendous concern about (the neighborhood’s Korean merchants). We are concerned that there are many of them who are doing well, and it does concern us that the same business could be turned over to an indigenous resident of the community.

“And that really is the overall long-range goal: to have businesses owned and operated by indigenous residents. We feel they can better appreciate the day-to-day concerns of the people and would be willing to invest something back into the community.”

On the day I visited Chung’s Market, there were, at any given moment, six to eight pickets outside. None was from the neighborhood, but several said they had taken part in demonstrations against other Korean merchants. Only one had ever been inside the Parks’ store. He said they had treated him “rudely” when he asked to use the telephone.

None of the pickets was acquainted with the facts of Mitchell’s death. One thought Park already had been tried and acquitted. Another insisted Mitchell had been shot in the back; a third claimed film from the store’s camera contradicted the Parks’ story.

When passing drivers honked their car horns in support, two of the protesters shouted: “Boycott Koreans.” Several motorists responded with obscene anti-Korean epithets.

Across the street, Korean-American merchant Kenny Kang clearly was dismayed. For nearly five years, the 32-year-old Kang, along with his father, mother and brother, has operated King’s Market. They came to Los Angeles in 1979 and ran another, smaller store before purchasing this one. They have since hired an employee from the neighborhood. According to Boyd, that is one of the things that has made Kenny Kang “loved” and “respected.”

“I don’t know how (Park) treated people,” Kang told me. “I do know that our customers are our neighbors and our friends. If people come in and they’re short of money, we give them credit. Sometimes people don’t pay. But it is a small number.

“My customers are good people. They all come from this area, so I know all of them and they know me. Our philosophy is that the customer is king. So, we are nice to them.

“I have never been robbed. I’ve never had any trouble. I think that’s because my customers are friends. But who knows? Maybe someone will come from outside the area.

“I’m worried about what is happening across the street because of the accident there. They are Korean and I’m Korean. My homeboys, my customers, know me, but other people, who don’t know me, may just say, ‘You’re Korean.’ Then, they could come here to protest.

‘But Koreans are a minority. Black people are a minority, too. So I think they should know each other’s situation. Korean people have to love black people; black people have to love the Korean people. They have to help each other.

“Martin Luther King said, ‘I have a dream.’ Well, I have a dream too: that one day black people and Korean people will help each other. I respect Dr. King.

“Even when things happen, like this accident, I think black people and Korean people should love each other.”

It was hard not to be touched by sentiment so directly expressed--harder still not to wonder about its seeming naivete.

There are structural inequalities--chronic unemployment, substandard education, epidemic crime and drug abuse--that afflict the neighborhood around 7900 Western. The real solutions to those problems rest far beyond the reach of either party to the boycott controversy. I thought about official Los Angeles’ historic passivity in the face of these enduring injustices.

Over the next hours, a number of firebombs were tossed onto the roof of Chung’s Market; two unused Molotov cocktails were found nearby. The Parks’ store, I thought, would make it through the night, but Kenny Kang’s wane hope seemed more than ever a wisp of smoke.