Free-Lance Reporter Shot Four Times, but Family in South L.A. Saves Him

The difference between mortality and salvation proved to be just a few city blocks for free-lance reporter Jeff Kramer, one of the first serious casualties of mobs that swept through South Los Angeles on Wednesday evening.

On assignment for the Boston Globe, Kramer telephoned a story to the newspaper about 6:30 p.m. on the escalating violence and looting along Martin Luther King Boulevard. He then drove down Normandie Avenue toward the center of the disturbances, and quickly found his car surrounded by a band of young men.

Kramer recalled from a hospital bed Thursday how they screamed at him, smashed his car’s windows and tried to tear him from the driver’s seat. Kramer was punched and tried to pretend that he had been knocked unconscious, but one of the attackers rushed the car and fired three shots into his left leg.

The 30-year-old journalist was able to drive a short way before he was targeted with one final shot.

The bullet slammed into his left shoulder blade, but Kramer kept driving.

Just a few blocks away, he found a street that he remembered later as “shady and quiet.” He saw two children playing in a front yard and he called out for help. They summoned two adults--apparently a mother and son.

The family called paramedics, and meanwhile tried to tend to Kramer as best they could. They waited for as long as 30 minutes, but rescue crews were nowhere in sight.

Kramer’s caretakers, who are black, flinched every time a car drove past, he said, apparently fearing that the young, bloodied white man would be a magnet for another attack.

With paramedics still nowhere in sight, the family hustled Kramer into their car, covering him with a blanket to conceal his identity. They drove until they found police, who summoned medical help.

The rescuers did not want to be interviewed, fearing possible retaliation, said Boston Globe national editor Chris Chinlund, who was on the telephone with the family through much of the ordeal.

Chinlund credited the family with saving Kramer’s life. “They told me they were upset and angry” about the acquittals of the four Los Angeles police officers in the Rodney G. King case, she said.

“But they said they weren’t about to let this kid die in their front yard, no matter what color he was,” Chinlund added.

Kramer was scheduled to undergo surgery Thursday night at California Medical Center to repair damage from the bullet wounds.

“They put themselves at considerable risk to help me,” Kramer said of his rescuers. “They deserve a lot of credit.”