A Cop’s Brush With the Riots : Dan Calderon’s Paintings Give Policeman’s Side of the Unrest

Like a lot of emerging young artists, Dan Calderon has a second gig that pays the bills. But being a cop for the Los Angeles Police Department isn’t your typical day job.

Calderon, who works out of the 77th Street Division in South-Central L.A., was at the center of the action when violence broke out following the verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating trial. Assigned as the driver for Lt. Michael Moulin, one of the key figures criticized in the aftermath of the riots, Calderon made storyboard sketches of what took place during the first two days of the unrest.

Now, in a gutsy move that brings his two lives closer together than they’ve ever been, Calderon has completed a series of paintings based on these drawings. His exhibition opens Sunday at Troy Cafe, a coffeehouse/arts venue in Little Tokyo.

It’s artwork prompted by the aggravation Calderon and his fellow policemen continue to feel about the riots. “The project came about because we were all frustrated about what was happening and that led me to start putting the truth down,” says the 30-year-old Calderon, a Pacoima native and former Marine reservist who has been on the police force for eight years. “We were trying to help and we were just getting stopped in every way.”

The 12 black-and-white paintings in “Florence & Normandie: Seeds of Disaster” feature expressionistic caricatures and diagrams of various scenes from the policing of the unrest. Next to these images are painted narratives, laden with cop lingo and bits of dialogue, detailing the sequence of events.

Calderon is a self-taught artist. Although he has only been painting for a year, he has been drawing since he was a child. He had one work in a group show at Barnsdall Municipal Gallery in 1990 and was given his first one-man show, a series of portrait drawings titled “Suspects in Custody,” at Troy last year.

The riot paintings are roughly executed and are evidence of Calderon’s still-developing technique and style, but they have a crucial element for any artist--passion for the subject matter.

Contrary to most of the media coverage, the view from the ranks is that blame hasn’t been laid where it belongs, according to Calderon. But he hopes his paintings will help set the record straight.

“Along with a lot of the other guys on the job, we don’t blame the chief,” he says, referring to the recently retired Daryl F. Gates. “That’s a message that got twisted around in the papers and on TV.”

Calderon maintains that the fault lies instead with the middle-echelon brass. “We don’t see the chief driving around, we see commanders and captains, and these guys are aware of the problems,” he says. “It’s frustrating when they get away with putting it on the chief or on us.”

Ironically, if it hadn’t been for what Calderon claims was a mishandling of the manpower resources, he might never have made his drawings. When the worst of the violence was over, Calderon and his partner were working their beat when they were pulled out of the field and ordered to go to the command post.

“I’m thinking there must be some kind of big fight that we need to go help these people,” Calderon recalls. “So we rushed down and we meet this pencil pusher.” Calderon and his partner were then told to wait until the shift came off duty, at which time they were to alphabetize the officers’ paperwork.

Calderon used his time productively, though. “When I was sitting there with eight hours to twiddle my thumbs, I started scribbling what happened. The next thing I know I had the first 10 drawings of this series done.”

He originally planned simply to photocopy the black-and-white, cartoon-like sketches for his fellow officers. But after receiving encouragement from painter Gronk and Troy’s Sean Carrillo, Calderon decided to take it further.

There are surprising moments that come to light in Calderon’s series. When the call came in for help at 71st and Normandie, for instance, Calderon and Moulin jumped in a car and headed for the scene. “There’s some officers standing there in a defensive skirmish line at the curb, waiting because they can’t do a thing because the crowd’s a lot bigger than they are,” Calderon recalls. “We pull up and all the people are yelling at us.”

Shortly after, Moulin ordered the officers out of the area, later saying he issued the command to avert a possibly deadly confrontation with a crowd that was overwhelming in size. (Moulin also has been critical of his superiors, alleging that the department was unprepared for the response to the verdicts.)

Calderon says that the lieutenant’s retreat was based on a sound bite taken out of context. Apparently, another unit at the scene was chasing someone who had stolen their flashlight, when someone said, “Come back, it’s not worth it.”

“That bit ended up on some news network and the lieutenant (was able to say) he wasn’t the only one telling people to get back,” Calderon says.

Another scene in the series depicts when Calderon, Moulin and others had to pass back through Florence and Normandie on their way to the command post. “There was this big traffic jam with crowds on both sides of the street throwing stuff,” says Calderon. “We just hit the lights and sped right through.”

Vast as Calderon’s differences are with some of his superiors, though, the cop-artist is, in the tradition of political art, out to make a larger critique. “I didn’t do the series to blast Lt. Moulin, but it had to be told,” he says. “The people who are in charge should have the ability. It struck me that a lot of people were getting their jobs because of their smiles and not because of their abilities, using their ranks to be politicians.”

Unusual as it may be, Calderon says his two jobs aren’t in conflict.

“They go well together,” he says. “Being a policeman is being a trained observer and being a trained observer is what an artist is too. If I wasn’t a police officer, I would have a lot less inspiration in my everyday life. The only problem is not having enough time to do the art I want to do.”