Long Beach : Larry Davis, Activist for Local Issues, Dies at 43

Long Beach activist Larry Davis, who helped push for the creation of a local citizen police review panel, died last weekend of AIDS. He was 43.

Davis was active in many civic groups, including the city’s Public Safety Advisory Commission, the Long Beach Historical Society, the Republican Party, The Center and the Long Beach Area Citizens Involved watchdog group.

He was chairman of the Public Safety Advisory Commission in 1989, when a national spotlight shone on an alleged brutality case in the Long Beach Police Department. A secretly recorded videotape that showed a white Long Beach police officer apparently pushing a black man through a window was broadcast on television news shows across the country. Along with other commission members, Davis worked to place a measure on the ballot that resulted in the creation of the Citizen Police Complaint Commission.

When the new commission began its work in late 1990, Davis became its vice chairman. He quit the post about six months later because of his illness, said Barbara Shoag, the commission’s former chairwoman.

Shoag described Davis as a fighter who worked passionately for the causes in which he believed.

Davis, a Nebraska native who moved to Long Beach 12 years ago, is survived by his parents, Lynn and Jane Davis, of Stockton, and two sisters, Jeanne Pulley and Luann Berndt.

A memorial service for Davis will be at the First Congregational Church downtown on Feb. 14 at 4 p.m. The family suggests that donations be made to the American Foundation for AIDS Research.