L.A. Police and Latinos

I am writing to commend Frank del Olmo for his Sept. 4 commentary concerning the police and the Latino community, and particularly for his statements concerning the need for community self-policing. I have long felt that the Latino community is in a state of denial concerning crime and our youth. We like to thump our chests about Chicano rights. We like to castigate law enforcement and make passionate speeches about police brutality and biased cops. But we are silent on the most important issue of all.

What are we doing to stop the bloodshed on the streets of the barrios? If it were Anglos doing to our kids what they routinely do to each other, the outcry would be deafening. But because it’s our own kids doing the killing, we are seemingly afraid to speak up, to intervene, to demand that they stop.

The Mexican Mafia reportedly enforced a temporary stop to drive-by shootings because they were bringing unwanted official attention to the multibillion drug business La EME controls. How ironic. A bunch of criminals can tell our kids to stop the shooting but we apparently can’t.

The African American community has figured it out. We read more and more public statements by black activists saying the community can no longer depend on the police and the courts to solve problems, that the solution lies within the community itself. Latino activists, for the most part, prefer to blame mainstream society for our problems. The first step to fixing the Latino community’s problems is to admit that we are the problem. Cops like Mark Fuhrman are merely bit players in a much larger drama, the outcome of which will determine whether Latinos are ever considered worthy of acceptance and trust by the mainstream.

RAY DURAZO

Los Angeles

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* I want to thank Del Olmo for having the courage to be objective and fair, and not stooping in exploiting the Fuhrman tapes. Stories and editorials such as these are going to make a difference and help our people and the situation.

By the way, don’t be too angry at Fuhrman; he really should be pitied. I’m sure that when he was a young probationer he had instilled in him many noble ideals. However, somewhere along the way he started taking himself too seriously, he forgot how to laugh at himself, but most importantly, Fuhrman forgot how to love.

OFFICER JORGE F. TORRES

LAPD