As Moore Trial Ends, Compton’s Goes On

When former Compton City Councilwoman Patricia A. Moore was in her political prime, she was both scorned and revered for her fiery speeches and constant effort to put her causes on camera.

On Wednesday, after a jury convicted her of extortion and failing to file tax returns, she was likewise the subject of disparate public opinion, with some mourning her political passing and others hoping it would signal a turning point for the troubled city.

“I don’t think we’re going to find an activist of Pat Moore’s stature for a while,” said supporter Father Clif Marquis of Our Lady of Victory Church.

“She was a fraud from the time she began running for office,” said one critic, Compton activist Lorraine Cervantes.

Many expressed the hope that the conviction would mark the end of a painful and difficult time for the city, which has seen its name sullied even as it struggled to lift up its citizens in the wake of riots and gang wars.

Today, it still suffers from a raft of troubles. There is such severe unemployment that 40% of its residents receive some form of welfare. It posts one of the highest per-capita homicide rates in America. Its debt-ridden school system was taken over by state officials three years ago and is still struggling.

And even with the Moore corruption trial behind them, Compton residents must confront reminders of the controversy, which comes after the conviction of former Rep. Walter R. Tucker III in the same federal corruption probe.

For example, Basil Kimbrew, who was Moore’s campaign manager and testified at the trial that he laundered payoffs to her, is a member of the school board. And the glittering Radisson Crystal Park Hotel and Casino--the card club that Moore was allegedly bribed to support--plans to open for business later this month.

But Mayor Omar Bradley, who narrowly defeated Moore to win his office, said the casino’s opening will be a boon to the city, and predicted Kimbrew would be defeated if he sought reelection.

“It’s not a happy time for us,” Bradley said. “There’s some ambivalence as to whether the government should have been operating a sting operation here. However, there are also concerns that [extortion] did happen.”

Bradley went on to say that he and Moore “hated one another,” and said he viewed her as an “outsider.”

“In Compton, people can trace you back to where you’re from. She wasn’t from here, and was not really one of us. She didn’t go to the local schools. We didn’t have that same kind of closeness,” Bradley said. “I don’t have a problem with being radical. But if you’re a radical you have to produce. You can’t just rah-rah and have no plan to make changes.”

But Marquis, who leads one of the largest congregations in the city, noted that Moore had worked to clean up city streets and tried to help forge a truce among local street gangs.

He lashed out at the FBI for pursuing Moore but said he was not surprised at the verdict.

“As the government conducted its witch hunt, I felt her chances were limited, not based on the preponderance of the evidence but on the level of entrapment. And there is a difference.”

Some decried the loss of one of the most visible African American activists in recent memory.

“I think the community suffers any time you lose an activist. But the thing about being an activist is, you can’t use it for your own gain,” said Royce Esters, president of the Compton chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. “Temptation is a hell of a thing. You’re not thinking that a camera is looking at you.”

Moore had been well acquainted with the city’s controversies before she became submerged in her own. She was elected to a four-year City Council term in 1989 after organizing a march on City Hall to protest the death of a 2-year-old boy in a drive-by shooting. After winning the seat, she joined another march on City Hall, this time to express outrage at the shooting of two Samoans by a Compton police officer.

From then on, she seemed inseparable from the limelight. She made the rounds, from local television and radio stations to “Nightline” and the “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” to discuss racial tensions in Los Angeles, often speaking with an unapologetic tone and an in-your-face style.

The question, debated endlessly by her critics and supporters, was whether she was seeking justice or higher office.

In March 1993, she attended the funeral of a slain Compton police officer and praised the city’s police, saying they were “not like the L.A. . . . officers who would beat somebody senselessly,” and demanded greater protection for police officers from Gov. Pete Wilson and Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti. She was widely criticized by several police associations and the slain officer’s family for politicizing the funeral.

On Wednesday, Compton Police Capt. Steven M. Roller acknowledged that the department “had [its] differences” with Moore, adding that “the evidence spoke for itself. The department is confident in the justice system.”

Compton City Council member Marcine Shaw, elected the year Moore left City Hall, said: “Any time you have something like this, you’re going to have scars.” Of the council members who served with Moore, only Bradley remains. “But you have to admit, things aren’t like they used to be. I hope people can look at this council and separate us from our past colleagues,” Shaw said.

Moore had also launched a recall effort against a judge who sentenced a Korean-born grocer to probation for killing Latasha Harlins, an 15-year-old African American girl. But then Moore declined to file the recall petitions with the county and would not turn them over to the family.

Queen Malkah, a spokeswoman for Harlins’ family, said Moore “did not have Latasha’s interest at heart. We joined forces with her not knowing she was a low-down dirty word I won’t even say. She got what she deserved.”