Ruben Salazar 1928 - 1970
It was a pleasant warm morning on August 29, 1970 when the third and largest National Chicano Moratorium March started from Belverdere Park for its six mile march to Laguna Park in East Los Angeles to protest the Vietnam War. Chicanos were dying in disproportionate numbers in what was considered a racist war. Many of the protesters felt that the real battle was not in a far away land but in this country; a country which was denying the Mexican-American community the most basic of human rights. At around 3 p.m. when most of the 30,000 marchers had reached Laguna Park, a swat team of more than 500 policemen began to sweep the park with billy clubs upraised and hurling tear gas grenades. Panic and riot ensued. Two hours later many businesses on Whittier Boulevard had been vandalized, nearly 200 marchers had been jailed, hundreds were injured, and three were killed. Among the dead was Ruben Salazar, who had attended the rally to report the story for Spanish-language television station KMEX. The never adequately explained tragic killing of the prominent, controversial, and popular Salazar made him an instant martyr of the Chicano movement and a symbol of police abuse of Mexican Americans.
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