KTLA News: "Shooting at Manual Arts High School prompts political responses..." (1974)

The fatal shooting at Emanuel Arts High School last week has brought up a lot of public outcry about the rise in juvenile crime. As a result of that, here in Los Angeles today, City Councilman Robert Frell called a press conference to outline his plans for fighting the problem. Plans which include, if necessary, shutting down campuses, an idea that wasn't very wellreceived. I'm going to try to get to adults, adult males who have sons and daughters at Manuel Arts High School and the feeder junior high schools and elementary schools in that system to try to organize a father's group that will assume some responsibility for order around that campus. We're also in the process of getting in touch with Manual Arts alumni because I feel people who have been toilers at that institution have had uh too much to gain to just let it go down now. And to be quite honest, if these things, this type of effort can get no response that will change the nature of that educational process, I'm going to do my best to close manual arts down. I have very strong keen feelings about that kind of a suggestion because I don't think that you burn the house down to get rid of the rat. Uh you have to other means are it's uh possible to have other means uh to solve problems. The councilman said that uh the he seemed to avoid facing the gang issue. I agree with him that gangs have been with us for generations. I agree that uh we need to work with the negatives of it because I agree too that we'll probably never be able to eliminate gang belonging. But I think the issue is simply that these hardcore felons came onto our campus. They had marked individuals and I don't believe that all the police in the world could have stopped that from happening. >> Meanwhile, some two blocks away, Senator Nate Holden was also taking action in the war on juvenile crime. I am going to introduce a bill which will stipulate that juveniles who are 16 and 17 years of age will be tried as adults when they commit the following crimes. One, if they're charged with murder. Two, armed robbery. Three, assault with a deadly weapon. Four, carrying a gun on school grounds. five pushing hard drugs and six juveniles who have been find guilty of three previous felonies will also be tried as adults. And so it seems the shooting incident at Manuel Arts High School has prompted state and local governmental leaders to take a new stance on battling crime in the streets, specifically juvenile crime. Those leaders, however, are quick to point out that their actions alone aren't going to solve the problem. They say it's going to take a lot of public support and they fear that right now the public is running scared. Jan Migawa, Channel 5 News at the Civic Center, [Music] >> let's get off those stairs. Let's go. [Music] Are you ready? Everybody's ready. I'm ready. >> I want to thank everyone for coming out this morning. I'm calling this press conference in response to a pattern of shootings in South Los Angeles which I just feel are abhorent and I think time has come for other people to do something. Had shootings at Manuel Arts High School and over at Gumpers. And uh unless someone begins to try to crystallize public opinion to get a response, we're going to get nowhere. And what what will have happened is just two, three, four more young people in South Los Angeles will have been shot and another one dead. Over the weekend, I went out to Chino to just celebrate Christmas with some of the fellows who uh had their annual party. And I really felt bad being one of the few adults from South Los Angeles there when there were so many young men from that community. Their homes are there and their homes are going to be there when they get out. They're going back to South LA. And I just felt that uh I'm obliged to do something. And what is my something? I'm going to have a series of meetings with people at Manual Arts in the administration, with teachers and students, and hopefully people in the community leading up to some much larger meeting the format of which hasn't been decided on December 30th. But that December 30th meeting will be held will be held at Manuel Arts. Okay. This morning I'm bringing in a motion asking for a moratorum on the release of young people by courts where legally possible. I don't want to be uh construed as a fellow who says well let's just do away with people's civil liberties. But there is a time in the process after a person is uh accused of a crime and information is presented to substantiate that where someone a judge or a commissioner looks at a variety of information before making a decision as to whether a person should be incarcerated or released. I'm going to try to see if at that point we can get some sort of a of of a of an expression, some type of expression from the judges and the commissioners to keep certain people in jail. Number three, as you know, we've just finished discussing community development legislation here at city hall. I'm going to talk to the mayor today and since for whatever reason the money hasn't come down for that juvenile justice center in South Los Angeles, maybe I can cut it off the top of the monies that have been set aside in the eth district so that we can just go ahead and build the facility who are adults who've labored too long. We we've str we've just tried too hard to make quality education mean anything to have this pattern of failures and frustrations as as acted out by the types of violence we have. the failures and frustrations in terms of the high absenteeism at the school, failures and frustration in terms of lack of parental. >> Now, the victims of the shooting last week were indeed students of Manuel Arts High School. >> Yes, >> the alleged suspects were not. >> Yes, >> he shouldn't start somewhere. Of course, you can say it's not only at Manuel, it can be at Fremont and I have a lot to show. You said made the statement that if your efforts in this don't succeed, you're going to make every effort to close Manual Arts High School. Is that the final solution of >> No, that is not the final solution. When you say close the school, then all of the people who are very supportive of and protective of school as an institution will get upset and they will begin to defend. And then maybe when they begin to defend whatever it is that you're going to keep open, maybe they'll begin to look closer at it and say, "Well, I wouldn't want to go through it. I wouldn't want my child to go through that. wouldn't want mine to be on the campus at uh manual arts. When someone can walk on the campus and blow away a couple of people when there are security aids and security guards and police, how can this happen when the teachers say they know who the gang members are and it was an outsider? Well, how does the outsider get past the gate in the first instance? Well, maybe they go over the fence or maybe they cut the fence. Well, are we to the place then that we have to uh monitor the people who go on school grounds and put badges on them the way you walk into a high security place? Now, I think that's too high a price to start paying for an educational process. That's what I'm talking about. I don't have the answers. There are people out there who have the answers. I'm just saying that to the best of my ability, I'm going to try to say at this point, let's stop the perpetuation of this madness in South Los Angeles. Councilman, one of the things you're talking about is a series where their news couldn't do. >> Well, let's just put it this way. Those of us who happen to be public officials who happen to be elected have somewhat of a greater capacity. We have their reports and their reports come out. They publish them and no one no one looks. They get no response. >> That's that's what I'm talking about. I'm going to get some response because I got myself I got my staff. We're going to be on the phones if need be. We'll mail. But just simply ask people to help. The schools have enough structured parent participation thing, student participation thing to resolve all. I believe that. But most importantly, remember what I said if I was just to stand up and say, "Please come out and see about your kids. Uh, someone got shot at Manuel Arts." You know, what sense of outrage have you heard from the community at your station because someone died at Manuel Arts? You say you close down the school, you get a different response from administrators who are currently on vacation. >> Isn't that a scarecrow? >> No, I don't look at it that way. I look at as a headline. is to get attention because I'm going to be trying to contact people for the rest of this week to try to get some assistance to deal with the problem at Manuel Arts. Whether it's maintaining a a a a buffer around the school to make sure that those who want to go to school will have a chance to get there in peace or whatever. I just think that we have to get some more people involved in the process. >> I raised this question to you earlier. The problem at Manuel Arts High School last week was not manual arts. things go on at school than reading and writing and arithmetic. It's just that type of an institution in our society and especially in South Los Angeles. So if that's the place where you begin, if you begin at the institution of brick and mortar to try to deal with the people problems around it, that's as good a base to start as if you were going the other way coming in. >> Do you hold you're saying this for every school? I know there was a shooting incident in Gers Junior High School. You say close that school down. >> Uh every any school with a shooting incident. Do you say close att Don't don't oversimplify. I said if you can't get this type of pattern of of concerns expressed where you get adults to come on campus where you try to appeal to alumni association people where you try to appeal to police and administrators and interested folk to come and try to focus in to deal with the problem then why have the institution? It's not just a matter of if not then close it down. If not a whole bunch of things then shut it down. How else can you provoke a crisis to get reasonable people, reasonable people to deal with the problem at hand? >> We deal with the reasonable students who are at those schools who are going >> the reasonable students suffer. The reasonable students suffer unfortunately >> they go they go and they sit in the classes and they try to get their educations and they suffer because of all of this. And perhaps it's the parents of the reasonable students that I really address myself to. >> Well, Councilman, the police are telling us that it's not the reasonable. >> Your reaction to Councilman Frell's idea of closing down Emanuel Hart's Arts High School. >> My adrenaline is really running uh keep John Kennedy from being murdered and he had they had a far more elaborate system of security than do we on our campuses. the I I think the plan to have meetings and get interested parents out, it's fine. But the parents whom we'll get out to our meetings, they finish the core of our support right now. When these kinds of things happen, those people come to our rescue. But the parents of the hardcore that we're talking about somewhere or another seems to me they need to be held accountable for what their young people do. They won't be at Mr. Ferrell's meeting on the 30th. >> In fact, a manual arts problem. >> No, this was not a manual arts problem. as I have ability for knowing where their young people are, with whom their young people are operating. I call this uh convention press conference because I think it's very important. With the rise in crime within our community, I'm convinced that it's about time that those who serve in elective office take a stand to combat crime on every front. For an example, I think the first approach would be to solve the social problems which are also a contributing factor to crime and the other approach is to attack crime wherever it raises its ugly head. Now the stat statistics indicate that we have something in the order of 177 juveniles who have been charged for murder this year as compared to 124 last year. We have a lot of repeaters being returned to the streets. review of the subsidy program. The program in which the state provides the county of Los Angeles and other counties up to $4,000 a year to rehabilitate youngsters who hardcore juveniles within the community. I think this action must be taken and must be taken now in light of the fact that the sense that I made when I was And so it seems the Manual Arts High School shooting incident has prompted state and local leaders out one more time. And so the Emanuel Arts High School shooting incident has prompted state and local government leaders to take a new stance on battling crime, specifically juvenile crime. Those leaders, however, are quick to point out that it's their action alone that's not going to solve the problem. They say it's going to come from public support. And right now, that public is running scared. Jan Migaw, Channel 5 News at the Civic Center. And so it seems that the shooting incident at Emanuel Arts High School last week has prompted state and local government leaders to take a new stance on the battle against crime in the streets, specifically juvenile crime. But those leaders are quick to point out that their actions alone aren't going to solve the problem. They say it's going to take a lot of public support and they fear right now that the public is running scared. Janagawa, Channel 5 News at the Civic Center.