L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

The other important freeway: Author interview with Harold Sullivan, July 26, 2007.

Friday night brought something: Horne, Fire This Time, 72.

Desperate to restore order: According to the McCone Commission, the maximum deployment of the LAPD during the riots was 934 officers; the maximum for the sheriff’s department was 719 officers. For an account of Parker’s television appearance, see Conot, Rivers of Blood, Years of Darkness, 348-49.

To groups like: Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel, xv

Still, King tried to: Horne, Fire This Time, 183.

To Mayor Sam Yorty: Parker’s concerns about communist agitation would at one time have been quite understandable. According to Horne, during the 1940s, Los Angeles “had one of the highest concentrations of Communists in the nation,” with roughly 4,000 card-carrying members. However, by 1965, the power the party once held over Hollywood’s unions and the city’s trade unions—and in L.A.’s African American community—had been broken. In comparison, the Nation of Islam (which Parker insisted on viewing as some adjunct of the party) emphasized an almost Booker T. Washington-like ideology of black self-sufficiency. Horne, Fire This Time, 5, 11. See also Hertel and Blake, “Parker Hints Muslims Took Part in Rioting,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1965.

At 2 a.m. on the: LAPD informant Louis Tackwood would later claim that he had instigated the call at the department’s behest. Horne, Fire This Time, 126; Erwin Baker, “Mills Tells Parker to Explain Raid: Chief Denies Councilman Has Right to Quiz Him on Muslims,” Los Angeles Times, November 9, 1965, 3. Parker later agreed to testify. “L.A. Councilmen to Hear Parker,” Valley-Times, September 11, 1965.

The following day, the: Horne, Fire This Time, 127-28.

On August 29: “Chief William Parker Speaks,” Parker FBI file.

California governor Pat Brown: Fogelson, “White on Black,” 114.

The testimony of many: Fogelson, “White on Black,” 124, quoting testimony of Mervyn Dymally, “statement prepared for the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots,” October 11, 1965, 2.

Parker, Ferraro, and Yorty: Fogelson, “White on Black,” 126, quoting testimony of Mervyn Dymally, “statement prepared for the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots,” October 11, 1965, 2.

Civil rights leaders attacked: See Rustin, “The Watts ‘Manifesto’ and the McCone Report,” 147, for the typical reading of this statement.

“I have my suspicions”: “Riot Hearings Boil, Parker, Bradley in Row Over ‘Mystery Man,’” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, September 14, 1965. See also Dallas Morning News, September 14, 1965.

Parker’s combative appearances belied: Memorandum from Acting Chief Richard Simon to Police Commission, “Subject: Request for Five Additional Positions of Lt of Police to Be Community Relations Officers,” October 12, 1965, CRC.

But the commission raised: See the section of the McCone Commission report entitled “Law Enforcement—the Thin Thread;” Rustin, “The Watts ‘Manifesto’ and the McCone Report,” 153.

“I think they’re afraid: Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1966.

Parker’s popularity dissuaded the: von Hoffman, “L.A. Chief Overlooked a Bad Heart to Serve,” Washington Post, July 18, 1966, A1.

Privately, however, many recognized: FBI memorandum to Mr. Felt from H. L. Edars, “Subject: NDAA Midyear Meeting, Tucson, AZ,” March 4, 1966, Parker FBI file; “Parker Out of Hospital, Will Rest,” Hollywood Citizen-News, March 15, 1965.

The memo concluded by: It should also be noted that Parker believed that, after rising 130 percent in nine years, crime had “plateaued.” Newsom, “Men Efficient, Vigilant, Brave, Chief Relates,” Hollywood Citizen-News, June 20, 1965.

On the evening of: West, “Chief Parker Collapses, Dies at Award Banquet, Stricken During Standing Ovation by Marine Veterans,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1966.

His death will be: Houston, “Police Chief Parker’s Death Mourned in City and State, Meeting May Be Today to Name his Successor,” Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1966; “Friends, Critics Praise Parker,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, June 18, 1966.

At the funeral home: “6000 Pay Last Tribute to Parker, Chief Eulogized in Congress,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, July 21, 1966, A16.

Chapter Twenty-eight: R.I.P.

“I don’t want to …”: Lewis, Hollywood’s Gangster Celebrity, 318.

“The notions in it,”: Domanick, To Protect and to Serve, 155-56; Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 502.