Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon

Before the 1943 outbreak of the infamous Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots . . .there was the death of José Gallardo Díaz.

José Gallardo Díaz.

Known popularly as "The Sleepy Lagoon Murder", (legalese People v. Zamora)-- this was more than kindling for the ensuing riots. This was the lighter fluid, a combustible mixture of wartime paranoia, rampant racism in Los Angeles law enforcement and the judicial system, wild fear-stoking newspaper headlines, misunderstanding of 1940s Mexican-American youth culture, and celebrity activism-- in particular Anthony Quinn, Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles.

In writing this post, we were really struck by the fact that history is messy, and finding the truth can be confusing.  Textbooks and secondary sources must package things neatly, but it is clear the essence of some of the events is overlooked or obscured in the process.  Anyway, on to the story .  . .

On a still moonlit Sunday morning, August 2, 1942, 22 year-old José Díaz was found battered and dying by the fence of a dirt road in what is now Bell, California. This was the awful aftermath of what can only be described as a hellish series of events for all concerned.

The Sleepy Lagoon

A birthday party for one Mrs. Amelia Delgadillo-- given by her family and 20-30 invited guests, a reservoir on old Williams Ranch, and drunk, rowdy teenagers set the stage for the tragedy that formally ended in late 1944, when twelve wrongly convicted young men were released from San Quentin Prison.  We couldn't improve on this introduction to the case, so we'll use it.

credit: law.jrank.org 

Sleepy Lagoon Trials: 1942-43

"Late at night on August 1, 1942, eight to ten uninvited young men were ordered to leave a birthday party at the east Los Angeles ranch home of the Delgadillo family. The party crashers ended up half a mile away on a "lover's lane," where they assaulted several young people parked by a reservoir nicknamed "Sleepy Lagoon".

The victims of the beating returned to their own neighborhood, collected a large group of friends, and returned to confront their attackers. Finding no one there, they followed the sound of music to the nearby Delgadillo party. What happened when they arrived would never be clear, but a brawl erupted inside and around the Delgadillo house."

Upon discovery of Mr. Díaz (who died shortly after arriving at the hospital) LAPD officers descended en masse and rounded up about every young male caught outside in the barrio, from age 12 to early 20s, according to Lupe Leyvas, sister of main suspect Henry "Hank" Leyvas. Somewhere between 300 and 600 guys, as well as many young girls were caught up in the dragnet and interrogated.

Lupe Leyvas on PBS American Experience

As the police closed in on the most likely attendees at the brawl, the beatings by police during interrogation increased accordingly, coercing false statements, all of which became fodder for the jury and the press eager to stoke fomenting fear that these brash "foreigners" (all but two were US citizens) were actually subversive Axis or even Nazi agents undermining the fabric of the country while we were at war, all while wearing flamboyant attire who's style was borrowed from African-Americans, known as the "Zoot Suit".

via California Historical Society 

Whether Hank Leyvas and his friends from the "38th Street" neighborhood were actually wearing Zoot Suits that evening is unclear.  However, it doesn't matter. The Zoot Suit was a symbol, and the Sleepy Lagoon (sometimes shortened to "goon" in the headlines)Trial became inextricably tied to the riots that erupted in June 1943, occurring in a different section of Los Angeles and involving different groups of people.

Biased headlines stoke a spirit of revenge.

Most likely due to white resentment of Zoot Suit wearing Mexican-American guys leaving the confines of the barrio and embracing the LA jazz club scene in a big way, we saw prominent newspapers adopting a nativist tone in the months prior to the Sleepy Lagoon incident.

These stories conjured visions of a tsunami of lawlessness perpetrated by "pachucos"-- who were always portrayed as ruthless gangsters.  Our intention is not to delve into the pachuco topic, because it is very clear from the record that neither the "38th Street Gang" or the "Downey Boys" (those who initiated the melee after being ejected from the Delgadillo party) were hardened criminals.

An excerpt from the website Digital History

 "The Los Angeles papers started it by building for a "crime wave" even before there was a crime. 

MEXICAN GOON SQUADS.

ZOOT SUIT GANGS. 

PACHUCO KILLERS. 

JUVENILE GANG WAR LAID TO YOUTHS' DESIRE TO THRILL.

Those were...the headlines building for August 3rd.

On August 3rd the death of José Diaz was scarehead news. And the stories were of Mexican boys "prowling in wolf-packs," armed with clubs and knives and automobile tools and tire irons, invading peaceful homes....

On August 3rd every Mexican kid in Los Angeles was under suspicion as a "zoos-suit" killer. Cops lined up outside of dance halls, armed with pokers to which sharp razor blades were attached, and they ripped the peg-top trousers and "zootsuits" of the boys as they came out."

Out of all the potential culprits caught in the police dragnet, 22 young men were eventually tried in a highly unusual "group trial" for conspiracy to murder José Díaz on that night.

Judge Charles W. Fricke conducts a corrupt, racist trial.

The exact details of Judge Fricke's misconduct are painstakingly detailed in the appeal opinion overturning the verdicts, but we'll highlight just a few that struck us as most egregious-- beyond the basic fact that there was no evidence linking any of the defendants to whatever circumstances led to Jose Diaz' fatal injuries that night, much less a conspiracy.

There was inadequate to nonexistent legal representation allowed by the judge.

Those who were represented by counsel were not allowed to sit next to them and confer during court proceedings or court recess, as was and is standard procedure.

All of the defendants sat as a group, reinforcing the impression that the crime was committed by a group (a conspiracy murder).

They were not allowed to wear clean clothes or get haircuts, therefore the jury saw them dressed in the now disheveled clothing they wore when they were arrested and interrogated.

Blatantly prejudicial "expert" testimony was read to the jury including something called the Ayers Report, which included this statement:

"Mexicans, because of their Indian blood, have no concept of the value of human life, and when fighting have only a desire to kill, or at least let blood."

Not surprisingly, the outcome was as follows on January 12, 1943:

Three convicted of 1st degree murder and 2 assaults (sentenced to life imprisonment); nine convicted of 2nd degree murder and 2 assaults (sentenced to 5 years to life); five convicted of assault; five acquitted.

Now we come to the brightest side of a dark story-- a group of people who rode to the rescue and created the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee.  As we mentioned, a number of activists in other areas who became aware of the case were outraged by it, and determined to do whatever was needed to right the injustice.  An important part of this was the commitment of those people with the power to sway public opinion-- Hollywood stars.

Had they not done this, it seems highly likely that most of the wrongly convicted would have spent years, and perhaps life in prison.  An example of their work:

The Sleepy Lagoon Case-- Pageant of Prejudice by Alice Greenfield

In the end, an appeals court overturned all the convictions and reprimanded Judge Fricke, stating that the trial judge "...injured materially the defense of the appellants by his insulting remarks to defense counsel, by (unwarranted) rebukes, and by failing to make provisions for consultation between defendants and their counsel.

For more detail on that:

EXCERPTS FROM THE DECISION OF  THE SECOND DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA  IN THE SLEEPY LAGOON CASE  ENTERED OCTOBER 4, 1944

The twelve young men were released from prison on October 4, 1944.

Telles Family with Hank Leyvas in background via UCLA 10/4/44

As we searched and found information on this case, we couldn't help but have the impression that "the more things change, the more they stay the same", as we have chronicled in several of our posts-- the stirring of fear by the powerful, aggressive and intimidating law enforcement agents, a sensationalizing, biased media sector, injustice perpetrated on the powerless, and sometimes a reprieve coming from people with influence who can't stand to sit idly by and watch it all happen.

Further reading on the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee from the Online Archive of California

Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee Records, 1942-1945

I've started a new page containing a more extensive list of sources used in the writing of this post.  Click here for that:  Lots of Sources