The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 39 - LAPD - The Beginning

Episode Date: December 6, 2014

Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the early days of Los Angeles law enforcement. Tour Dates Dollop MerchSourcesPatreon

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. Welcome to the dollop. I Dave Anthony tell a story from American History each

week to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who knows nothing about it. Not Gary Gareth. Dave okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to tickle you. You are Queen Fakie of made-up town. All hail Queen Shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do what Frank? Is that bad this week? This week a bad one and I know? It's a great one. Okay. We're doing LAPD month in December. Right. All four of the big dollops will be LAPD dollops. The small ups won't be. Yeah. But it's LAPD month. Are you excited about that? Yeah. And I think it's great that all the proceeds

are going to go to the LAPD. I think that's a nice way of doing it. Give back a little bit. Yeah. We're going to put it into the racism fund. Oh cool. Cool cool cool. Just it's about expanding racism in the Los Angeles police. Oh I was going to say. I didn't think it was a counter. We're going to go back to the origins of police in Los Angeles where it all began. How cops started in LA. California when Gold Rush began in 1848 when Gold was found at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. 300,000 people rushed into the state. So that's a lot of fucking dudes. Yeah. These are mostly men looking for a quick buck like

douchebags who didn't want to on a stays work. Definitely douchebags. Like it's like it's like if someone started a lottery in one state and there were no other lotteries and everybody moved to that state to join the lottery. Think about entertainment. It's a little like that. So it's those kind of people. Right. And there was a lot of lawlessness in the state. I'm sure. Crime shot through the roof. As boomtowns started appearing in the 1850s, vigilantes started putting justice in their hands because no forms of government were established. Okay. These people would assault, accuse thieves, rapists, and murders. Vigilante

groups became especially popular in San Francisco where criminals preyed upon the citizenry with impunity. Okay. That'll actually be a dollop at some point. Okay. So they really did some shit in San Francisco. What a vigilante police force. Some shocks. There were committees, vigilante committees. Things became even worse in Los Angeles and the surrounding counties in the early 1850s as many of the criminals driven out of San Francisco and the Gold country became to the less populated Southern California, making the city and surrounding countryside a dangerous place for many years. Good. Sounds good so far. The first

specific Los Angeles police force was founded in 1853 as the Los Angeles Rangers. Okay. A volunteer force that assisted the existing county forces. Okay. County cops but no city cops. Right. And they created the Los Angeles Rangers. Now they didn't work out and the Rangers were soon succeeded by the Los Angeles City Guards. Okay. Another volunteer group. Uh-huh. Neither force was particularly efficient and Los Angeles became known for its violence, gambling, and vice. Okay. Vigilante groups took to the streets in Los Angeles. City Councilman Felix Saino Ray led the lynching of a Frenchman named Lanche-nay who was

suspected of killing his neighbor, Jacob Bell. A meeting at Stearns Hall was largely attended. A vigilante committee was formed. Lanche-nay's record was reviewed and his death at the hands of an outraged committee was decided upon. Jesus. Everything being arranged, 300 or more armed men, under the leadership of Felix Saino Ray, assembled on the morning of December 17th. March to the jail, overcame Sheriff Burns and his assistance, took Lanche-nay out, dragged him to the corner of Temple and New High Streets. Is there a New High Street still? I don't think so. I haven't heard of

it. No. And summarily hanged him. The following January, County Judge Y Sepulveda, hey, he got a street named after him. A big one. Yeah. Charged the grand jury to do its duty toward ferreting out the leaders of the mob and so wipe out this reproach to the city. But the grand jury expressed the conviction that if Law had been faithfully executed in Lanche-nay's list, such scenes in broad daylight would never have taken place. So the jury was like, well, look, if they, if he had been tried and convicted, then we wouldn't have to do it. Right. And then the counter argument is we broke him out

of a jail. Yeah. There's a good argument there. The process was taking place. Yeah. His, his taste of freedom was real sweet, too. He's like, oh, it's so nice to be back on the street. Come on back. Bree. Bree. I hope he was gonna say breathe, because if he was just talking about cheese, that's a crazy way to go. What was his last words? Bree. He yelled Bree. He shouted Bree. I like a soft cheese. You can eat the duckabelly. So not only did the grand jury fail to indict anyone, but the Lynch men also boldly published a rebuke to the authorities in an editorial. Hold on. Sometimes the dog wants to get on in the action. That's understandable. So, so

this is what the guys who did the lynching wrote. Okay. They wrote this in the, they wrote a fucking editorial. Oh, cool. In the Los Angeles star. Cool. It is to be hoped that the hint given by the people yesterday will be sufficient ammunition to cause the weak arm of the law to recover its former strength and render it unnecessary for the people for whom all the power of the law proceeds to ever again retake the law into their own hands. So. A hint. So even though he got broken out of jail. Yeah. They're saying that the law should have done his job. Yeah. And that what they did was hopefully make the law do the job. Right. So

they, they while he was in jail for a crime he committed. Yeah. They weren't happy enough and they. Right. Right. Okay. So people are morons. Yeah. And they sound like they're good people. They do sound like good people. Yeah. Good people. Los Angeles. The kind of people you want founding because I feel like these are people who are going to be following for a minute. The fact that Los Angeles lynchmen included influential citizens was shown by the access they were given to one of the city's finest and newest structures to Tony Hall in which to deliberate lynchmen's fate. Afterward they marched through downtown in the

light of day for dragging into his fate. So they just did in the middle of the fucking day. Well, I mean you want to be home before dark. As of 1971, no lynchers had ever been prosecuted in Los Angeles. Okay. 1971. Not one lyncher. Okay. Oh, sorry. Eight. I must be 1870. Okay. I must have done that wrong. Okay. I do that wrong a lot because I'm so used to writing 19. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, I did it for a lot of my life. Well, it's like you said Columbus discovered America in 1942. The first paid police force was created in 1869. Okay. When six officers were hired to serve under city Marshal William C. Warren. All right. So here we

go. This is the start. It's the beginning of the LAPD. I mean, it is officially called the LAPD for like 40 years, but this is it. They were original seeds of what was years later to become the Los Angeles Police Department, but these six men were not the most honest lawman who ever walked the streets. Oh, boy. Our story will focus on an alien Los Angeles known as Negro's alley. Oh, Jesus. A fine name. Yeah, a lovely name. Is that not a good name? No, I think it's not a good name. Yeah. It was a narrow lane fronted by crumbling adobes left over from the city's early days. Name for the dark-skinned Spaniards who own property

there. Negro alley for two decades had been the most dangerous piece of topography in the United States. It's gambling houses and flesh markets were home to gamblers, quick to artists, men, the men like the princely Jack Powers, the bloodthirsty Cherokee Bob and the notorious man killer crooked nose. Crooked nose Smith. That's a great man. Jesus. But don't you love that with your the thinking would be that New York is the fucking right. But this this alley is this alley place in the United States. I'll be honest. It sounds like a place you'd probably want to go to just for a stretch. A little visit visit. Yeah. Go

talk to crooked nose Smith. Hey, cookie. Hey. A 45 of 44 homicides that occurred in Los Angeles in a 15 month period. The highest murder rates that ever been recorded in the US. A good portion took place in the alley. The Chinese were already objects of both fear and revulsion in Los Angeles. Cool. That's cool. Nice. Fear because they would work long hours for pittons and revulsion because their religion and culture were alien. Oh my god. We're scared that they work too hard. We're disgusted by their thoughts. They're different. They're for all. They're so fucking different. They're awful. Part of the books at the

time suggested that the Chinese streaming into California by the thousands to search for gold eventually would take over California and elect a silk clad Mandarin as governor. Okay. So it's grounded in reality. They're not very different today. No, really not. I mean, the difference is now that they actually do own all the property. They're buying. They are buying it all. Hatred was so strong that during the Civil War, California's legislature passed a law that forbade any Chinese from testifying against a white man. Oh, cool. So really they just legalized white on Asian crime? Yes. Okay. Yes. If you can't

testify. Were there any witnesses? Just the Asian man. Well, that's not gonna work for us. Just the guy stabbed his Asian. Just the guy who was stabbed nine times. It was him. You can't do that. Come on now. So this was an invitation to violence? Yes. For the white man. I would say that's definitely what that was. Hey, can we make a law that'll just allow white people to kill Chinese people? Yes. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. The economy was on decline at the end of the Civil War. There was social dislocation. Blacks were moving in. The Chinese were very successful. All these things caused resentment. And so white man's nightmare. Fuck yeah, it is. Yeah. On the

day of October 24th, 1871, tensions had been building toward violence among Chinese factions in Negro Alley for several days. That's a normal sentence. Way to hear what I get to later. Oh boy. And tensions between Chinese and Angelenos also were on the rise as were tensions between the Chinese gangs. The cause of the tensions was the kidnapping by a Chinese company of a woman belonging to a rival Chinese company. Okay. The companies were a kind of gang that offered support and structure to the Chinese in America. The kidnapped woman was a gorgeous woman named Yut Ho. It's close to. Yes. It's super close to being

Yut Ho. Yeah. It's not a great name. No. Because I'm sure in this time like a white guy could just be like, I misunderstood. I thought I could just take her because her name was Ho. Oh, not guilty. Not guilty. She was also a married woman who was kidnapped by a company to be sold into marriage. What? Yeah, it's all fucked up. So the kidnapping company was the kidnapping company. The one that kidnapped her was led by a man named Ho Ying who was tight with the white power structure in Los Angeles. Okay. One businessman who knew him better than most called him a gutter snipe tally rand. Well, how dare. I know a gutter snipe is

bad because it's a gutter snipe. It sounds terrible. It's a fish that lives in the gutter. Oh, and a gutter snipe is a fish. Well, isn't a snipe a kind of fish? Yeah, snipe is a fish. And so a gutter snipe would be a snipe that lives in the I don't know what a tally rand is, though. It's just, you know, you don't even need to know. You can just tell how it would be called. It'd be like, you've got a snipe and tally rand. Get out of here. Like it's not good. No, I liked it. You like it? You just like that? Yeah. You're being such a tally rand. No, I don't. Stop it, you tally rand. I'm not feeling anything. You're such a tally gutter snipe. Oh, I

didn't like that. The woman was kidnapped from a company led by a shopkeeper named Sam He-Win. Sam Win. Okay. Yoon? Yeah. How's it spelled? Y-U-E-N, Yoon. Sure. All right. Yoon brought down several hitmen from San Francisco. Okay. To get her back. One of who was her brother, Choi. I like this. I tried to look up tally rand, but it's just all restaurants. That's what he was. Yeah. Yoon restaurant. Get out of here, Yoon restaurant. Fine dining establishment. As soon as Choi got off a steamship in San Pedro, he went right to Negro Alley and found Yo-Hing. This was October 23rd. He fired several shots at Yo-Hing. Yo-Hing wasn't injured and he filed charges. Choi

was arrested. Okay. Yo-Hing and Choi, Yo-Hing had Choi's bail set at an insane amount for the time. What? $2,000. That's a lot of money. Yeah, fuck yeah, yeah. Yo-Hing rolled into post bail and Yo-Hing's attorney was stunned. He couldn't believe a Chinese guy would have that much cash. A policeman went with Yo-Hing to his shop where he saw the bail money and a lot more hidden in a trunk. Okay. Wait, so Choi's bail is set at $2,000. Yeah. So, and- Gio hired him. Yeah. He comes down and says, I can pay the bail and they go, okay, where's the money? Then

he's- Right. And then him and a cop go back to his place, his shop, and he opens up a trunk with all the fucking money in it. Okay. He takes that $2,000 and the cop goes, look at all that money. Hey, you know what I always loved? Money. Money's good.

Money's fun. Now, the rumors started. In one of the most lawless places in the country, throughout the city's endless drinking establishment, word was out, and there were a lot of drinking establishments of the Los Angeles' 285 business, 110 surf liquor. Jesus Christ. Great. So now they're all talking about how this Chinese guy has got all this money. Cool. Now, it was well known that the Chinese company paid off police for favors. As Hing said about LA law enforcement, according to a newspaper account at a later court hearing,

and this is quote from the paper. Oh, God, this is not good. Police likey money. Oh, my God. That was printed in the paper. Police likey money. Likey money. God, it would be great to live in a time where you could see that on a newspaper and it's

insinuating racism. If it's just like a scroll on the bottom of a CNN thing, police likey money. Yes, I'm coming right now from Times Square where the update is strong. Police likey money. Police likey money. Okay. Sure. Well, the chief favor rendered by police was the retrieval of escaped Chinese prostitutes. Okay.

The women were little more than slaves to the companies, yet whenever a prostitute tried to escape, all her owner had to do was go to court and swear out a warrant accusing her of theft. Then knowing they would earn a nice reward, the police would track the woman to Santa Barbara, San Diego, or elsewhere and bring her back to the Chinese gang. While the police were off hunting prostitutes, they left the city completely unguarded. Cool. So it's a terrible police force.

Yeah. Sounds really horrible. They're just making sure the whores go back to the whorehouse. Right. Cool. The cops led to police officers being openly allied with one Chinese company or another. One police officer at the time was a man named Jesus Bilderain. I don't like that name.

Bilderain had a reputation for dishonesty and larceny. Okay. Several court cases were filed against him in the years before and after October 1871, accusing him of stealing valuable roosters for her use in his cock fighting operations. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. I love it. That's a big crime.

Yeah. No. He's roosters stealing. Instead of like, like how hard is it to breed some roosters? Yeah. Instead of fucking breeding roosters, he's just going to take it up. He just wants to start with winners. I think that's respectable.

He's just finding like the craziest hen and taking it. Then he goes and fights them. Yeah. Jesus Christ. Quite a life. The law's here. Give me your roosters. Along with his brother Ignatio, Bilderain was a gambler.

For years, he and his brother controlled and manipulated the Latino voting block in Los Angeles on behalf of Democratic candidates. On election day, it was a common sight to see Jesus Bilderain in a white duster stuffing bills into voters' pockets in downtown Los Angeles. It's very public with the, like, it just sounds like there's no, I mean, you can't at least do it a block away, maybe. It feels very uncofflic. Yeah.

Very uncoffish. Well, that being the background, according to officer Bilderain, he was having a drink at Higbee's Saloon on the night of October 24th, 1871, when he heard gunfire. He jumped on his horse and galloped for Negro's alley. That's just a great scent. He said he found Choi lying on the ground with a gunshot to his neck. He then chased a group of Chinese men into the Coronel building where Yuen's shop was. Okay.

Where the money happened. Bilderain said he charged in and was shot. He then blew his whistle to sound the alarm. That's when a man named Robert Thompson responded. He put his gun into the door and fired. Then he opened the door and was shot in the chest. Oh, Jesus. He said, I am killed and collapsed into the street.

Oh, that is a good set of last words, though. I love how he's a... That's better than Brie. I love that he's already using the past tense. Yeah, no, he's dead. That's what I mean. It's so like, it's about to be true, but it's your last thought and not true yet. I've been killed.

He died an hour later. Then according to Bilderain, a mob of 500 swarmed into the alley to lay siege. 500 was 10% of the population of Los Angeles. 500 people ran out to just get pissed. Yeah. Okay. One big problem with this story is that Thompson wasn't a cop. He was a saloon owner of one of the most notorious scary saloons in town, the Blue Wing.

Of course, with Vigilantes all the rage, it's possible that he came to help out. To believe Bilderain's story, you'd also have to ignore the fact that he wasn't on the take, that all the cops weren't in the pockets of the Chinese companies, and that everyone in town wasn't talking about how much money he went and had in the building. It's a lot to ignore. Also, Bilderain's story kept changing. Oh, good. After his own account, after he saw Choi wounded in the street, he chased UN's gang into the

Coronel building. But that didn't make any sense because Choi was working for UN. Okay. He was his hitman. Yeah. He also insisted that he had seen UN shoot bar owner Robert Thompson, which was amazing because Bilderain was lying wounded in the street when Thompson was shot by someone in the dark interior of the building.

Okay. Some alibi stuff, sure. Little alibi shit, whatever. The most probable explanation is that Bilderain was working for the kidnapper Hing. Okay. Right. Over the next couple of months, Bilderain kept changing his account of what he saw that night, sometimes naming who in and sometimes not.

Eventually he ended up testifying for UN, saying he had never seen him on that night. All right. Consistent. Very consistent. That's nice. Okay. I got paid again. I'm going to switch it up.

No. Now he wasn't there. Yeah. I don't know what I was thinking, but he was not anymore. He wasn't there. And I didn't get shot. I didn't get shot either. No.

None of that happened. None of that happened. Can I go? I wasn't there. I'm not a cop. What are you going to do? Bring a Chinese guy up here? Bring it.

What's he going to do? Testifying. A white man. What actually happened was Bilderain went to Negro Alley that night to rob UN. Boris Bell, an early chronicle lawyer of Los Angeles, wrote that Bilderain and Thompson went to UN's store that afternoon for no other purpose than to steal his gold. Cool. In the days after, UN said his men opened fire on Bilderain because he came for the gold

in the company of, hey, his enemy. So what happened after Thompson and Bilderain were shot? The mob came. At first, the mob was held at Bay by Gunfire coming from inside the coronal. LA's top cop was Marshall Francis Baker. Okay. He arrived at the scene just as Thompson was shot. He deputized an ad hoc collection of men to surround the coronal building.

He said he wanted to prevent the escape of those involved in the shooting, but recruiting guards from a mob was a questionable decision. Certainly. Baker's next decision was even weirder. With Gunfire ringing out behind him, he went home to bed. Oh, wait. What? He's probably not very clear with his plan.

Well, he's the chief. He's the top cop. Let's surround him. I'm going to go to bed. All right. Let's get there. All right. I'm going to go to sleep.

I'll tell you what. This surrounding has really taken it out of me. I am going to. All right. There's a lot of gunfire. God. Am I the only one who's got a case of the yawn? I'm so tired.

I can't stop yawning. I get tired with this Asian killing. Well, good luck with all that, guys. Yeah. Cop go sleepy. Turn in. Cop go sleepy. Hmm.

Cop go sleepy. As he did, some members of the mob climb onto the roof and use axes to hack holes in the roof. Then they sprayed shotgun and rifle fire down into the rooms below. By the time the mob had battered open a second door with a large rock, the Chinese had given up. Okay. Police did little.

As was evidenced by the actions of two officers, but probably the most experienced. Emma Harris and George Guard. Both approved the bravery during the Mexican Bandit Wars. Okay. I don't even know what that is, but that sounds like a good war. I mean, wars. Yeah. Bandits.

It's almost like a vigilante police force to look that one out. Yeah. Bandit Wars. Holy shit. Harris helped capture the dashing Tabercio Vesquez and the stars said he and Guard were hard to beat on either a warm or cold trail. Okay. They were the shit.

Yeah. Fuck yeah. No stopping these guys. Bad ass motherfuckers. I think there's something that'll stop them. While the mob went crazy, Harris and Guard just hung out near Hayskills at the corner of Los Angeles and Arcadia streets a half block away. Yeah, we should go there and do it from there.

Harris did grab one fleeing Chinese man, but when he was surrounded, he just gave the man up. Okay. All right. All right. You want this one? Oh, sure. I don't need him.

I was going to keep this one. That's okay. You can take him guys. Take him. Seems like you guys really want him. Do whatever you want. Are you guys going to play ball? You guys play ball?

Harris just returned to his post later saying he was unaware that any Chinese people had been harmed. Okay. Sure. Some argued that no one would expect a small poorly trained police force to stand up to an armed mob of hundreds. Right? Yeah.

Okay. There's a good argument. Yeah. I think that's fair. But the argument that the police were powerless that night was put to the lie by Robert Whitney, a badass former schoolteacher who was a vigilante in his own right. He was known to sidle up to a mobster, yank him by the collar, shove the barrel of his pistol into the man's throat and whisper, get out or I'll kill you.

Oh God. You get out. That's fucking awesome. You get out when that happens. Yeah. I'll go. I'll go. I'll go.

I'll go. I'll go. I'll go. Whitney managed to save five Chinese people that night. Okay. Jesus. Police saved none. Yeah.

So the idea that he couldn't save any little... There's not a great faith in the police. No. Yeah. It's more likely that the police were compromised by their secret deals with Chinese companies and accustomed to letting vigilantes do their deeds. So they just stood aside and let the mob do its work. That's cool.

I'm glad things are so different. Good. That things have changed so much for the better. LAPD started well. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's also, I like that when you put laws in place for a reason, and it almost makes things worse because of how people will just skirt them.

Totally. So it's like now like, okay, now the system's fucked. Cool. All right. Perfect. Done. I'm not going to go home and go to bed. I am exhausted.

I'm so tired. All this gunfire, racism, the gold, I'm just pooped. You know what a mob does, it makes me want to go to sleepy. Oh, God. Under the gaslight street lamps, the Chinese were dragged to hastily erected gallows downtown. Bodies were soon swinging from two upturned wagons on Commercial Street, as well as the crossbar on the Tomlinson Corral, a popular lynching spot that's been used to string up the Frenchman Lesionné.

Popular lynching spot. You've got to have a popular lynching spot. Oh, don't go there. Oh, you know what's really good? Have you tried the crossbar on Thompson Carroll? I kind of like divey lynching areas. What? Yeah, like a place with like not so many people.

You can sit down and talk. Why don't they like the lights? I like it. I like the big show. But what you're not seeing is the pageantry. No, I get that. I get all that, and I like going to that lynching area. I'm just saying there is, like, my local lynching area is kind of my favorite.

It just seems so drab. It is drab, but look, we're different. I like to see, like, the swinging body and behind them the shadow. Yeah, see, I like to be with, like, a friend I haven't seen in a while, and we can kind of catch up while the body swings. This is like an intimate thing. Yeah, totally intimate. Yeah, yeah.

I know I like a big crowd. I like a show. I like a, you know. Yeah, I've just never been that person. I don't know. Different lynches for different bitches. I guess so. I guess so.

Yeah. Yeah. Good talk, though. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, go ahead. The mob also used the porch of John Guller's wagon shop at Los Angeles and Commercial, a block from the South entrance to the alley.

Okay. Guller was a former respected city councilman, husband, and dutiful father. He objected bitterly as the Chinese were hoisted outside his windows. There are small children inside, he protested. Oh, Jesus Christ. Word. Now there's small men in there. Try up, you son of a bitch, growled a man as he leveled the rifle at Guller.

Jesus. Wow. People were fucking awesome. They were just awesome. I didn't want my kids to see this. Shut the fuck up or they'll watch you die. I'm just fucking amazing. Now let us hang these Chinese people outside, okay?

What? Are you going to still be weird about it? You don't like decorations? Oh, my God. Your kids sound like pussies. Oh, I'm raising a big base. I'm raising a big base. I'm raising a big base.

I'm raising a big base. I'm raising a big base. I'm raising a big base. I'm raising a big base. I'm raising a big base. I'm raising a big base. Oh, my God, your kids sound like pussies. Oh, I'm raising a big baby.

My name's Guller. My kids are all going to be pussies. So then you have basically two minutes to just kind of prep the kids. Okay, guys, so real quick. Okay, so here's what's going on. There's been a lot of social and economic problems with the... Oh, oh boy. Yeah, okay.

That's what I wanted to tell you. You're going to see some body swing, guys. Maybe I should have started off with the economics thing. Sorry, sorry. There was about to be dead Asians hanging outside of here. Okay, so the quickest thing I can say is the people know likey Chinese. Okay. People likey money.

People know likey Chinese. Police likey money. As the Chinese were hauled up, a man on the porch roof danced a jig. Normal. Normal. Just a normal capper. I just picture it like a big musical. And at the end, you just pan out and you need to see the guy jigging.

This guy's like a hack. He's like, dancing a jig. He's probably got like a... Yeah. A gallon bottle. He's like that guy straight out of a cartoon. It's like a time... It's not time to jig.

Well, I jig about anything. I'll jig about whatever happens. My name is Jimmy Jig. What you caught me about? We're hanging up the Chinese in time for one of my classic Jimmy Jigs. Yesterday, I was jigging for pie. This morning, I just jigged to get up. I'm a jigging just to jig.

I'm jigging because I'm so excited about my last jig. Somebody shoot the jigger. No. I got a shooting jig. You want to see a shooting jig? Oh, you got it, boy. There's gold up in them mountains, I tell you. Gold.

He says a lot. He should stick to jigging. The man dancing the jig gave voice to the resentment many Americans felt about the Chinese working low wages. I think we're putting a little much on him. Come on, boys, patronize home trade. The man's saying out. What's saying?

Wait, one more time. Come on, boys. Come on, boys, patronize home trade. Come on, guys. He's jigging on a roof above a bunch of hanging humans with a message. Yeah, about international trade relations. Now's the time for the trade talks. Get into it, jig, man.

Come on, boys. Come on, boys. Let's get an embargo on wheat. Let's talk about the gross national product. Come on, boys. Stop GMOs. The bloodlust. Fucking Obamacare.

The jig guy's great. Let's talk about dick congressional budget. You know, the jig guy's getting his reach in a little. I don't know if you've heard some of the latest jigs. A little out there. Screw you, Environmental Protection Agency. Come on. There's jigs for employees of American Airlines who have been getting unfair wages.

Let's go. I'm worried about the erosion of the middle class. Jiggy. Jiggy the jigman. Oh, fuck. This one's for NAFTA. What's that suckin' sand? That's jobs.

There's nobody around him anymore. It's fucking 4 a.m. everyone's gone. Everyone's gone. He's just jigged for three days straight. He wakes up. He's like, man, I just jigged so long. Oh, fuck. I am so embarrassed.

Just went on a jigbender. Oh, Jesus. Life's leavin' me. Larry, did I jig last night? Yo, yeah. You don't remember fucking jigging? No. All you did was fucking jig.

It was mortifying. I was really drunk. I was hammered. How long did I jig? You jigged for about five hours. Did I say anything? Yeah, you tried to jig. You tried to talk about the Constitution.

You wanted to secede? There was a lot going on with your jigs. Yeah, you wanted to create jiggling. Jesus, I didn't talk about Atlantis, did I? Yes, you did. You talked about Atlantis. That's mainly what you talked about. Fuck.

I gotta stop drinking. Jigging? You gotta stop jigging. I don't know. I feel like I drink and then I jig. I jig to drink. Oh, wait. Wait.

My feet are movin'. Oh, god. No. Here we go. Oh, no. Here we go. Stop Walmart! Jigging to heaven.

Every time he dies. The bloodlust was not only in the men. A woman who ran a boarding house across the street from Gauler's shop volunteered clothesline to be cut up for the nooses. Hang them, she screamed. Oh, Jesus Christ. A boy came running from a dry good shop. Here's rope, he called, hopefully.

Oh, god. A boy. A boy. Here's rope to hang them. But it wasn't just the rabble of Los Angeles having a good time. It was also the city's elite. Some of Los Angeles' leading citizens were cheering on the killers. Good.

Among them was H.M. Mitchell, a reporter for The Star. A future leader for the Democratic Party. Mitchell would serve a term as sheriff before marrying into the wealthy Glassall family. Oh, wow. How about that? All right. So people don't know Glassall Park is a huge area of the city over here.

Yeah. Yeah. The Glassall family. Sure. He married into a family that has a fucking portion of Los Angeles named after it. And he became a gentleman-follower and collector of Western antiquities. Cool. That's what happens when you get a lot of money fast.

A member of the crowd heard Mitchell yelling, hang him. Oh, god. I mean, also, you guys, people have already yelled that. Yeah. How about something else? String him up or anything. Yeah. They're all just yelling hang him.

Yeah. And get a rope. Like it's a pecante salsa commercial. New York City. Yeah. That's great. And I like it. I mean, people are like, you know, saying creative things.

And at the end, you come in with, hang him. It's real good. Really nice capper to it all. Where's that jig guys? String him up. Stale. Uh, jiggy? His legs don't work.

You didn't hear? Oh, no. Yeah. He can't jig anymore. Oh, my god. The doctor says he had about two weeks to jig. Oh, thank god. Yeah.

The jig's up. The jig is up. Sorry. I apologize to everyone listening. Harris Newmark, one of the most respected members of the business community, heard a shot as he left work walking over to Los Angeles Street. He learned that Thompson had been killed. Newmark said he went home to supper expecting no further trouble.

Cool. Get a meal in. Pop, get a meal real quick. Sure. I suppose being a leader, I go over and talk to these people. Or I'm hungry. It's taco night. Taco Tuesday.

Yeah. He's got to go home for taco Tuesday. Of all the Chinese in Los Angeles, Dr. Jean Tong was probably the most eminent and beloved among both his countrymen and Americans. Okay. He could have made much more money opening an office in the American part of town, but Tong stayed in the alley dispensing both traditional and modern medicine from a small shop in the Coronel building.

Okay. So that's nice. It is nice, but I have a feeling it's about to sour. Some of them are treated well and respected by whites and everybody else. That's great. Oh, that's great, Dave. Yeah, that's great. We deserve a medal.

As he was dragged along the street, he tried to str- What? What the fuck? As he was dragged along the street? The fuck did he do? He's giving medicine. He was there. He's Asian.

He's Chinese. He was there. Okay. Sorry. As he was being dragged along the street, he tried to strike a bargain with his captors. He could pay, he said. He had 3,000 in gold in his shop. He had a diamond wedding ring.

They could have it all. Instead one of his captors shot him in the mouth to silence him. I mean, that'll do it. That will quiet a man. Yeah. Shooting him in the mouth? It's kind of shooting him in the brain. Some would punch a guy in the mouth.

Sure. But if you really want to be- Put a gag over a guy? But if you really want to be sure, you shoot a guy in the mouth. Shoot his mouth. Cool. Then they hanged him. Oh, just to be safe.

But not before they cut off his finger to steal the ring. I mean, is it so much work to remove a fucking ring? Could you just take a ring off? It was on there really good. Go get some butter assholes. His Chinese fingers just swelled around the ring. We tried very nervous and swelling from his fucking dragging. I don't know.

I mean, I would guess the Chinese people are dragging down streets all the time. It's probably faster to just take it off. I don't know. All right. Anyway, so he's dead. You make really bad points. Yeah. Okay.

Tong's dead. So the guard eventually worked the way to UN's store where they stood guard for much of the night. This was odd since the mob had already looted the store and UN's drunk. So after the mob came and they dragged out the Chinese guys and they looted the store then two cops walked over and stood guard. Hey, we better keep an eye on this place. Sounds like things got pretty shitty.

They probably had only one thing on their minds, reward. Both men were allied with UN just days before the riot. One newspaper reported they had received nice presents from him. Nice presents. What kind of story is that in the paper? Nice presents. Two police officers received a nice present from UN. No, it's just under police likey money.

Gold dragon. Yeah. They got golden dragons. Police also likey presents. The massacre finally was brought to an end by Sheriff James Burns, a colorful man known as Daddy to the gamblers and whores. You do not want to be called Daddy by horror. Not in public.

Really? It's a yeah. Yeah. That means he was fucking him and making him daddy. Oh, oh, oh, oh. He was fucking him. Yeah. Daddy?

They are calling him daddy. Yeah, daddy. Yeah, it's not. Who's your daddy? No, you are. We all call you daddy. That's right. Okay.

But just you don't have to ask because we all do. We all call you daddy. Who's your daddy? You are Sheriff Burns. All right, daddy out. Daddy's gonna roll. He asked for 25 volunteers from a crowd of onlookers. I like there's a mob killing people and then there's people watching the mob kill people.

Yeah, and then your idea of everything just seems to all of a sudden you're recruiting people who could be murderers. All right, who wants it? It sounds a little bit like when we went to Iraq. How we just handled it. Soon Burns was hoisted onto the shoulders of the crowd and carried into the alleyway and the mob faded into the night. Great.

Daddy's happy. By 11 p.m. the booze was flowing at the bars as the mob celebrated. At J.H. Weldon's a man with blood on his hands and his shirt bellied up to the bar and yelled, Well, I'm satisfied now. I've killed three Chanaman. I mean, set him up. And is the is he satisfied? Yes, I understand that he's satisfied, but he's it's okay.

He's in this place and saying that and looking like that is okay. It's just a gentleman. No, no, no. Covered in blood. Yes. His hands, his shirt, blood all over him. Yes. Who is screaming about killing three Chanaman.

He's been very clear. He's murdered multiple times. But he wants a drink. And does he get it? I'm sure he does. Okay, because nobody gives a fuck. Nobody gives a fuck. Nobody gives a fuck.

Just kill Chinese people. It's just a guy covered in blood looking for some booze. Saying that he's killing Chanaman. Okay, cool. All right, just wanted to make sure we're on the same page. The next morning, the citizens of Los Angeles filed past the town's jail to view the bodies of the dead laid out in double rows. There were 17 rows.

Jesus Christ. There were 17. It was the largest mass lynching in American history. When we're to the massacre, which is impressive considering how many people the South lynched. Yeah, no way to go. When word of the massacre reached the outside world, the reaction was universal horror. Okay, good. In the East, citizens asked what sorts of monsters had monsters had taken up residence

on the West Coast. The Methodist Conference started raising funds for missionary work in Los Angeles. Non-terrapologists blamed the massacre on the, quote, dregs of California society and assortment of thugs from mines of the North and lawless Mexican territory to the South. American hoodlum and Mexican greaser, Irish tramp and French communists all joined to murder and dispatch the foe, wrote poet and historian A.J. Wilson. I mean, neglecting the fact that it was also city councilmen and the cops and everyone else.

Yeah. You should be more alarmed, but that's fine as long as they're alarmed, we'll take it. The mood of the city from top to bottom was that it had been time for the Chinese to learn their lesson. Oh, good. Yeah. You got to teach them. Yeah.

Hey, we showed them. Yeah. All those dead guys probably learned a valuable lesson. Coming over here and working cheap with your own ideas. I'll give you $3,000 in gold. Shoot the mouth. What? As one survivor of the massacre said, according to news accounts.

Okay. So again, this is a Chinese man who survived the massacre. So now we're going to have a newspaper quote. Jesus. This is not going to be good. When Malik and Mad get mad, he damn fool. He kill a good Chinaman. Ali, same bad Chinaman.

That is a quote. Straight out of the paper. Written in the Putin newspaper with extra ease. It takes more time to do that. I know. I think that at that time they had a typewriter with a double E key. Any Chinese story is like type it on that one. You'll need the double E.

You're going to need the double E. And here's some yellow out in case you make mistakes. Oh, fuck. Jesus Christ. It was a public relations disaster for a town that was trying to attract a rail link that was wanted. A rail link. You're not ready for a railway, mother fuckers. You're hanging people in front of children freely.

You want public transportation. You earn it, fuckface. Gareth is spoken. You are not ready for a rail link. You are not railway ready. Excuse me? You want a rail link after this? No.

Pardon me, Los Angeles. No. No. Fuck no. It was going to feel comfortable building in this environment. You took it back. Ironically, most of the rails were built by Chinese. I mean, it's hard when you're killing them to get it build.

But I just realized the dead ones won't work. He get him mad. He get him mad. Wow. Unreal. He kill a good Chinaman. He kill a good Chinaman. I mean, in a paper.

In a newspaper. News. News. Not a comic. News. So they wanted the rail link to bring thousands of Anglos to Southern California and sweepway at the last of the Mexicans. We're just a good. Yeah.

Good people. We get it. We're not a problem solved quickly. We're a great country. Yeah. At the coroner's inquest, one witness after another, including police, were somehow unable to recognize any of the mob members. But then some people began to remember. A few merchants were named.

A farmer, a silk grower, a butcher, a blacksmith, a saloon owner, and a carpenter. A responsible named Richard Curran was fingered as a man who shot at the Chinese. City Councilman George Fall was identified as having attacked Hing with a plank of wood. Jesus. Fuck. A plank of wood. A plank of wood. A city councilman was hitting a Chinese guy with a fucking two by four.

And then him and Noah likey, huh? He's on record as saying in the newspaper, Hema got a bigger board. Me and Noah likey it. Jesus. The grand jury finally issued indictments accusing two dozen men of murder. No prominent men, though. No cops. In a shocking turn of events, the most painless defendants managed to hire one of the most

distinguished and successful members of the bar to defend them. Okay. Gary Edward J.C. Keowns. Alrighty. Los Angeles first trial of the century began in March 1872. Picking the jury was hard as one prospective juror after another was disqualified because he belonged to a vigilance committee. I mean, that really, he's got to be like, this jury pool is not looking good.

Have you ever been part of a vigilante? Yeah, I was and currently am. Have you ever been part of a vigilante? Yes. What about you? Have you ever been? Yeah. What about back there?

Yeah. Is anybody here not a vigilante? Yeah. Oh, you said not? Yeah. No. Presiding over the trial was Robert Whitney, the hero of the massacre. Oh, good.

Good. Good. Good. Right? Who acted to save the Chinese people when the police wouldn't. Yep. Unfortunately, he wasn't a member of the bar. What?

He's acting as judge. He just happens to not be a lawyer. Perfect. No, no, no. Of course. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stick on that. No, no.

Continue. It's fine. Just a judge who doesn't know. He's the ex school teacher. Right. Cool. Good. Good.

Good. Good. First a drifter named Crenshaw was convicted. Always start with the fucking drifter. Crenshaw? Yeah. Well, I don't think Crenshaw was named after them. No, no, no.

I'm not even suggesting that. No, no, no. I'm not even suggesting that. I'm not even suggesting that. I'm not even suggesting that. I'm not even suggesting that. I'm not even suggesting that. I'm not even suggesting that.

You know that. You know that. You know that. That's not going to go well. He was not convicted of murder, but of manslaughter. Okay. Policemen guard testified on his behalf. Getting him off on the murder charge.

Guard said he just got it. He said that he went up to the roof and handed him a gun. Uh huh. And at the end of the night, he went back and got the gun. And all the bullets were in the gun. Okay. So. So magic.

Yeah. What are we? He just will that. He just willed it? The trials of the next nine defendants were combined. Seven of the nine were convicted of manslaughter. Whitney gave them sentences ranging from two to six years. Take that!

Two years. Now you know not to form a mob and lynch people. And it's just okay to call, it's just manslaughter just because it's Chinese people, right? I mean, that's why. I believe so. Yeah, okay.

I believe so. I wonder if any point if anyone was like, ah, why? It seems a lot like murder. What's the difference? Cause it sounds a lot like they murdered him. They accidentally hung them. Oh, okay.

I mean, they were at fault, but it was an accident. Right, they accidentally hung rope, suspended rope. What they did was dangerous. Sure. Granted. Oh, they played with fire, my friend. And then they kind of- And 17 Chinese people got burned.

They, you read the description. They kind of hung 17 Chinese men. Not they hung, they kind of hung them. I think you're letting the Chinese people who were deceased get off a little easy on this one. They were pretty implicated in all of this as well. They couldn't have been hanged without this. But two of them said they likey hangy.

No, that's right. I remember hearing that. I remember reading on the paper that they were quoted as saying that. Good paper. Then just after the guilty boardership for San Quentin, defense attorney Kuhn filed papers with the Supreme Court of California,

alleging that the convictions were improper because district attorney committed a fatal legal error. Prosecutor Tham, who happened to be from the South. Oh, sure, that's fine. Had correctly charged the defendants with murdering the beloved Dr. Tong. Okay. But Tham had failed to introduce evidence

that Tong had been killed. Oops. That seems pretty important. Ah! Ah! So what's known as a technical error? Yeah, just a little snafu. Oh, did I forget to?

Oh my God. Slipped my mind. I feel so weird right now. I got my face anyway. Oh, I totally. Oh, I spaced. Damn it. Well, how can I have done that?

Anyway. Anyway, you guys had fun. Get out of here, crazy kids. Out of here. Oh, I'll see you guys in New York, Ollie. The convictions were all set aside. Cool. Well, Tham never attempted to retry the defendants.

Of course not. He also never brought to trial the majority of those accused by the grand jury. Right. So the grand jury accused tons of people. Right. He just did a few. Yep, then basically nothing.

The guy hitting the guy with the board. Yeah, yeah. Free, walking around, councilman. Yep. Leader. Just like that, L.A. had disposed of its messy public relations problems. Sure has.

Yeah, everything's fixed. No one thought about it. Everyone's like, oh, they're innocent. Oh. Fair enough. Done and done. I was wrong about not letting them have a rail line. They should have a rail line.

And now. Local newspapers did not even mention the lynching in their year and analysis of the major events of the previous 12 months. Jesus Christ. What happened this year in Los Angeles? This year in a view. Orchards planted down on Orange Street.

Anything in October? Not that I can recall besides Halloween. November? Moving on. Yes, great month. Great month. Within five years, the arrival of the transcontinental railroad

made the trip west fast and safe. Los Angeles became a modern city and many of the men who lived through rough times grew rich. The Chinese 17 were the last to be lynched in Los Angeles. Many of those involved had interesting endings. In 1877, Ho Ying was hacked to death by an assassin bearing, quote, an old grudge.

Somehow the author failed to note Heng's connection to the massacre only six years earlier. Just that it was an old grudge. Yeah, sure. Celis, one of the two defendants acquitted in the massacre case, died in a bizarre accident while chasing horse thieves in the San Fernando Valley. According to the account given by a guard

who was riding guard, the policeman. Yeah, a guard. Who was riding in a buggy with Celis at the time, a rifle fell out of the wagon. Oh, this is good already. And hit a spoke on one of the wheels. Uh-huh. And the rifle discharged.

Oh, okay, as one would do. And a bullet struck Celis square in the chest. Right, yeah. No, you've heard it a million times. You know, when a rifle gets in wheel spokes, it just can be very dangerous. Look, he's just a great cop. That's fine.

And look, I know it's hard to believe you had to be there, but that's how it happened. And what do you think happened? I trust the guys who guard the beginning of the LAPD. They're good. What's not to trust? So far, no reason to not trust them besides just a couple of mini massacres.

H.M. Mitchell went hunting with city attorney William E. Dunn in the foothills beyond Pasadena. Okay. That's right where we are. Yep. Dunn mistook his friend for deer and accidentally shot Mitchell. Twice.

The old two accidental shots. I accidentally shot. You can accidentally shoot once. Right? Oh my god, sorry. Oh, double sorry. What is with me today? Such a goof.

I can't believe I accidentally shot you in the head and the chest. What am I doing? I just killed my friend. Jesus. Twice. Lastly, Guard, who at some point became a railroad detective, died in a fiery explosion. Sure, his friend just thought he was a pizza or something.

That's it. Good. It's all very normal and good. You like the LAPD? So far? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. So far?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's good. It gets better. It's just, they just agree, they just, look, they started well. Started big. As we get further into the LAPD, you'll be able to know now that they started with the best of intentions and they were wonderful people.

Yes, their heart was in the right place. Clearly. And then just a couple, like we said, just a couple little. And then you hear this story and then you think about how bad ISIS is, but were we that much better than they? No, and we can't, you can't ever, you can never say shit like that. Like what you just, you can never ask questions like that.

But it's so true. It's like the difference between what's right and wrong is our perspective, which is always right. Right, and that's it. Like the, like the pilgrims. Yeah, exactly, like the pilgrims, exactly. So you can come, you can do whatever the fuck you want to anybody because we get it.

Right. And then that's just an impossible, non-worldly way of thinking. Yeah. And then when people, when people do it to combat it, you're like, what are you doing? We do it, it's like nukes. We're like, nobody can have nukes.

America doesn't want anywhere to have nukes. We have more nukes than fucking anybody. Yeah, it's the same nukes that are rotting in the ground. Yeah, just nukes we don't need, but we're just like, we're very worried Iran will make a nuclear bomb. And it's like, you have, you have 35. Yeah, they're not going to do anything with a nuclear bomb because you would annihilate them.

You would just, I mean. Do you know how nukes work? Yeah, so I mean, that's our policy. Yeah, anyway. You can't have nukes because you're crazy. Well, you guys have used them. Yeah, but you're nuts. Yeah, now we know that they're not to be used

because we use them. It's also like, when Obama just got China to sign the emissions thing. It's like, for years, the argument is just like, yeah, we'll like, we do whatever the fuck we want. Why should we do it? Because China's fucked up. China won't do it, so fuck it.

You're like, oh god, you fucking. China did it. Yeah, China did it. So now what? Me, me, me, me, me. No, there'll be something else. We'll fuck, we're fucking everything up anyway. Anyway, that was the great hanging that's

known as the Chinese Massacre of Los Angeles. It's really a feel good story. And it's just good to hear that we're good people. We are good people. And I got to look at the crooked nose now. That guy, we keep that guy around. I don't care what he was doing. Later, girl.

Bye, girl.