One day, while walking through the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium’s parking lot heading to a bowling class that was held off-campus at a nearby alley, I was jumped by three black classmates who proceeded to beat me up. They ripped a gold chain off my neck and yanked at my boom box, which I was holding in a death grip but eventually released after the handle cut into my hand.
These thugs were not strangers to me. Tensions had been mounting for several weeks as the ringleader – a menacing athletic type known as much for his natural abilities on the football field as for skipping class and being intoxicated – had singled me out as a target. He had always been hostile toward me, but what placed me on the top of his hit list was my denying him free alcohol at a house party where I was in charge of selling drinks. This resulted in his ominous promise: “I’m gonna get you, white boy.” Hence the reason I have made race central to this story; it was definitely a racially motivated criminal act.
Back to the parking lot incident. When I returned to campus that day, I did not know what to do or where to turn. Fortunately, I had several friends who were upset to see what had happened to me. They alerted one of our long-time campus police officers, which I never would have thought of because, frankly, I viewed the police as the enemy. I also did not believe it would do any good.
Boy was I wrong. The campus police officer took the situation very seriously and assured me he would deal with it. I still remained skeptical, but before the day was out he tracked down my assailants and retrieved and returned my boom box to me. I was shocked! He did not reveal his methods, but the results were amazing and I was – and continue to be to this day – eternally grateful.
