Dec 21, 2008 7:30 pm US/Pacific
Racial Tensions Flare Over School's Name
CARSON
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Officer Randal David Simmons, a 27-year veteran of the LAPD, was the first LAPD SWAT officer to die in the line of duty. Simmons was the minister at Glory Christian Fellowship International Church and was involved with numerous charities.
CBS
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Simmons' supporters say he ministered mainly to the latino youth, and the LAUSD already has a school named after Cesar Chavez.
CBS
Racial tensions may be the subplot in Carson as elected officials and community activists haggle between naming a new high school after a slain African-American Los Angeles police officer or labor/civil rights icon Cesar Chavez, it was reported Sunday.
In October, the City Council unanimously voted to recommend naming the school after LAPD SWAT Officer Randal Simmons, who died in a shootout earlier this year. But, since then, two council members, Mayor Jim Dear and Councilman Harold Williams, have had second thoughts, the Daily Breeze reported.
The Los Angeles Unified School District is building the school at Santa Fe Avenue and Carson Street, just over the Long Beach side of the city limits with Carson. Despite the tussle in Carson, the power to name the school rests with the school district.
Williams told the Daily Breeze that he was fooled into believing that the idea had full community backing, and encouraged Latino residents to come forward and voice their opposition to the choice.
Simmons was black, and much of the support for naming the school in his honor comes from his church, Glory Christian International Fellowship, a predominately black congregation -- in spite of the new high school which will be located in largely Latino community, the paper reported.
The issue may also play a role in the upcoming council election, as Julie Ruiz Raber, a Latina and former councilwoman is campaigning to get her seat back, the Daily Breeze reported, and has taken the lead in calling for the school-naming decision to be re-examined.
"If I had my choice, it would be Cesar Chavez," Raber told the newspaper. "That would be such an honor. He's the only Mexican-American hero for the Latino community."
Still, according to Walter Clark, who works at Glory Christian International, Simmons, who lived in Rancho Palos Verdes, ministered to youth in predominately Latino housing projects, such as Scottsdale in Carson.
Councilman Mike Gipson, who led the effort to name the school for Simmons, told the Daily Breeze that the school district already has a school named after Chavez.
Reina Alvarez, who has been involved with the parent-teacher organization at Dominguez Elementary School told the newspaper that she and her neighbors first heard of the idea of naming the school for Simmons at the high school's recent groundbreaking.
Alvarez told the Daily Breeze she and several others were troubled because they were not consulted. They circulated a petition asking that the school be named for Chavez or for Manuel Dominguez, who owned the area's 19th century Spanish land grant.
The petition got about 100 signatures, but Alvarez said the group later decided to drop its request for particular Latino names.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
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