The Dark Side of the Moon (Part II)

Long Beach is the fifth largest city in California. The city’s population in the nineties was about 400,000 plus. It is a thirty minute drive from Los Angeles (depending on the traffic) and has the same problems that a mega city like Los Angeles has: gangs, crime and drugs. Long Beach is a true ethnic melting pot.

This city holds a sizable Asian immigrant population: Filipinos families from the naval base, (which was closed down in the late eighties but the US Navy still maintained a small contingent of personnel then) Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian (refugees from war torn Southeast Asia), Chinese, Japanese and Korean immigrants including communities of Samoans and Guamanians (Chamorros) in the west side of Long Beach and Carson, which by the way has an even bigger Filipino presence than Long Beach, enough to elect a Filipino-American as mayor. (This Filipino-American mayor was charged and eventually convicted of fraud and spent time at the Federal Detention Center in LA where I was also detained. Even in prison he would continue to be addressed as mayor.)

I could say with a certainty that the largest immigrant population (legal or otherwise) is Mexican (they dominate the service industries) but there are Latin American immigrants from all countries of Central and South America which though sharing a common language (except Brazil which speaks Portuguese) have their own cultural differences and nuances. Even bordering Latin American countries have their own way of speaking Spanish not to mention having deep seated biases and prejudices against one another based on historical experience.

Then there are the large Afro-American communities of North Long Beach and nearby Compton (they are about 15 percent of the city’s population) that contributed greatly to the hip-hop culture especially in the music world. These communities spawned the rival gangs of Crips and Blood known for their violence and criminal activities. Famous former gang members or those suspected to associate with gangs include Snoop Dogg, Eazy-E and Ice-T. These gangs not only make war on each other but even among the different “sets” within their own gangs.

The mostly black gangs of Long Beach also exploded into a rampage in the aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King police acquittal, very much like Los Angles where stores and commercial establishments were looted and burned. The Department of Motor Vehicle building on Long Beach Blvd near Willow St. was burned to the ground, for what reason I could not comprehend: maybe a disgruntled driver’s license applicant who could not pass the test.

The LA riots put fear in the hearts of not only white Americans but many business owners of all races who were indiscriminately victimized like Korean owned retail establishments in the Los Angeles mid-Wilshire area or what is known as Koreatown. Three days of rioting and looting left many areas of LA looking like a war zone. In a sense, Los Angeles went to war during those few days with the Afro-Americans spewing venom over the Rodney King police acquittal, resulting from what many felt was racial discrimination. But then Los Angeles being the city of immigrants that it is, the rioting and looting was not limited to the blacks but eventually every race was represented in the mayhem as caught by numerous CCTV cameras.

Our auto body shop on E.7^th St. in Long Beach was spared from destruction of the surrounding neighborhood as I had a gang of armed neighborhood Crips barbecuing in front of the shop with ready access to beer cooling in an ice filled tub inside the office. I enlisted the aid of the Crips, who lived around our shop and these were the very same people that I sourced personal injury cases from or conspired with for staging accidents. Nobody dared touch our shop as the blue clad Crips assured protection. Right behind our shop was an apartment complex where the Crips families lived.

I had on display my holstered Browning 9mm pistol (the very first purchase I made on my credit card sometime December of ‘89) as police visibility during the several days of riots was nil. There was a feeling of “everyman for himself” and many business owners openly armed themselves to protect their establishments because of the apparent failure of the police to do so. I saw on news clips Korean business owners armed with high powered firearms and had hired private security guards on rooftops patrolling the perimeter of their establishments.

Our auto body shop’s surrounding neighborhood was Crips dominated. My ties with the gang bought a measure of safety to our shop. But I still had to make a token payoff as a gesture of appreciation not only to the local Crips gang leader, TJ but to his mother, Rose who had all fours sons, several nephews and other neighbors belonging to TJ’s “set”. Rose made sure that her “boys” were there in my shop when I asked for her help.

The Chinese owned corner store near our shop was not so lucky. It was looted and burned and this store even extended credit to the welfare families of these gangs. I really felt sorry for Mr. Chan, a quiet, sixty something Chinese who had that store for over a dozen years when the LA riots put him out of business. I remember him running out of his burning shop lugging his cash register and people just helping themselves to whatever was in his store despite a good sized blaze.

But the rioting and the looting were not limited to blacks. Many just took advantage of the mayhem to engage in plain thievery. TV cameras caught whole families engaged in the looting of stores. Favorite targets were electronic shops. Some were even organized efforts and the looting systematic. I bought a lot of stolen audio and video equipment (TVs, cameras, stereos and very expensive speakers that I bought for barely a tenth of the price) including a complete living room set the days following the riots.

This was the Long Beach I intimately knew in the nineties and I was able to cross racial boundaries freely, dealing with everyone. When it came to making money, I was color blind. Everyone I could profit from was all “green” and the dollar sign was what mattered. In this regard I had no prejudicial bone in my body. I had a free pass to enter their world because I was not only giving them the opportunity for fast money, but I took time to weave personal ties to the point of remembering their mothers’ birthdays. I usually had cake and ice cream for their kids when I visit. They liked that and they liked me but that would not have prevented them from burning me if I presented them with the opportunity. So I was constantly on the lookout for betrayal even as I was constantly courting the black gangs’ favor.

I learned this “personal touch” from Tata Ed. Even though his English was limited (but this did not prevent him from networking with everyone he could profit from) he more than made up for it with an ever accommodating attitude and the confidence which built trust (although this was wrongly misplaced on him). Once he sees you as a prospect, he will work his way to your good graces and induce you to his scam. Even if you did not have a car or an insurance policy there were other opportunities for him to make money on you but of course the bottom line offer would be for you to walk away with money in your pocket.

My first entry into the “dark side of the moon” was through Tata Ed. His extensive contacts enabled him to sign up clients for personal injury claims resulting from vehicular accidents: real or fake. He was my mentor in this criminal world (although I did not think of it as that) as he relentlessly dangled money, women and drugs to seal my servitude. The drugs I was able to resist for a time because I was concentrated then in paying off the accumulated debts I had in the Philippines. Making money in not so upstanding ways did not really pose a moral dilemma for me but I resisted the drugs because I knew that when I started again, there would be no stopping me.

Tata Ed masqueraded as a paralegal for several law firms and when “naturally occurring” accidents became far too few, he put on his rainmaker suit and staged his own accidents. He may have just copied from other enterprising individuals but he topped them all because of the extensive network that he put up in Long Beach/ Carson/ LA areas and to which I greatly expanded later as I ranged the whole of Los Angeles County and beyond. I became such an expert in staging accidents and figuring the insurance claims that I was the first to introduce multiple vehicle accidents, an innovation Tata Ed would later proudly claim as his own. I really did not mind as long as I got my fair share of the deal.

Tata Ed’s network though extensive was limited to the Filipino community. He admired the ease by which I could connect with whatever race I wanted to. I was signing up Mexican, Central Americans even Chilieans and Argentines. It helped that I could speak a smattering of Spanish which by the way vastly improved because almost all of the workers in my brother’s auto body shop were Mexican.

The black gangs of Long Beach were a source of many personal injury cases and once you made money for them they just hankered for more. But the cases which brought in the best settlements were those of white claimants. I reserved my best sales pitch for them. Eventually I developed a regular contact who was based in Las Vegas and he brought to me white customers who were willing to have their liability insurance hit. I opened up the West Covina and Pomona territories in the east for Tata Ed and the San Fernando Valley in the north where I developed my own network. I connected with the Cambodian and Laotian refugee communities in Long Beach and the Vietnamese in Santa Ana which was in Orange County.

One thing though that separated Tata Ed from the other enterprising Filipinos doing the insurance claims scam was his addiction to “shabu” a habit he carried from his policeman days in the Philippines. He was not open with this habit to just anyone, only within his circle and only those that form part of his gang. If he were dealing with lawyers and doctors (insurance scam is a conspiracy) he kept this addiction well hidden at least at the beginning but once they were co-conspirators in the then best money making enterprise called “hammer and nail” or “pako at martilyo” in Tagalog, Tata Ed will try to introduce “shabu” to them. Many did try and many did fall victim to the drug’s destructive effects. The destruction may be slow but it is total: very much like what eventually happened to Tata Ed and of course to me.

I was a quick learner and immediately picked up on the nuances of the property damage and personal injury claims a few months after I started working at my brother’s auto body shop. At first I was signing up legitimate accidents. I usually had a lot of walk-in customers wanting repair estimates on their cars so that they could claim from the insurance companies. This would be a good opening to induce them to take on the services of a lawyer so that they could claim personal injury also even If they were not really hurt.

I had practiced lines to assure them that it was for their own interest to take on a lawyer and claim for personal injury. I presented this as an opportunity to profit from an unfortunate incident which by the way a faceless and moneyed company could be profited from. This did not hurt anyone and besides the insurance companies were wallowing in your money that it’s about time for a little payback. Putting it that way, I was able to convince many to sign on the dotted line. After a few months this business really boomed for me and my pockets were always full of cash and with the feeling that the “American Dream” would soon be a reality for me.

But it was when I started working for Tata Ed (this was about the second year of my stay) that my eyes were opened to this world that was moving to the dictates of this most destructive drug called “shabu” that Filipino immigrants brought with them to the United States. At first, it was difficult to acquire and expensive because there was no organized effort at bringing in the drug but later when large scale smuggling operations became successful Tata Ed wanted to have his hand in this lucrative trade also. This would lead to his arrest and with it the crumbling of Tata Ed’s American Dream.

TO BE CONTINUED