Ruben Salazar

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Ruben Salazar

Ruben Salazar or Rubén Salazar (March 3, 1928 - August 29, 1970) was a Mexican-American news reporter killed by the police during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War on August 29, 1970 in Los Angeles, California. During the 1970s, his killing was often cited as a symbol of the unjust treatment of Hispanic minorities by the police.

Salazar was a reporter and columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the news director for the Spanish language television station KMEX in Los Angeles. On August 29, 1970 he was covering the National Chicano Moratorium March, organized to protest the disproportionate number of Hispanic Americans killed in the Vietnam War. The peaceful march ended with a rally that was broken up by the Los Angeles police using tear gas. This resulted in rioting, during which Salazar was shot in the head at short range with a tear gas projectile while seated in a bar. A coroner's inquest ruled the shooting a homicide, but the police officer involved, Tom Wilson, was never prosecuted. At the time many believed the homicide was a pre-meditated assassination of a very vocal member of the Los Angeles Hispanic community.

In 1971 he was posthumously awarded a special Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and after the controversy of his death had subsided, Laguna Park - the site of the 1970 rally and subsequent police action - was renamed Salazar Park in his honour. His death was commemorated in a corrido by Lalo Guerrero entitled "El 29 de Agosto".

The story of Salazar's killing gained nationwide notoriety with the release of Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, an article written for Rolling Stone magazine by noted gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson and released on April 29, 1971 in Rolling Stone #81.