LOS ANGELES TIMES

DA's Office Hits Back at Criticism

in Sal Castro Case

By Ron Einstoss

Times Education Writer

The district attorney's office, under fire recently for its prosecution of teacher Sal Castro and 12 other men, has counter-attacked with a charge that its critics were guility of "inaccuracies and misstatements."

Attorneys for the 13 had planned today to seek to bar prosecution of the defendants, but Tuesday they filed a notice to dismiss their request for an injunction.

The 13 are accused of conspiring to cause student walkouts last March at four predominantly Mexican-American schools.

In a brief filed in Superior Court, Dep. Dist. Atty. Richard W. Hecht charge that "many inaccuracies and misstatements" are being made which "in their totality are designed to depict (the district attorney's office) as unfairly targeting for prosecution a particular ethnic or racial group."

Responding to a claim that the defendants during the walkout were moved only by their concern over the rights of Mexican-American students to equal and fair treatment in their education at public schools, Hecht declared:

"That concern over the quality of education. . . is not a monopoly shared solely by the defendants."

He labeled as misleading attempts "to characterize the chaotic activities that took place at the various high schools in the East Los Angeles community as mere walkout . . . having as their purpose the peaceful attempt to obtain a redress of grievances."

According to Hecht, "nothing could be further from the truth."

He said a detailed description of the backgrounds of Castro and the others, showing that they have been active in community work, is "merely an attempt to envelop them with a cloak of respectability, good judgment and sound community concern, and is an affront to those citizens in this country who have engaged in lawful, peaceful protest in an effort to effect school changes."

In their request for an injunction, A. L. Warin, chief counsel of the Southern California Chapter of American Civil Liberties Union, and the other attorneys, had sought to bar Dist. Atty. Evelle J. Younger from prosecuting the men on the basis that they were denied equal protection of the law.

Although they asked that the case be dismissed, Wirin and the others still are trying to block the prosecution by contending that Mexican-Americans are systematically kept from serving on the grand jury, by charging that the evidence was insufficient to indict their clients, and by seeking a writ of habeas corpus.

No reason was given for dismissal of the injunction request.

In their petition for a writ, Wirin and the others charged that the further prosecution of the defendants would violate their constitutional rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly and to petition the government for the redress of grievances.

It has been alleged that the students walkouts of March 5-8 at Garfield, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Belmont were not spontaneous but rather the result of careful off-campus planning by the defendants.

Warin claims, however, that the intentional singling out of the 13 men for prosecution was discriminatory and arbitrary, and he noted that in many similar demonstrations and boycotts at other public schools there were no such prosecutions.

Responding to many of the defense charges, Hecht quoted from the grand jury testimony of school administrators, teachers and police officers, seeking to show that the walkouts consisted of more than just peaceful demonstrations.

He said a bomb threat was telephoned to Garfield on March 5 for the purpose of evacuating the school so the defendants would have a better access to the students. He said some of them were seen distributing empty bottles for throwing.

A police officer called to Roosevelt on March 6 testified that one of the defendants told him that "one of these days we're going to kill you."