1995: Ruben Salazar

December 27, 1995

By Ken Flynn
Herald Post Senior Reporter

Ruben’s mom was a little skeptical.

Her son, rookie El Paso Herald-Post reporter Ruben Salazar – usually a meticulous dresser – was wearing rags on that evening in 1955. He had told his mother that he wouldn’t be coming home because he was going to a hobo party with his friends and they would probably camp out.

Salazar was just beginning his career as a journalist. He had posed as a transient to get himself arrested so he could write about the inhumane conditions in the overcrowded city jail.

Friends and family of the late Luz Salazar said she always worried about her son.

Luz McFarland, Ruben’s older sister, said their mother thought something was fishy that night when Ruben left with his new shoes on under the hobo clothes and came home the next day barefoot.

So it was no real surprise when Mom picked up a copy of the El Paso Herald-Post a few days later and saw her son’s picture on Page 1 as part of an expose of inhumane conditions at the old City Jail, Luz McFarland said.

After starting at the Herald-Post Salazar’s journalism career included stints on newspapers in San Francisco, Petaluma and Santa Rosa, Calif., before he joined the staff of the Los Angeles Times. He served as the Times’ Central American bureau chief, Vietnam war correspondent and columnist.

Salazar was killed in Los Angeles on Aug 29, 1970 while covering the Chicano Vietnam War Moratorium for the Los Angeles Times. Police said Salazar was killed accidentally when he was hit by a tear-gas canister.

He will be inducted into the Authors of the Pass; El Paso Herald-Post Writers Hall of Fame on Nov. 4 at the UTEP Tomas Rivera Conference Center.

McFarland, who is now retired and living in Tucson, Ariz., said she remembers well when her brother posed as a bum to get inside the El Paso jail.

“Ruben was always a sharp dresser and my Mom got a little suspicious because he was wearing his new shoes,” she recalled. “Someone stole the shoes when he was in jail. My mom was furious with him when she read the story about the jail in the Herald-Post. Ruben tried to calm her by saying, ‘This is what I do, Mom; I’m a newspaper reporter.’”

Retired police inspector Arturo Islas remembers the incident and meeting Salazar.

“I though he was very intelligent and very streetwise,” said Islas, who was a captain at the time. “We were used to being picked on by (Herald-Post Editor E.M.) Pooley, so we weren’t that surprised by the story.”

Salazar was born in Juarez but became a U.S. citizen. He grew up in El Paso, attended Lamar Elementary School and graduated from El Paso High School and Texas Western College, now UTEP. His father owned his own jewelry store and designed jewelry for shops as far away as New York City.

McFarland said she has fond memories of growing up with her brother in El Paso.

“Ruben liked to read,” she recalled. “He was always getting certificates from school for reading books. He made good grades in school and always liked to write.”

Salazar had first considered studying to be a mechanical engineer, his sister recalled. But the lure of writing was always stronger.

McFarland said her brother was a champion of the underdog. She recalled how he wrote a scathing letter to the editor of the Herald-Post while in high school because a college team with a black player couldn’t play in El Paso because of segregating laws.

At El Paso High, he wrote a number of articles for the school paper, The Tattler, she said. At TWC he was on the staff of the Prospector.

“In Los Angeles, he had been writing some strong commentaries on the brutality of the Los Angeles Police Department right before he was killed,” she said.

Members of the family said they don’t believe Salazar’s death was an accident.

“We cringe a little when we hear Ruben being described as a martyr,” McFarland said. “He was a journalist, covering a story, and he was assassinated.”

When he died, Salazar left a wife and four children between the ages of 6 and 10 at the time.

His children include Lisa Salazar Johnson, 35, of Huntington Beach, Calif.; Stefanie Salazar Cook, 34, of Honolulu; and Johnny Salazar, 31, of Orange County, Calif. Salazar’s wife, the former Sally Robare, never remarried and died in 1993 at age 63.

Salazar’s mother, Luz Salazar, died on April 9, 1979 at the age of 71. His father, Salvador Salazar, 91, lives with the McFarlands in Tucson. He plans to attend the Writers Hall of fame banquet.

Rosa Guerrera, one of the founders of the Ruben Salazar Foundation, a scholarship program for journalist, said many young journalists looked up to Salazar as a role mode.

“He was a trailblazer,” she said. “He was way ahead of his time.”

During the 18 months that Salazar worked on the staff of the Herald-Post, from April 12, 1955 to Oct. 3, 1956, he tried to convince federal officials to tighten up inspections for illegal drugs.

Salazar was one of the few reporters on the border who was able to interview “La Nacha,” a woman who controlled the drug traffic in Juarez in the 1950’s.

Among the many Salazar stories that are told in the newsroom of the Herald-Post was an account of how he walked into the offices of Editor Pooley with a package of marijuana from “La Nacha” to show the boss how easy it was to cross illegal drugs.

Pooley reportedly bawled out Salazar, made him empty the entire contents of the package into the commode and ordered him to flush it.

Lawyer Tom Diamond remembers meeting Salazar during the inaugural run of the Chihuahua-al-Pacifico railroad in 1961. Diamond was a guest of the Mexican government and Salazar was coving the story for the Los Angeles Times.

“Ruben was a tremendous journalist, ahead of his time,” Diamond said. “He was more than just a reporter. He was always in the thick of things.”

Diamond recalled how he, Salazar, the late Wayne McClintock and three others left the Chihuahua-al-Pacifico train in San Blas, Sinaloa, and returned to the United States via Sonora and Arizona because the train was going too slow, stopping at every little town along the way. “We called ourselves the San Blas, No Mas group,” Diamond recalled. “I got to know Ruben very well on that trip. He had a vibrant personality. He was really a great guy.”

Comments

[Police jobs]

He seems like a very great person may be it in work or personal life. Great post!