Mayhem and Murder in L.A.

The hotels bear names out of the vanished past of a Raymond Chandler novel: the Palms-Wilshire, the Californian, the Barbizon. But in the once tony Wilshire-Alvarado district of Los Angeles, a swath of wide streets and pink stucco apartment buildings five minutes from downtown, the elegance is gone. There, amid broken glass, dank, urine-stained hallways, and discount shops, live more than 1,000 Marielitos, many sporting the telltale tattoos that mark them as former prisoners in Cuban jails. Squalid $8 rooms serve as base camps for drug dealers, prostitutes and holdup gangs. Nearby MacArthur Park, once a palm-lined site for shuffleboard and paddleboats, long ago became outlaw territory.

The hotel desk clerks sit behind giant metal grates and wear bulletproof vests. Druggists position revolvers and clubs in strategic spots under their counters. "They've created fear everywhere," says Barbizon Property Manager Mark Dolan about the Marielitos. When he started his job three months ago, Dolan hired armed guards for the hotel; he has since been accosted three times.

Violent crime Marielito-style came to dominate the district slowly, as Castro's ex-inmates moved in from Miami. The new arrivals overran a 25-block area around the intersection of Wilshire and Alvarado. Their criminal specialties are small time: purse snatchings, storefront stickups, car thefts, burglaries. What distinguishes the offenses, however, is the viciousness with which they are carried out. When a robbery victim gave up his wallet to Cuban attackers but refused to yield his ring, they hung him from an iron fence by his hand. The ring came off; so did a finger. When a dog snapped at a passing Marielito, the man retaliated by stabbing its owner 17 times. "These are absolutely the meanest, most vicious criminals we've ever encountered," says Los Angeles Police Detective Tony Alvarez. "They have no purpose in life but to kill, rape and maim. They're crazy."

The violence is often absurdly out of proportion to the take. "They'll knock out a $400 window for a box of paper clips. They'll kill you for your belt buckle," says Patrolman Dennis Hansen. "They have no value system--zero." Drug dealing is so blatant that a visiting city councilman and plainclothes policeman were solicited at their car windows. Young Cuban entrepreneurs drop plastic Baggies of "Mexican brown" from their hotel fire escapes to accomplices in the street. Heroin, packaged in balloons, is hawked in the park like soda pop.

The Marielitos of Wilshire-Alvarado sleep late. But by 9 p.m., street traffic picks up around the park, where youths stand three deep, bare-chested or in ragged shirts, making deals and scouting for action. For the legitimate merchants who have chosen to tough it out, however, the terror never wanes. Bootblack Carey Smith, 77, who has worked in the district for 25 years, was robbed eight months ago of $630. But he goes on shining shoes at his small outdoor stall. Says he: "They'd just as soon kill you as look at you. You can feel the danger all the time."

Marielito arrests are so numerous and so frequent that police have given up trying to keep track of them. Last year Los Angeles police had to abandon a purse-snatching stakeout across from the park 20 minutes after setting it up. They caught so many offenders that they ran out of arresting officers. Even those who are apprehended show surprising fearlessness and contempt for the law. "For guys used to standing in a four-by-four cell all day, our prisons are like country clubs," observes Detective Alvarez. Many in the police force feel overwhelmed. The situation, says Plainclothes Patrolman Manny Mata, a seven-year veteran of the district, "is completely out of control." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.