The summer of 1969

Tonight, M and I hung out with D and ate pizza. (So much for my diet... :)

Anyway, we had a discussion about things we will never forget. M asked me if I was able to remember the first time I was absolutely terrified.

Simple. August 9, 1969.

I was 17 years old. The night before, I'd come home a bit late and wanted to get to bed right away. I was due to get up early to go somewhere.

When I got up, I heard a lot of activity outside. Police sirens. Ambulances. Police cars from multiple jurisdictions lined the streets; our city police, the LAPD and the Sheriff's Department. The neighborhood security patrol. News media. All sorts of strange people wandering around everywhere. They began knocking on doors.

Phones rang throughout the neighborhood, people calling each other to find out what had happened, if anyone knew. It was obviously something serious. We didn't usually experience things like that in our part of the world. We were fairly insulated from the crime in Los Angeles.

"There has been a multiple murder on Cielo ...."

Several people had been slaughtered. Bodies were in the house and in the yard. It's an infamous case and when I mention the names involved, it will become obvious.

That night, there was another murder in the city a few miles away.

For weeks after the murders, the police presence was unbelievable in our neighborhood. Anyone caught walking around was stopped and questioned. I was stopped several times in my little Toyota and was required to show proof that I lived there. My brother was stopped without his driver's license and was handcuffed on the side of the street. We weren't targets. It was happening to many people, especially young people. The security patrol was increased. It wasn't unusual at all to see red lights of police cars flashing from the front window of our house. I remember seeing them through the stained glass windows to our foyer.

The hardest part was not knowing what in the world was going on, whether it was random or deliberate. We didn't know if someone had targeted our neighborhood, putting all of us in danger. I didn't feel safe going outside at night and I didn't feel safe getting the newspaper in the morning. I didn't feel safe. Period. Anywhere. I don't think it was so much a fear of being murdered as the fear of coming home to a crime scene. I got that feeling in my gut, each time I drove up to the house and especially when I unlocked the door.

The murders that took place in my neighborhood as a teenager were not random, of course. They were deliberate. However, we didn't know that since the perpetrators weren't caught for three or four months.

It was some time in early Autumn when we learned what had happened and why. We learned that it had been a deliberate act of the so-called "Manson family", a ragtag group of hippies and druggies who had a beef with one of the members of the Tate/Polanski household.

What really changed for me personally is that I never felt safe in a house at night again. To this day, I have to check and double-check all the locks on the windows and doors. I am not a fun housemate during the summer because it still completely freaks me out to be in a house that is not secured.

I wonder if that will ever go away completely.


Peace,

~Chani