workingclasshistory:

On this day, 29 August 1970, Ruben Salazar, US Army veteran and the first Mexican-American mainstream media journalist to write about the Chicano community was killed by police during a protest against the Vietnam war. Due to his support for the Chicano movement and coverage of police racism, Salazar became a target of the FBI. On the day of the protest, Salazar had gone to a bar to get a beer, when an LA County sheriff’s deputy fired a 10-inch teargas projectile made to blast through walls at his head, killing him instantly. Police claimed the wrong type of projectile was fired accidentally. But the county later reached a settlement of $700,000 with the Salazar family, the highest ever paid out at that time.
Learn more about the Vietnam war in our podcast with Noam Chomsky and a member of the Vietnamese Women’s Union: https://workingclasshistory.com/2018/10/31/e14-the-vietnam-war-with-noam-chomsky/ https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1198971120288036/?type=3