06/03/04

LC040603

This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City
of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Random violence changed this beautiful child's life forever, so
why haven't we heard any public outcry?

Brooks Hurst>> We just let it happen. Our leaders aren't doing
anything. Oh, they'll have another little rally when some kid -
- a little boy got shot a couple weeks ago -- and they'll have a
Stop the Violence rally and then everybody will go back to doing
what they always do.

Val>> And then, she danced her way to success as a professional
ballerina, but what she did for an encore is even more
impressive.

All that and more straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> It's an unfortunate part of life in the big city and, if
we're lucky, it will never touch us or those we love. But
violent crime has scarred the lives of scores of Southern
California families and, for them, violent crime means much more
than just something they watch on the local news. You're about
to meet one of the youngest victims. She's a survivor and, as
Toni Guinyard tells us, she's typical of many more innocent
children in Los Angeles who get caught in the crossfire.

Maira Morales>> I'm angry because there's a lot of violence in
the world.

Toni Guinyard>> Maira Morales has a right to be angry. In a
split second, she became a statistic, one of those people too
often described with clichés, a victim of random violence, an
unintended target, a child in the wrong place at the wrong time
caught in the crossfire. It was the summer of 2001. Maira had
just been promoted from the fourth grade. She was shot as she
waited to buy corn from a vendor's cart on Normandie Avenue near
51st Street. She remembers two men approaching, walking down
the sidewalk.

Maira Morales>> They were laughing like friends, normal
friends, and one just went back to a corner and the other one
just stayed right here and they started yelling. One stood
behind me and the other one went on the corner. He just got
there and they started shooting. When the other man who was
standing behind me went down on the floor and the bullet hit me
on the shoulder.

Toni Guinyard>> The shooting happened here just outside Maira's
front door. She calls it an accident. That accident happened
and everyone quickly Maira one of the innocent victims. Now
she's being called a true survivor and an inspiration. Maira
was paralyzed from the waist down. The chain of events on that
summer day has impacted so many lives including the lives of
people who don't even know her, but live in the same
neighborhood. They've seen how violence rips a family and a
community apart. They understand.

Thomas Herron>> A friend of mine down the street, his nephew
was killed the other day. They just rode up on a bike. He was
pulling out of his driveway and they said they found shells and
they say he fell dead falling out of his car. So it's really
getting worse over here instead of better.

Toni Guinyard>> Maira's godmother and little sister witnessed
her shooting.

Maira Morales>> She saw everything that happened. She was
playing outside. The whole block was outside.

Sandra Jimenez>> She was over here and she picked her up and I
had to come over and help her to pick her up.

Toni Guinyard>> The shooting, this random violence, did not
spark public outrage, but it should have.

Brooks Hurst>> We just let it happen. Our leaders aren't doing
anything. Oh, they'll have another little rally when some kid -
- a little boy got shot a couple weeks ago -- and they'll have a
Stop the Violence rally and then everybody will go back to doing
what they always do. You know, all the liquor stores will sell
more alcohol. All the drug dealers will pass on more cocaine
and crack and everyone will sit back down and wait for the next
victim.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> Brooks Hurst is Maira's physical education
teacher. He is one of the handful of people who understands
just how much of a challenge Maira and some of her classmates
face day to day.

Brooks Hurst>> Perfect. All right, go back to the wall. Good
job.

Brooks Hurst>> Maira is someone who is going to succeed, but
it's going to be tough. My challenge is to let her know that
she still has a lot to offer and that's my theme with her.

Toni Guinyard>> At what point did you realize your life was
going to be completely different?

Maira Morales>> Well, I didn't realize that it was going to be
different because, when I was in the hospital, I thought they
were just going to take out the bullet and then I would be like
normal. Then they told me that it was going to be like a whole
lot different.

Brooks Hurst>> Again, come on, get going.

Maira Morales>> I told them I couldn't feel my legs. I was
like why can't I, you know. Then they were like, oh, you're
going to be in a wheelchair. I'm like, wow. It was like
surprising for me because I thought they were just going to pull
out the bullet and I would be like normal, but no.

Toni Guinyard>> Maira's hope is to become physically stronger
every day and she's counting on this adaptive physical education
class to help her achieve that goal. Here, she and her
classmates make their hard work look like play, but it is work.

[Film Clip]

Maira Morales>> I miss like running and playing with my friends
because I used to do a lot of jump rope and play around like
running. I miss helping my mom a lot because I used to help her
like a lot.

Toni Guinyard>> Doing what?

Maira Morales>> Like going to the laundry. Now I don't go to
the laundry because it's hard.

Toni Guinyard>> Maira willingly talks about what happened to
her, but she does not feel sorry for herself. If anything, her
anger is caused by how readily too many people accept violence
as just another hazard of life in Los Angeles.

Maira Morales>> They should stop violence. There's a lot of
violence. I don't know why.

Brooks Hurst>> Unfortunately, a lot of the people who commit
these kinds of acts just don't care. They really don't care and
I've seen them. I've seen them. I've talked to them and I
know. They don't care and that's just a fact of life in the
inner city.

>> "Come on, you're late. Hurry up."

Toni Guinyard>> Teachers and administrators at Henry Clay
Middle School, the school Maira attends, are working with
students to break the cycle of violence through education and
inspiration.

Cris Ziegel>> There are some things that we can't change. We
can't change -- we could provide a phone book list of the
reasons why we can't be successful, but I think the driving
belief is that, with an education and a group of people that
believe in the performance of the students that they will have
the ability to make choices and we hope that those become
positive choices that are going to allow them to be successful.

Toni Guinyard>> Maira and Henry Clay Middle School are a
perfect fit.

>> Two times three is --

Maira Morales>> Six.

>> Six, okay. And three times what is fifteen?

Maira Morales>> Five.

>> Okay.

Toni Guinyard>> She has high expectations for herself and the
school has high expectations for its students.

Cris Ziegel>> I don't think Maira perceives herself as having
any deficits. I think she perceives herself as a very, very
normal young lady that's growing up and I think that she has
that positive attitude. I think down the road we're going to
see great things from Maira.

Brooks Hurst>> I've given her a booklet, a diary so to speak,
to write down every day like for a year and a half. I want her
to write her thoughts down, learn vocabulary. She could be a
writer. She could be a reporter.

Toni Guinyard>> She could take my job.

Brooks Hurst>> Well, you know, maybe someday she'll have a job
similar to yours.

Ana Azcarate>> She, to me, is a daily inspiration. She's
amazing.

Toni Guinyard>> Ana Azcarate is Maira's healthcare assistant.
She was assigned to work with Maira just months after the
shooting. She is with Maira every day at school. She has
watched her progress and is astounded by her attitude, inspired
by her determination.

Ana Azcarate>> When I found out what had happened to her, she
explained to me and she said, you know, I never thought of
giving up, you know. I know now how my life has changed, but I
still want to be a teacher.

Maira Morales>> A fourth grade teacher.

Toni Guinyard>> Why fourth grade?

Maira Morales>> Because they're not that little and they're not
that big. Because middle school, like they say, they're bad.

Toni Guinyard>> They really aren't bad. They're just typical
middle school students doing typical middle school things, and
Maira is just another one of the 2,100 youngsters enrolled in
this school. She just happens to be a girl in a wheelchair, a
victim of random violence teaching those around her a lesson
about perseverance.

Maira Morales>> With other patients, I've been right there with
them and they are like, oh, life is hard, I don't want to live.
I'm like why do you say that? You have to keep on going.

Brooks Hurst>> After what she's been through, she could take it
and use it, hopefully, to help others, maybe even stop this type
of senseless violence that's permeated our inner city.

Ana Azcarate>> How could you complain when you see her, you
know, her life has changed so drastically and she keeps going?

Sandra Jimenez>> I love her. I know that she's in a
wheelchair, but I still love her.

Toni Guinyard>> Maira has a way of making the people around her
believe you really can reach your goals if you're determined not
to let an act of random violence define who you are and what
you're capable of doing.

Brooks Hurst>> Other direction, ready, go. One-two-three.

Val>> As you've probably guessed, Maira has big plans for her
life and she's not about to let her wheelchair get in the way.
She's interested in theatre, writing and visual arts and she
hopes to take part in an after-school program that encompasses
all three.

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Val>> Street drugs are often the cause of violent crime and,
whether we like it or not, there's a new one making the rounds
in Southern California. Our friends at Channel One News
recently spent some time with a special narcotics strike team in
California's Central Valley. As Laura Ling tells us, that's
where they encountered a new variation of an old drug. It's
called "Ice".

Laura Ling>> Well, these guys are gearing up and getting ready
to go raid a suspected meth house. In California's Central
Valley, I went out with the team from the Fresno Meth Taskforce.
Can you tell me about all the equipment that you're wearing
right now?

>> Basically, it's all safety equipment. We have the Kevlar
helmet, the Nomex mask to protect us in case there's a flash
fire, Nomex gloves. We have the Nomex suit, the bulletproof
gear.

Laura Ling>> Well, with all of their gear, I'm not worried
about them, but what about us? (Laughter)

>> Everybody understands their assignment? Okay, everybody
knows where they're supposed to be? Okay, let's go.

Laura Ling>> We followed at the end of the convoy as the
taskforce pulled up to the suspect's house.

>> Hold it right there!

Laura Ling>> Did you see him? He just said don't make me shoot
you.

>> You may want to use your cover of the vehicle for right now
in case some shots are fired. You want to kind of use that
because they're going to be searching this way.

Laura Ling>> Right here?

>> Yeah, just kind of --

Laura Ling>> Okay, thanks. The taskforce searched the
neighborhood and eventually found all four suspects. Inside the
house was a meth amphetamine lab and the meth they found was
being manufactured into a more powerful type called "Ice".

Robert Pennal>> There's meth right there and there's probably
meth in solution down here. The finished product will be like
rock candy. It'll look like rock candy crystals.

Laura Ling>> Ice is an ultra-pure and highly addictive form of
meth amphetamine. How common is it these days to find Ice at a
site?

Robert Pennal>> Almost all the meth we see, everything is Ice
now. Especially for us with large-scale labs, we will hit
places that will have fifty to seventy-five pounds of Ice.

Laura Ling>> As school kids got off the bus across the street,
officers in protective suits carry toxic pieces from the lab
into the driveway. Over the last decade, illegal labs producing
meth amphetamine have spread from California across the United
States and now police are finding that many of these labs are
producing Ice. Experts say meth amphetamine in any form is one
of the most addicting drugs there is.

Robert Pennal>> You're going to smoke it or you're going to
inject it and then, once you start smoking it and once you start
injecting it, believe me, that's how you get addicted to it and
you can get addicted quickly to it. There has never, ever been
a worse drug in the United States.

Laura Ling>> Yeah, the up highs that are the cars that are
right there. I could see how easy it is for people to buy and
sell Ice when I went along on an undercover operation to arrest
suspected Ice dealers. We're completely covering all of the
windows of this vehicle with towels and sheets. We were in an
unmarked police van conducting surveillance. We are parked just
a block down from the location at a school. You see right over
here there are lots of children playing at recess. A few
hundred feet from a school, suspects in this house were selling
Ice. We watched as customers came and went and eventually one
of the dealers strolled out. He just walked outside to buy an
ice cream cone, but little does he know that, in about ten or
fifteen minutes, he's going to jail.

>> UC, is that the target location?

Laura Ling>> Then an undercover police officer, or UC, arrived
in this truck.

>> He's got two fingers out. He's doing a hand sign back to
the house. Okay, the secondary and primary are outside. Both
are outside at this time.

Laura Ling>> We watched the undercover officer buy Ice from the
two dealers.

>> UC says anytime, Don.

Laura Ling>> The undercover said to pull in anytime, so they're
going to make the arrest any moment. The dealers went back into
the house just moments before the police arrived. Here comes
one of the cars. Oops, there they go, there they go. One, two,
three, four, five, six, seven officers right in front of the
door. They are busting in. Wow, this is crazy. There they go.
They got them. A few minutes later, the dealers were in
handcuffs. It was one more victory in the fight against meth
amphetamine and Ice.

Robert Pennal>> Since we've started, when we broke it down to
dosage units for users, we estimated that we've taken probably
sixty-four billion dosages off the street.

Val>> Laura Ling tells us another hot spot for Ice is Hawaii.
It's taken a huge toll on young people there and it has become
the drug of choice in a place that many of us would consider a
paradise.

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Val>> Carole Valleskey has achieved what thousands of little
girls only dream of. She has reached the pinnacle of dance as a
ballerina with the Joffrey Ballet. But what does a dancer of
her caliber do for an encore? She teaches at a few fortunate
elementary schools and she does so with so much energy and
authority that even the boys are discovering how great dance can
be.

I went to Eagle Rock Elementary School where Carole was
commanding the rapt attention of fourth graders. There is
something unusual happening in the auditorium at Eagle Rock
Elementary. Once a week, more than fifty squirming fourth
graders take the stage eager to start their favorite class.

>> I really do look forward to it every week. It's so fun. We
learn a lot of good steps every week and Carole is so nice.

Val>> The teacher is Carole Valleskey, a professional dancer
turned educator. And how does she get the class started?
Without words.

[Film Clip]

Carole Valleskey>> Many times when you don't speak, that's when
children will start listening even more. They're used to being
in a classroom. They're talked at all day long, and as soon as
you start doing something, it's dramatic when you don't speak.

Val>> Carole Valleskey went from principal dancer with the
prestigious Joffrey Ballet Company to principal teacher and
founder of the California Dance Institute. She's more than a
teacher. She's an energizer. Half drill sergeant, half artist,
one hundred percent dedicated.

[Film Clip]

Carole Valleskey>> In the classroom, they have to be inside the
box, so to speak, in the classroom. They have to sit and behave
and all of that or they have the opportunity to go outside on
the playground and explode. What I like to think of what we do
is we create an explosion within the box.

Val>> At a time when the arts in public schools are falling
prey to budget cuts, Carole drives hundreds of miles a week
taking her love of dance with her to five elementary schools.
The teachers at Eagle Rock say the impact is noticeable.

Laurel Hitchcock>> I've seen big increases en masse. I'm
seeing tremendous increases in writing skills. They leave dance
and they're energized and they're freer. All of that is such a
wonderful academic gift.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Carole is, by nature, intense. That same intensity is
what drove her to the top of the competitive world of dance.

Carole Valleskey>> Probably like so many dancers, for me I saw
Fred Astaire movies and thought that that was fabulous. I know
a lot of ballerinas say, oh, they saw "Swan Lake" or "The
Sugarplum Fairy" or whatever. I saw a ballet called "Rodeo".
It was about a cowgirl and it was in boots and it was a lot of
theater and acting. That was always one of my favorite ballets
by Agnes DeMille.

Val>> Carole won a Ford Foundation dance scholarship. At age
twelve, she went to New York and fell in love with the big city.
Years later, she would dance the role that inspired her as a
child.

Carole Valleskey>> I got to do many roles that I had grown up,
you know, liking and wanting to do, one of them being the
cowgirl in "Rodeo".

[Film Clip]

Val>> While her dancing career was in high gear at the Joffrey,
she happened to see a PBS documentary about a former ballet
dancer turned teacher.

[Film Clip]

Carole Valleskey>> I first saw this program when there was a
documentary made about it called "He Makes Me Feel Like
Dancing". It was done with such truth and energy and commitment
and it looked to me like not one of them was making a mistake.

[Film Clip]

Carole Valleskey>> I sort of tucked it away in the back of my
mind thinking this makes enormous sense what Jacques is doing.

Val>> Then in the early 1990's, Carole left the Joffrey and
moved to California where she continued to dance, but she never
forgot the documentary about Jacques d'Amboise and the National
Dance Institute. In 1998, she decided it was time to go to New
York, train under Jacques and bring a dance institute to
Southern California.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Don't be fooled by the fun. The California Dance
Institute's techniques are highly structured.

Carole Valleskey>> Some dancers who have really resumes that
are incredible don't take to this work at all because it's not
really about dance. It's about using dance to teach life and
learning skills, to teach focus and discipline and energy and
commitment which are skills that you need to do anything in
life.

Val>> Carole will often use children to teach children.

[Film Clip]

Val>> I notice that she makes you do things by yourself, like
she had you demonstrate something all by yourself. Is that kind
of scary?

Elisha Marquez>> Well, sometimes it is, but it builds
confidence in us and it really helps us in experience.

Laurel Hitchcock>> And none of them are inhibited.

Val>> But how does she persuade nine and ten year old boys to
dance? It's just a matter of style.

[Film Clip]

Carole Valleskey>> The classroom teachers are always like, oh,
are the boys going to do this? Are they going to dance? I
usually have absolutely no trouble with any of the boys. It's
very athletic, it's in sneakers, they're stomping, they're
punching, they're shouting, and they really love it.

Joshua Austin>> I actually think it's very fun to get out here
and have some excess time just having fun.

Val>> Do guys usually like to dance?

William Babiano>> Well, if it's cool.

Val>> And is this cool?

William Babiano>> Yes.

[Film Clip]

Val>> The hallmark of the California Dance Institute is the
live musical accompaniment provided by pianist Kevin Bowers.
Carole and Kevin work together seamlessly.

Carole Valleskey>> "Can you make up something that goes with
that, Kevin?"

[Film Clip]

Carole Valleskey>> He's crucial for a number of reasons. One,
live music is so important. So many children never hear it
anymore. Two, it keeps the children sort of so involved.

Val>> Today the children are rehearsing for the big final
production at the end of the school year. It will bring more
than 250 students from all five schools together on one stage.

[Film Clip]

Carole Valleskey>> It is about the process, but it's also that
the process leads up to something. We all know about deadlines.
At a certain point, this has to be done and you've got to, you
know, hit the stage or hit the interview or do it.

[Film Clip]

Val>> But Carole's toughest challenge is raising the money that
keeps the California Dance Institute alive, sometimes just
barely.

Carole Valleskey>> It's incredibly difficult to find people
that believe in this kind of program that's really about, you
know, hard work and it's not real glitzy. I get so much joy out
of a ten year old finally mastering a simple step. It's the
thing finally that gave me as much satisfaction as being on
stage.

Val>> And our congratulations to all the children who are part
of the California Dance Institute. And that's our program. I'm
Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for
watching. We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

This program was made possible in part by a grant from the City
of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times, the story of a Southern
California landmark that's getting a lot of attention because of
a hit movie. Can "Seabiscuit" ride to the rescue of Santa
Anita?

>> "Seabiscuit", the movie, is going to be a great shot in the
arm for racing. It will bring people to the facility, but once
we get them here, we have to figure out how to make them happy
while they're here and make it a very interesting day for them
so they'll want to return.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.