01/10/05

LC050110

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

It was a shocking crime. The challenge now is how to turn an
act of animal cruelty into a lesson on life.

Chris Steinhauser>> It's going to take us some time to figure
out why these kids did what they did and to want to come back
and do even more damage, you know, which is very heartbreaking
and sad for us.

Val>> And then, how do you set a gangbanger on the right path?
Sometimes you just have to show them the right moves.

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.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> What could cause a group of teenage boys to break into an
aquarium, vandalize some of the exhibits and then kill a ray and
two sharks? That question is hard to answer, but officials at
the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach are trying to turn
last month's crime into something positive. How? Toni Guinyard
goes to Long Beach where the acts of animal cruelty fly in the
face of everything the Aquarium stands for.

Jerry Schubel>> I think all of the life that we have is very
important. It takes on added importance to the extent that we
use these animals to connect our visitors with nature.

Toni Guinyard>> The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach draws
an average of 1.2 million visitors each year plus another
180,000 student groups.

Madison Gifford>> They have sting rays and sharks and fish and
stuff.

[Film Clip]

Chris Steinhauser>> This is a lab. This is an actual lab.
These young people here are so fortunate to see these animals in
their natural habitat and get to learn from them firsthand and
we want to make sure that we always have that opportunity.

Toni Guinyard>> But this learning opportunity could have been
threatened by the alleged actions of four middle school
students. Police accuse them of breaking into the Aquarium's
Shark Lagoon area on a Sunday night after closing and committing
what is described as an unthinkable act of violence.

Jerry Schubel>> Three kids broke into the Aquarium and they
killed two sharks and they injured a ray to the extent that the
ray died. They also threw some smaller sharks and fish into the
big tank behind me and they threw things into the Touch Pool.

Toni Guinyard>> The following Monday night --

Jerry Schubel>> Those same three kids and one other broke into
the Aquarium and they were apprehended.

Chris Steinhauser>> I think it's going to take us some time to
figure out why these kids did what they did and to want to come
back and even do more damage, you know, which is very
heartbreaking and sad for us.

Toni Guinyard>> The police investigation may have netted
suspects, two thirteen year olds and one fourteen year old, but
did not provide what the Aquarium president and Long Beach
Unified School District Superintendent needed most: answers.

Chris Steinhauser>> Why did these children do that? Why did
they come here to commit this act of violence? And then from
that, we have to say how can we prohibit this from ever
happening again?

Jerry Schubel>> We have to find out can we get to those kids to
see what the driving force or the motivation was and can we
remove some of that?

Toni Guinyard>> Schubel and his staff came up with an idea.
Rather than simply mourn what happened here, give students in
middle school a chance to speak up. Rather than blame them as a
group, give them a voice. The decision was made to hold an
essay contest.

Jerry Schubel>> We asked the kids to express how they felt
about it, what they thought that we should do to prevent it from
happening again, and what they thought some of the causes of
this kind of behavior was.

Toni Guinyard>> They called it a healing word from local kids.
More than five hundred entries were received, each one detailing
students' reaction to the vandalism and violence, each one
providing insight into how they viewed their relationship with
nature.

Chris Steinhauser>> Young folks said if people can do this to
animals, then what's stopping them from doing this and even
worse things to human beings?

Toni Guinyard>> The essay contest also served another purpose.
It gave all of the adults a little bit of advice from the real
experts: the students and what they had to say made a lot of
sense.

Jerry Schubel>> They care about animals, they care about the
planet, they believe that human beings have a responsibility to
take care of all other living things. They were outraged that
this happened and most of them had suggestions that were
learning experiences for the kids that did it.

Chris Steinhauser>> So, for example, one of them is setting up
classes on how to treat animals and that type of thing. Another
one was bringing young folks here to do sort of like
apprenticeship type programs as early as late elementary and
middle school so that they see animals in a wonderful way for
community service and even job opportunities for these young
folks.

Toni Guinyard>> If there is any doubt about how great an
emotional impact vandalism has, you need look no further than
Los Cerritos Elementary School. Too young to participate in the
Aquarium's essay contest, but old enough to understand right
from wrong, Paula Spenker's first grade class wrote their own
essays and drew pictures about the Aquarium violence.

Paula Spenker>> Some of them would not speak at all when we
discussed it, so when they went back to their desks and wrote
and drew about it, you could see the anger. They drew the
eyebrows and actually children shooting sharks.

Madison Gifford>> I drew the sting ray in the water and then I
wrote about one boy climbing up the fence and the other boy
waiting on the bottom to see how they got in.

Oscar Wirga>> I was really sad because I just don't like people
to hurt animals.

Paula Spenker>> It surprised me, the anger they showed. What
surprised me too was some of them were concerned about the boys
that did this. Are their parents going to be mad at them? They
didn't understand really the scope of the trouble that these
boys were going to be in. They were worried that their moms and
dads were going to be mad at them.

Diana Bosetti>> I was surprised at one in particular, Lian.

Lian Montejo>> They climbed over the fence and they killed one
sting ray and two sharks.

Diana Bosetti>> He drew a picture of a boy pointing a gun at
the shark, which obviously that didn't happen, but I think they
really understood some of the violence that's happening among
the youth in our country.

Toni Guinyard>> Diana Bosetti is the class Room Mom. Her son,
Dominick, had a typical first grader's reaction to and curiosity
about what happened at the Aquarium.

Diana Bosetti>> I think mainly he just didn't understand how
they did it. He said, well, how did they get in? How did they
climb the fence? He'd always thought of sharks as being rather
ferocious and so to learn that some kids had killed a shark, he
at first didn't understand how it could even happen.

Toni Guinyard>> Bosetti, like many other parents, is shocked by
the violence and the arrest of the middle school boys. She
wants youngsters to learn from, rather than be frightened by,
the incident, so she spearheaded plans for a bake sale. Every
single child understood they were raising money to adopt a
shark.

Madison Gifford>> To help the Aquarium because three bad boys
killed a sting ray and two sharks.

Paula Spenker>> They were paying five dollars for one chocolate
chip cookie. We had parents that weren't even in our class
dropping off checks for one hundred dollars.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> Just one of many responses giving the Aquarium
staff reason to have hope and believe they're succeeding in
their goal to use the violent act as a way to teach a valuable
lesson, one of right, wrong and our relationship with nature, a
lesson even a first grader can understand.

Oscar Wirga>> I would say why would you do such a thing like
that? Why would you kill sea creatures? Lots of people like
seeing sea creatures that they've never seen before.

Diana Bosetti>> I think that big things can come out of little
people. If you care enough about the community and what's
happening around you, big changes can be made by anybody.

Toni Guinyard>> And perhaps changes in the way children view
the environment are being made with every touch and smile. I'm
Toni Guinyard for Life and Times.

Val>> As for the teenagers accused of the crime, if convicted,
they could get anything from probation to time in the Youth
Authority. In the meantime, the Aquarium has beefed up its
security.

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Val>> Some would call it just another dull Southern California
apartment complex. Others would say, no, it's a perfect example
of post-war modern architecture, a 1950's garden city. We're
talking about Chase Knolls in Sherman Oaks and now its owners
want to add on to this historic landmark. We first visited
Chase Knolls four years ago. As Gay Yee tells us, at that time,
they were facing possible demolition.

Gay Yee>> When you think of historic homes, you perhaps think
of a craftsman like the Gamble House or a Spanish revival or
maybe a Frank Lloyd Wright, but the Chase Knolls Garden
Apartments in Sherman Oaks? To some, it seems a bit of a
stretch.

Susan Jagiello>> Here is what we call the historic entrance to
Chase Knolls Farms....

Gay Yee>> That is, until you take a tour with Susan Jagiello,
nicknamed the resident docent of Chase Knolls.

Susan Jagiello>> What is interesting about the entryway
treatments, again, the buildings themselves are modern. They're
very, very spare. They were designed visually to recede against
the background and let the landscaping, as it develops, come to
the fore.

Gay Yee>> It's a glimpse into the history and architectural
significance of this post-World War II apartment complex built
around gardens and constructed to create a sense of community.

Susan Jagiello>> It's also about creating an environment for
people that they want to hold onto, an environment that is
humanizing. When I see so much apartment construction today, it
is dehumanizing.

Gay Yee>> Chase Knolls was originally the Chase Farm in the
1920's. Then in the late 1940's, the family turned it into 260
apartments. Little has changed. It still looks like this old
Chamber of Commerce photograph.

Susan Jagiello>> The only thing that's different is basically
the paint job and the height of the trees.

Gay Yee>> Jagiello and other people who live there believe
Chase Knolls is a classic example of the garden city and modern
movements in architecture.

Susan Jagiello>> The sparseness of the architecture, the
emphasis on geometric shapes that you see around the entryways
and in the eaves and, most important to the garden city
movement, it is the relationship of the buildings themselves to
the landscaping. Take a look at one of the typical one-bedrooms
that we have here...

Gay Yee>> Inside, many of the units still have the original
hardwood floors and kitchens have the original stainless steel
counters.

Susan Jagiello>> During the war, steel, of course, was rationed
for civilian use. It went entirely into the war effort. So in
the post-war building boom, it was considered very modern and
almost a sign of luxury at the time to have stainless steel
fittings.

Gay Yee>> Even the bathrooms have stainless steel accents and,
of course, the trademark view into the courtyards. Jagiello
says they simply don't make them like they used to.

Susan Jagiello>> A typical new apartment today is built -- it's
curb to curb concrete. It has something that's basically a
glorified planter in front, three or four feet worth of grass in
which shrubs, bushes and maybe a few small trees are planted.
They call that a greenbelt. This is what we call a greenbelt.
A very different concept.

Mary Jane Atkins>> The architecture blends in with the
landscape to provide open community space. That makes it a
beautiful place to live. New urbanists today are studying and
planning communities just based on this idea, and Chase Knolls
is a perfect example of the garden city movement.

Gay Yee>> Part of the problem here is historic significance is
in the eye of the beholder. Is Chase Knolls an architectural
treasure? Well, that depends on who you talk to and their
architect.

Robert Chattel>> They said it falls into this important
category of design, garden city movement, and it falls into this
important category of design, modern movement. Based upon our
analysis, it falls into neither.

Gay Yee>> Preservation architect, Robert Chattel, has worked on
historic projects such as the Los Angeles Central Library and
has been employed by Legacy as a consultant. In his opinion,
there's nothing at Chase Knolls worth saving. He cites The
Village Green Apartments in Baldwin Hills as the quintessential
example of garden city architecture. Chattel says Chase Knolls
doesn't even come close. Village Green has a large greenbelt in
the center, while Chase Knolls has parking that bisects the
complex. Buildings cluster around three park-like courtyards,
not a huge central park.

Robert Chattel>> That doesn't seem to be a significant property
type worthy of preservation. What does it tell us about our
history? We're building garden apartments today. We were
building garden apartments before. What does this tell us about
our history? Is it a type that we want to emulate? I'm not
sure it is.

Ben Reznik>> What you have here is a situation where a group of
tenants who wanted to avoid eviction and wanted to avoid having
to lose their rent-controlled units came upon the idea of
historical designation as a tool for which to delay, if you
will, and to defer their need to move.

Gay Yee>> Despite what the developer says, Chase Knolls does
have the backing of the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage
Commission's architect, who recommended in this staff report
that the complex be added to the city's list of historic
cultural monuments, and the Los Angeles Conservancy agrees.

Ken Bernstein>> We do believe very strongly that it does meet
the criteria in the city's cultural heritage ordinance for
designation.

Gay Yee>> However, attorney Reznik points out that, even if the
City Council votes to give Chase Knolls an historic designation,
it still does not prevent Legacy from ultimately demolishing it.
Residents say what a tragic legacy that would be.

Val>> The Los Angeles City Council did indeed vote to make
Chase Knolls an historic cultural monument. That was in 2000.
Now there's another battle brewing. The current owners want to
build on to the complex, adding five buildings and 140 units.
The Los Angeles Conservancy is questioning the size of the
proposed expansion.

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Val>> We usually think of ballet as something for the
culturally elite, but we found a place in Orange County where
ballet is transforming the lives of inner city kids, helping
them build self-esteem and avoiding the pitfalls in their
neighborhood. It is Saint Joseph Ballet and it all began with a
former nun who wanted to make a difference.

Beth Burns>> Saint Joseph Ballet's mission is to offer young
people the chance to grow in self-esteem, self-discipline and a
sense of accomplishment.

>> The ballet has made a wonderful difference in my life. It
has not only like made me into what I am today, but it has given
me a perspective of what I can be in the future.

>> I started ballet when I was about in the fifth grade and I
was eleven years old. I used to be really quiet. You really
couldn't get me to talk. Over the years, I guess from
performing in classes, I'm so outgoing and they can't even get
me to shut up anymore, you know?

Val>> The old center of Santa Ana seems more like a Mexican
town than the Orange County city it is. The midday calm here
can be deceiving. Poverty is prevalent. Gangs and drugs are a
problem and the teenage pregnancy rate is the highest in the
county. Here, hidden away above the street, is the studio of
Saint Joseph Ballet.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Beth Burns founded the ballet in 1983 to help at-risk
kids. Today the program has over three hundred students with
ninety-eight percent of them on complete scholarships.

Beth Burns>> When you look at the problems in the inner city, I
think it comes from the sense of hopelessness, a sense that
there are no options. You know, I spend a lot of time talking
with the kids. We all do here. I one time asked a kid, well,
you all know how dangerous gangs are. Why do you choose them?
Because it's better than being nothing.

[Film Clip]

Beth Burns>> I think what makes our work special is actually
the kids getting in touch with the power of their own spirit and
we measure success by the choices that they make in their lives.

>> Just being here and dedicating yourself to the ballet has
kept me away from, you know, the pressures that are out there.
One of those was like from getting pregnant. I know a lot of my
friends that haven't made it and that they are pregnant or they
are in gangs and the ballet has been there for me to get away
from those pressures.

[Film Clip]

>> I was in a gang in Whittier and I would go along with my
friends and we'd just drive around and do like bad things. I'm
really ashamed of what I've done. My mom would walk all the way
to the ballet to make sure I was here. I used to come here and
then I would leave, so she would make sure I'm here. Then I
started to like it towards the beginning and I've been coming
ever since.

Beth Burns>> We actually do a lot of personal counseling with
the kids and, sure, there are times where they don't like what
we have to say, but, you know, you just be that gentle strength
for them. There are a lot of people who sometimes talk about
adults don't want to be adults anymore. Let me tell you,
working with young people, with all the highs and lows that they
have, we need to be there for them. They're making life and
death choices.

Beth Burns>> "Foundation. What kind of foundation do you have?
So this is a very simple exercise, but we need to set a firm
foundation so that whatever you do in life -- okay, this is just
a silly little dance class, okay? So it doesn't really matter.
But who you are and saying I will learn what it is and I will do
it instead of fishing in the dark, okay? One-to-three-four.
Look, five-six-seven-eight. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-
eight. Come on, come on, come on. It's simple, folks. Here I
am, here I am. You're not going to forget me. That's what I'd
like to see."

[Film Clip]

>> I think Beth loves us a lot. Not only is she there for you
as a teacher, but as a friend. She just wants the best for us
and she wants to teach us to work hard for what we want because,
if you don't work hard, then you're not going to get what you
want. If it wasn't for that strictness and that she motivates
us and just for being honest, you know, we wouldn't be where we
are today.

Beth Burns>> "Now if you take your arms way down here, you're
going to be way too slow, so four-five. . ."

Val>> Beth Burns trained as a dancer, but chose college over a
dance career. Later she became a nun and taught high school.
She started her dance program because she hoped it would let her
have more of an influence on kids. Eventually she left the
religious order and dedicated herself entirely to the dance
school.

Beth Burns>> From day one, from the children's faces, it was
clear that this was a very strong way for them to feel their own
talent and potential. I knew that this was what I wanted to
keep doing because the results are so visible. They're clear on
a daily basis when you see the kids' faces.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Among the students here are more than forty boys. Some
stay for just a year. Others remain for five or six years
attending up to six classes a week. The school has five
teachers and the students are ethnically diverse. Admission is
based on desire, some degree of coordination, and financial
need. The school raises $400,000 annually to keep itself going.

[Film Clip]

Beth Burns>> There is a lot of potential here. I think when
you see the advance class, when you see the talent, you see the
dedication, you see young people who are committing themselves
to developing their talent, you see the opportunity for a number
of young people to go on and become professional.

Val>> Burns enjoys helping particularly talented students, but
to her, the most important thing is giving direction to her
young dancers' lives.

Beth Burns>> It's easy to throw around the word "dreams", but
when you look in the kids' eyes and see their faces, I think for
them to find a place where they're known and loved and
challenged and nurtured and their dignity is recognized, they
have a sense of their possibility in the future.

Val>> If you'd like to see the Saint Joseph Ballet perform,
they're making their Los Angeles debut at Disney Hall's Red Cat
Theatre where both current students and alumni will perform.
That's this Thursday through Sunday. You can get more
information from their website at saintjosephballet.org. 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.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

Inside California's juvenile prisons. Critics say the way we
lock kids up is a crime.

>> It was called gladiator school and it's like -- I mean, it's
like hard-core criminals right there and everything. It's like
another step towards, you know what I mean, prison.

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