A KILLING ON BEVERLY BLVD. & A REVIEW OF THE GOLDEN GLOBES, ANOTHER ONLY IN L.A. STORY

A little more than a week ago, on  the day after the Golden Globe Awards, I was having coffee at Go Get Em Tiger on Larchmont Boulevard when I heard a story that made the word “surreal” come alive for me and exemplified the worst and best of L.A. 

I was  at a four-top surrounded by  10 other people on the sidewalk patio, most of us semi-regulars who frequent the coffeeshop  for our morning world news report.

Off to my left, some folks were reviewing the awards show.  “The Bear” did well. Jo Koy soldiered on despite several duds.  DeNiro, Meryl were there. That Ali Wong, from “Beef” showed up It was a mediocre review.  

As they compared notes,  the guy to my right,  David Strah, said, ‘Man, I had an experience last night I gotta tell you about.”

Strah, a psychotherapist and author of “Gay Dads”, was returning home Sunday night around 6:30 p.m. with his partner Brad and a friend from “a wonderful, uplifting, fantastical experience” at Luna Luna, on exhibit on 6th Street. It’s an amusement park/art installation by David Hockney, Jean-Michel Basquiat and others, including the artist I think of whenever I hear the word “surrealism”, Salvador Dali. First assembled in the 1980s, then mothballed, it has been brought back into existence in L.A. by Drake, the Canadian rapper. 

As Strah and his companions  drove home west-bound on Beverly Boulevard  near Hoover Street, the car in front of them swerved to go around something in the road. Strah’s group realized it was a man in the street. Their first thought was that a drunk had passed out. They  pulled over and called 911. 

“Is he moving?” the operator asked. No, they said, but it was dark. “Can you get out of the car and see what’s going on?” They did and reported back. He was  barely conscious, in a bad way.   “Can you start doing chest compressions?”

Strah went into action. “I straddled him and started pumping away. It was pretty gruesome. His mouth was moving and his eyes were open but not looking at me.”

Then they saw how much blood there was.  On the sidewalk 10 feet away. On the man’s shoulder and all the way down to his waist, and now all over  Strah’s hands. Dark, nearly black blood.

The coffee drinkers across from Strah and me were still talking about the TV show.  Taylor Swift apparently was not very pleased with a dig Koy delivered  about her. Only in L.A. does a man found bleeding in the street compete with an awards show review for attention around a coffee shop table. 

After about six minutes, Strah continued,  paramedics and LAPD showed up and took over. Strah and friends left. One , circled back after he dropped of the other two. He learned that the man had died. This was not text news, so he drove back to tell his friends. 

Damn,” I said to Dave. “After Luna Luna, and Salvador Dali,  you come across surreal for real. Turbocharged surreal.” 

The next day, I went to the northeast corner of Beverly and Hoover and tried to find out something more about the man who died. To humanize him. 

Calls to the homicide detective from Central Bureau who is handling the case  and the L.A. County Coroner’s press office confirmed the incident, but not much more. Same with LAPD press relations. The victim was white, about 45- 50 and had been shot multiple times. 

Where he died, there is an abandoned minimall scrawled with graffiti. I found a homeless man in a tent who said he  knew the victim. “Yeah, he was homeless, and he was always nice to me. But I know he was aggressive with a lot of people down the block. It’s sad.”

All homicides tell a sad story. But for me, this story was more about David, Brad and Kirby, the guys who stopped. Out of dozens of cars that sped by the corner, some surely close enough to see the altercation or the result, these three tried to help a stranger. 

They inspired me.  Not that what I did next  remotely compares. 

On my way to an ATM at the corner of 1st Street and Larchmont on Friday, I saw  a car with its hood up and a guy looking at the engine.  After I did my banking  the man  was still there. I  asked what was wrong. 

The engine had overheated  and he couldn’t open the radiator cap to put in some coolant.   I am something  of an expert on overheated cars. I  got the radiator cap off, the coolant got administered.  The man asked my name as I was walking away and said, “Thank you, Mister Mike.”

I thought, “No, thank David Strah and his friends.  

Yesterday, Tuesday, I heard agaon from the coroner’s office. They still hadn’t found any of the victim’s family.

Anyway, did you happen to see the Emmys on Monday?