The ''Los Angeles Vanguard'' was a weekly newspaper established in 1976 and published in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

Dave Lindorff Dave Lindorff is an American investigative reporter, filmmaker, a columnist for ''CounterPunch'' and a contributor to '' Tarbell.org,'' ''The Nation,'' ''FAIR'' and ''Salon.com''. His work was highlighted by Project Censored 2004, 2011 and 2012. ...

was a founder and editor, along with journalists Woodrow "Tommy" Thompson, Dorothy Thompson, Ben Pleasants, Ron Ridenour, and Jim Horowitz. A number of the ''Vanguard'' founders had previously written for the ''

Los Angeles Free Press The ''Los Angeles Free Press'', also called the "''Freep''", is often cited as the first, and certainly was the largest, of the underground newspapers of the 1960s. The ''Freep'' was founded in 1964 by Art Kunkin, who served as its publisher un ...

''. While writing for the ''Vanguard'', Lindorff was given the Grand Prize of the

Los Angeles Press Club The Los Angeles Press Club is an American journalism organization founded in 1913. It honors journalists through its annual National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards and SoCal Journalism Awards. As of 2023, the Los Angeles Press Club hosted ...

for his reporting as well as an award for Best Article in a Weekly. According to Lindorff, the ''Vanguard'' was infiltrated by an undercover member of L.A.'s Public Disorder Intelligence Division (PDID) squad, under

Daryl Gates Daryl Francis Gates (born Darrel Francis Gates; August 30, 1926 – April 16, 2010) was an American police officer who served as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1978 to 1992. His length of tenure in this position was second only t ...

. The lawsuit ''CAPA v. Gates'', with the Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA) as one of two dozen or so plaintiffs, later sued the

Los Angeles Police Department The City of Los Angeles Police Department, commonly referred to as Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the th ...

(LAPD) on

First Amendment First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

grounds, exposing unlawful harassment, surveillance, and infiltration of the progressive movement in Los Angeles by LAPD agents — and a link to a right-wing outfit called the

Western Goals Foundation Western Goals Foundation was a private domestic intelligence agency active in the United States.Staff writer (Jan. 2, 1989)"Western Goals Foundation."''Interhemispheric Resource Center/International Relations Center''. Archived frothe original. ...

, which was assembling the collected spy dossiers and making them available to law enforcement nationwide and to the federal spy agencies that were feeling hamstrung by the post-

Watergate The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. The scandal began in 1972 and ultimately led to Nixon's resignation in 1974, in August of that year. It revol ...

reforms limiting such spying. The lawsuit against Gates and the LAPD proved successful. A police commission ordered the disbandment of the PDID, which took place in January 1983."Infiltrating the Public," ''

TIME Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'', (26 December 1983)
Archived
at the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...

. The ''Vanguard'', meanwhile, published for 14 months before shutting down in the summer of 1977.

References

External links

The Los Angeles Vanguard Archive
Park Center for Independent Media Alternative weekly newspapers published in the United States Newspapers published in Greater Los Angeles Newspapers established in 1976 Weekly newspapers published in California {{California-newspaper-stub