Points West
The Mayor Gains a Dose of Street Cred

Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times

The word went out to all the candidates:

Thursday night in the 'hood.

Tolliver's Barbershop, Florence near Western.

No-holds-barred debate.

A few of the candidates said they would drop by for at least part of the Tolliver Smackdown, but only one of them showed up.

Los Angeles Mayor Jim Hahn.

No word on why the others chickened out.  And yes, there are plenty of joke opportunities here. What could be duller than a one-man debate starring Jim Hahn?

To be honest, I'm a little ticked off at the guy. It's hard to sully a man who accepts an invitation to appear at my favorite barbershop, especially since I was the one who passed on the invitation.

But how was I supposed to know that instead of the mayor, Jim "Puff Daddy" Hahn would show up?

The mayor, who grew up not far from the barbershop, was so uncharacteristically loose he did a little dance before he left.

"It's the Slauson Shuffle," a stunned Lawrence Tolliver exclaimed upon seeing the mayor's juke step.

As he exited, Hahn uttered three words no one in this galaxy could ever have expected to tumble off his tongue.

"Keep it real."

A hush came over the barbershop.

To put things in context, this is the shop where Hahn's candidacy was furiously debated four years ago. Generally speaking, the elders voted for Hahn because his father, the late L.A. County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, was seen as a trusted friend of the black community.

The younger crowd, however, saw nothing in Kenny's boy that gave them any faith in genetics. They went with Antonio Villaraigosa.

When Hahn rode to victory with the help of the black vote, only to oust black LAPD Chief Bernie Parks, the elders were kicking themselves.

"Check his DNA," was a constant refrain at Tolliver's. "That ain't Kenny Hahn's son."

Thursday night, in walked Kenny Hahn's son.

Mr. Tolliver — who was giving a haircut to a gent named Anthony White — thanked him for coming. A dozen or so of the regulars were there, mostly middle-aged professionals.

The shop's gallery of heroes includes Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. In one corner is a black-and-white 1959 photo of Kenneth Hahn with neighborhood kids.

The rules of engagement were few Thursday night, but the lead topic was the Feb. 6 shooting of a 13-year-old black youth — a suspected car thief — by an LAPD officer. Devin Brown was killed not far from the barbershop, and the community was moved once more to anger and sorrow.

"When is this going to stop?" a dapper young man named Kevin Hooks asked the mayor.

After talking about last week's change in the LAPD policy on shooting at moving vehicles, Hahn said he was well aware of residents' enduring fear of being pulled over for "driving while black."

Years ago, he said, even he got pulled over, apparently for driving with long hair. He was a Pepperdine student, returning to the neighborhood in the wee hours.

"I ended up kissing the sidewalk that night," he said.

At the back of the shop was a photo of Bill Bratton, the LAPD chief who replaced Bernie Parks. It was put there by Mr. Tolliver, who liked what he saw when Bratton tried to make inroads in the black community.

The Bratton photo is a symbol of the open-minded sensibility at Tolliver's, where folks are generally willing to try anybody or anything that might end decades of despair and fear.

"The shooting was three blocks from my house," White said mid-haircut. He's a Los Angeles Unified School District administrator with a newborn child, and he said he loves this neighborhood and doesn't want to go anywhere else.

Anthony Richardson, Michael Baker, Rev. Roger Smith and Al Humphreys, all regulars, echoed White's pride and fear.

Thirteen-year-old Devin Brown made a mistake, Mr. Tolliver said.

"But he didn't deserve to die."

And yes, Tolliver went on, the cops have a long history of going too far. But people ought to "get up in arms" about black kids killing black kids.

"We accept it," Tolliver said, and in the fractured community, too many residents look the other way when they see a kid on the street in the middle of the night, instead of saying:

"Get your butt home, son."

Hahn sat on the long bench where customers wait their turn for a haircut, chiming in, fielding questions, asking his own. The nervousness gradually faded — on both sides — and a political event miraculously evolved into an informal gathering. I wouldn't have been surprised if Hahn jumped into the chair for a trim.

"I am much more afraid of someone in my neighborhood" than of the police, said former state Assemblyman Rod Wright, a Tolliver's regular.

Hahn said it would help to have more cops, so they could spend more time getting to know the community rather than just chasing calls all night. Wright said he wasn't so sure that the money wasn't better spent on drug rehab, schools and anything else that might keep crime from happening in the first place.

That's all good, said Hooks. But just the same, he is "scared to death" when he sees a cop in his rearview mirror. And he knows from experience how the cops profile.

"What changes that?" asked Hahn.

Hooks asked someone to bring over the photo of Hahn's father.

The mayor appeared humbled as he nodded at the image of his father, who was a constant presence in the community, not just after a tragedy or at reelection time.

"This picture solves a lot of problems," he told Hahn.

No one came up with any miracle cures Thursday night. But in more ways than one, a connection was made.

"It's not about your father anymore," Hooks said, as the photo of Kenny Hahn was returned to the corner. The regulars at Tolliver's thanked the son for coming.

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com and read previous columns at http://www.latimes.com/lopez