Who Killed Officer Tsukamoto
Aug. 20 marks the 37th anniversary of Ron Tsukamoto's death. The Berkeley police officer's murder remains unsolved, but a documentary asks new questions.
In the summer of 2005, Ling Liu was working in Hong Kong when headlines from back home caught her attention: Berkeley Police had, for the second time, arrested suspects in the 1970 killing of Ron Tsukamoto, then a 28-year-old rookie police officer.
She read the article a few more times before the questions started to clutter her mind: were there many Asian Pacific American police officers in the 1970s? What was it like to be an APA police officer in the midst of such political turmoil?
"For me, I knew so little about Ron Tsukamoto and as best I could I wanted to step into his shoes," said Liu, 29. "I couldn't get it out of my head."
Liu began piecing together the story of the life and untimely death of Berkeley's first Japanese American police officer for her film thesis as part of a master's degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006.
"I wanted to get to know Ron," said Liu, now a reporter for Time Asia magazine.
"Officer Tsukamoto," Liu's short film, is riveting. For the first time, we get a glimpse of the real man in the picture next to headlines that scream murder.
Ron was born in Tule Lake during World War II. After the war, the family moved to Berkeley where Gary Tsukamoto remembered his brother loved escorting people to safety through crosswalks. He enjoyed shooting and other "official type things." Onscreen, Gary's expression falls softly when he talks about his brother's soft heart.
Berkeley in the 1970s was electric and ripe for conflict between law enforcement and counter-culture and revolutionary groups like the Black Panthers. After Ron was gunned down shortly after midnight Aug. 20, 1970, as he stood speaking with a motorist on University Avenue, whispers of Black Panther involvement were audible throughout the city. But the claim has never proven true and the homicide remains unsolved.
"For me I couldn't understand it. Why would the Black Panthers be involved in the killing of an officer of color?" said Liu. "I still can't answer this question."
Although the case remains open, many of those affected by the tragedy still find it difficult to speak about Ron's death.
"Almost everyone was wary. Almost everyone was asking 'Why are you focusing on just the killing of a police officer when there were so many activists who were killed?'" said Liu.
Ron's widow didn't want to participate in the documentary, she said.
This is the San Francisco Bay Area native's first film, but Liu dissects the subject with the precision of a journalist by gathering interviews with APA activists, police detectives and even the prime suspect in Ron's murder, Styles Price - who contends in the documentary that he looks nothing like the police sketch of the suspect.
Price, a former schoolteacher, was arrested in 2005 along with Don Graphenreed for their alleged roles in Ron's murder, but the Alameda County District Attorney's Office declined to bring charges against them. Lt. Russ Lopes, who was brought out of retirement to work on the case, no longer works for the Berkeley Police Department. Because of these changes, the Tsukamoto case is basically closed.
So the question remains: who killed Officer Tsukamoto?
"If it lingers in my head, it must be worse for the families and Berkeley police who have been involved in this for 30 years," said Liu.
"Officer Tsukamoto" is currently working the film festival circuit. Liu flew from her home in Hong Kong to attend screenings in San Francisco and New York. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, especially from Ron's friends and family, she said.
One guy drove three hours from Ukiah, Calif. to San Francisco to see the film at a film festival. He had joined the Berkeley Police force shortly after Ron.
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