The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 25

LOCAL NEWS WEATHER EDITORIAL PAGES SI.C I IDS METRO TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 4, 1990 fioeAriflclce Sfimeo CCt HIGHLIGHTS Solving Murders Long, Tedious Work Detectives Find No Glamour Battling Rise in Homicides TOUGH JOB: The hours arc grueling and the work is less glamorous than what is portrayed on television for Los Angeles Police Department homicide detectives such as Leon Robert and Evange-lync Nathan. This year, work is plentiful, with the rate on a pace to almost match the 1980 record of 1,028 homicides. Bl SCHABARUM'S SEAT: Supervisor Pete Schabarum, who had planned to retire in December, says he will stay on the Board of Supervisors until the appeals process in the rcdistricting case is over and an election is held. Bl LOCAL CONTROL: The Los Angeles Unified School District's road to school-based management is full of twists and turns. This semester, 27 schools embark on a plan seeking autonomy from the centralized bureaucracy.

The practical problems they pose bring the grand experiment face to face with the logistical realities of running the system. Bl L.A. ROOTS: Descendants of the original settlers of Los Angeles were on hand to help the city celebrate its 209th birthday. Bl SOUTHLAND GHOSTS: Stories about ghosts have long been grist for literature, films and folklore. Southern California is not without its share of such tales.

The ghosts of Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift and others are said to haunt Southland locales. B2 As doctors worked frantically andfutile-ly over the teen-ager's bullet-torn belly, Los Angeles Police Officer Lionel Robert hovered nearby in the emergency room at Morningsidc Hospital and felt himself losing it. His job that night 20 years ago was to jot down anything the mortally wounded youth might utter. Instead, Robert, after 10 years in uniform, jvas battling a powerful urge to flee. As waves of nausea and lightheadedness engulfed him, one of his hands instinctively thrust itself out and came gently to rest on the boy's warm, sticky torso.

That act, the feel of flesh on flesh, inexplicably caused the sick feeling to disappear. In that instant, Robert lost his revulsion for the sight of death. By ANDREA FORD TIMES STAFF WRITER As robed women in hair curlers stood silently on their porches, straining to see the body sprawled backward across the seat of the parked pickup truck, Detective Lionel Robert strode purposefully back and forth inside the yellow-taped police lines, hardly giving the corpse a second glance. His bespectacled eyes were trained instead on the asphalt under the dead man's dangling feet, where Robert hoped to spot a shell casing or some other bit of evidence that would lead to whoever had pressed a gun barrel into the man's upper, right chest and blasted a hole in it as big as a silver dollar. It was shortly after 3 a.m., and Robert knew he would have plenty of time to get a closer look at the body.

Robert and his new partner, Bvangelyne Nathan, would spend more than three hours at the murder scene and another 13 hours at the office before being able to catch a few hours of rest. The two are homicide investigators, part of an army of 120 murder specialists employed by the Los Angeles Police Department to painstakingly piece together bits of sometimes meager evidence that they hope will lead them to murder suspects. All the clues, interview transcripts, photographs from the murder, scene, even hastily scribbled notes are kept in Please see HOMICIDE, B3 Homicide detectives Evangelyne Nathan, left, and Lionel Robert work on reports at scene after victim was shot in pickup. Photos by PATRICK DOWNS Los Angeles Times Robert talks to a woman in the neighborhood where the above murder took place. The detectives routinely canvass an area looking for possible witnesses.

The number 187 on mug refers to the section in the penal code on homicide. TALL TASK: Helpers prepare supplies for a team including movie executive Steven Brimmer and Beverly Hills firefighter Glenn Pinson, who are trying to become the first Americans to scale Annapurna II, at 26,033 feet the world's 15th-tallest peak but one of the most dangerous. B3 Ruling May Let Schabarum Stay on Board Indefinitely EDITORIALS Redistricting: Supervisor says he'll remain until appeals process is over and an election is held. No one knows how long that could be. ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS: There was confusion in the 1986 immigration reform act, and it's now clear that some persons who qualified for amnesty got lost in the shuffle.

B6 COMMENTARY appeals process is completed and an election is held." How long that may be is anybody's guess. Whether he likes it or not, the man who said his job is not "as much fun as other things," now finds that his term could be extended up to a year, maybe longer without a single ballot being cast. The open-ended stay on the board comes to Schabarum, 61, courtesy of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which last month indefinitely postponed the 1st District election pending a review of new district boundaries approved by U.S. District Judge David V.

Kenyon. In June, Kenyon ruled that the current lines discriminated against Latinos and approved a new map that changed political representation for many of the county's 8.5 million residents. The appeals court ruling has left the Please see REMAP, B4 By RICHARD SIMON and JAMES RAINEY TIMES STAFF WRITERS Supervisor Pete Schabarum, who planned to retire in December, says he will stay on the board as long as it takes a federal appeals court to review a lower court ruling that Los Angeles County's political map discriminates against Latinos. Schabarum said through a spokesman last week that he plans to stay on the county Board of Supervisors "until the DUMP THE ARMY: Democracy, justice and economic health will remain out of reach in El Salvador until the country rids itself of the military, says Salvador Samayoa, former minister of education. B7 ON THE RECORD "These people will look very foolish when they get into court.

I'm the good guy and I'm going to prove it. This is going to be the biggest soap opera you ever saw." Stuart Goldman, who faces seven felony charges for allegedly entering Fox Television computers by telephone and stealing story ideas. Al LARHY DAVIS Los Angeles Times Descendants of L.A. settlers make annual trek from San Gabriel Mission. Descendants of Settlers Help L.

A. Celebrate 209th Birthday L.A. Schools Prepare to Travel Down the Twisting Road of Local Control DECCO Monday's Winning Cards: SCHOOLS TAKE CHARGE LA. Unified shares lis power One in an occasional series Hearts: 2 Clubs: Queen Diamonds: 3 Spades: 2 Southern California. At El Pueblo Historic Park downtown, costumed celebrants were among nearly 300 people observing the founding of Los Angeles by 44 civilians and four soldiers on Sept.

4, 1781. Mahony spoke of the many achievements by thousands of other Mexican immigrants to the city since that day. Nor did civic leaders forget the earliest residents of the region that is now Los Angeles the Gabrielino Indians. Tribal members conducted a prayer and ritual burning of sage in honor of their history in Southern California. Art Romero, 55, a descendant of Luis Quintero, an original settler of the Spanish pueblo, said his grandchildren Please see SETTLERS, B8 ByJILL STEWART TIMES STAFF WRITER It is a mark of some distinction, in this rootless city of 3.4 million, to be able to claim that one is a Los Angeles native.

But for 200 families who trace their ancestry to Mexican expeditioners who founded the first pueblo at Los Angeles 209 years ago, it is a source of deep pride that uplifts many Latinos, even more recent arrivals. That sense of historical achievement was celebrated Monday by Mayor Tom Bradley, Los Angeles Schools Supl. William Anton, Archbishop Roger Ma-hony and more than 100 pobladores (settlers), the direct descendants of the city's original settlers, whose numbers are estimated at more than 1,000 in By SANDY BANKS TIMES EDUCATION WRITER On the surface, it seems like a fairly easy transition for schools involved in the Los Angeles Unified School District's power-sharing plan: Principals might hand over the right to judge teacher performance to parent-teacher teams. A broken toilet or dripping faucet could be fixed by the neighborhood plumber, rather than a school district crew. But the road to school-based management is full of twists and turns, and the first potential roadblock for many of the 27 schools seeking autonomy this semester lies in the sheaves of "waiver requests" being studied by officials of the district and teachers union.

INDEX Air Quality B4 B5 Through the requests, the schools seek permission to operate outside of specific district rules and labor contract provisions. Similar requests, seeking exemptions from the state education code, must be filed in Sacramento when elements of the restructuring plans conflict with state requirements. Please see SCHOOLS, B4 Weather Editorials B6 137 Commentary.