Originally published in Current, Sept. 14, 1998.

By Jacqueline Conciatore

Michael Taylor believed in second chances--he was living proof that they
come along.

Before the early 1990s, the Los Angeles resident had been an addict, a
dealer, eventually homeless. But one day he decided to turn his life
around, and achieved the miracle--sobered up, straightened out and found
his legitimate passions: community activism and radio. He became a
reporter and later an occasional host of public affairs programming on
Pacifica station KPFK.

So he was a felt presence among Los Angeles' South-Central community of
leftists and grassroots organizers at the time of his cold-blooded murder
over nothing more than a low-power radio transmitter, in April 1996. He
had been close to launching South Central's first micro-radio station,
which would air the radical voices he believed were no longer welcome at
KPFK.

As operator of an unlicensed station, the 45-year-old Taylor was working
in broadcast territory far beyond the fringes of public radio, an
underground where conflicts would be difficult and unmediated, and where
his choice of associates would prove deadly. The "Los Angeles Liberation
Radio" partners included Andrew Lancaster (a.k.a. Hodari Lumumba), now
sentenced to death for the kidnapping, torture and shooting death of
Taylor. Also convicted were Shawn Alexander and Jornay Rodriguez, who
testified against Lancaster and received lesser sentences. Taylor's
friends see connections between the crime and the elderly Mzee Shambulia,
another of Taylor's micro-radio partners, but he was never arrested.

Too radical?
Friends and acquaintances say Taylor was a caring man with a generous
warmth and mellow style. Pacifica national programmer Gail Christian
recalled that Taylor once showed up at her Washington, D.C. house. The
formerly homeless broadcaster was in town for some radio training and,
typical of his easy-going ways, wasn't worried that he lacked lodging
arrangements. "He was a guy with a big smile who knew it was going to work
out." She recalled that he didn't smoke, and refused a beer.

Friends also note that Taylor had a real knack for personal relating, a
quality no doubt appreciated in Pacifica's often-contentious environs. "He
was such a heartfelt guy," says KPFK News Director Frank Stolze. "No
matter the cultural and class difference with you, he was never nasty and
always personable, while at the same time able to tell you the differences
he had with you."

Perhaps the characteristics most pertinent to his ultimate fate were
Taylor's desire to help the impoverished, especially the homeless, and his
political radicalization.

Once Taylor finished KPFK's 15-month apprentice program for women and
minorities, he joined the newsroom. He not only reported on the homeless,
but also featured them as guests when hosting the station's Bridging the
Gap public affairs show. Taylor also covered police abuse, and became
avidly interested in the death penalty case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former
radio journalist and now prison writer convicted of killing Philadelphia
police officer Daniel Faulkner. When Jamal's case came up for another
court hearing, Taylor's friends helped him pay for a trip to Philly to
cover the story. He produced a piece of four or five minutes, but, more
significantly, the experience "got him fired up about doing revolutionary
radio," says Stolze.

On a tape compilation of Taylor's radio work, one hears him suggesting
that authorities framed Abu-Jamal to douse the threat of the former Black
Panther's journalism and persona: "Anytime you stand up and speak out
against this system they will tear you down. ... Each of us is responsible
for what happens to Mumia ... to any individual who stands up and speaks
against the system ... this racist, corrupt filthy system. This system is
no good, has never been any good and won't get any better until you try to
get up and do something about it." Taylor was nonviolent in "demeanor and
as a person," but wouldn't rule out violence as a means to social change,
said Bob Marston shortly after Taylor's death. Marston worked with Taylor
at KPFK and was the technical expert in the micro-radio group.

As Taylor became more committed to radical politics, he believed KPFK was
becoming less so. Like its four sister stations in the Pacifica network,
KPFK was under orders to boost ratings by 100 percent at least. KPFK was
probably the station Pacifica national most wanted to turn around--more
than once, anti-Semitic comments made on Afrocentric talkathons had
attracted criticism from members of Congress.

The changes being instituted by General Manager Mark Schubb--especially
the cancellation of several Afrocentric programs--dismayed Taylor. "They
were running the radical programmers out," says Marston, and Taylor "saw
his work cut and censored and channelled." Taylor walked away from KPFK
when station managers came down on him after his guest--future micro-radio
partner, Mzee Shambulia--made an anti-Semitic comment on the air.

"I think [Taylor] probably was too radical for some forces here," says
Stolze. "But sometimes he misinterpreted people coming down on him as a
challenge to his politics."

After his break with KPFK, Taylor focused on his dream of starting a
micro-radio station, building a collective of men from KPFK and from a
local shelter where he worked. According to L.A. Weekly articles by David
Cogan: a woman who'd been one of Taylor's radio guests and ran a L.A.
homeless shelter hired Taylor to work as a part-time p.r. specialist.
Cogan writes: "Taylor took a passionate interest in the lives of the men
drifting in and out of the shelter, often remaining after hours to sit in
on support groups, informally counsel residents and locate outside
services for people in need. In group discussions, Taylor retold his own
story as a fable for others. If I could turn my life around, he assured
them, you can, too." Cogan believes Taylor wanted to bring two of his new
partners, Shambulia and Lancaster, both ex-cons, along the same path he
had traveled.

In early meetings, Shambulia was anxious to convince the broadcasters of
his political convictions, Marston says. "Mzee talked a good line. Michael
was taken in by him--here's someone we can do business with, who's down
with us and on our wavelength."

But others intuitively distrusted the shelter contingent. "These were
scary people," says one friend. Shambulia, for example, alienated an
entire convention of micro-radio broadcasters in San Jose with his talk of
armed revolution, according to leading micro-radio broadcaster Stephen
Dunifer, who sold Taylor and Marston their transmitter kit. Dunifer said
shortly after Taylor's death that Shambulia--who he then would refer to
only as "Mr. A"--had a "pseudo-revolutionary line" and "all the hallmarks
of a provocateur."

Says Taylor's close friend Miguel Sanchez: "I told Michael. . . either
Mzee's a lunatic or an informant, it doesn't matter which is true, because
the results of his behavior will be the same."

Did Taylor share the bad vibes about his partners? Says friend Karen
Pomer, who met Taylor at a convening meeting of the Los Angeles Coalition
to Stop the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal: "He hung out in the streets a
long time--I don't know why he didn't judge people in the way most people
do." He was a trusting, "open and loving" man with a "certain naivete that
was kind of endearing. It made people want to protect him."

Also important is the fact that Shambulia financed the station, or at
least promised to. According to Sanchez it was clear to Taylor that some
of the old man's talk was "bullshit"--such as his early contention he had
a deal cooking with a bigtime black-owned Hollywood studio. But Shambulia
did eventually come through with some money to pay for studio equipment,
according to reports. "I think Michael felt he was in a desperate
situation," says Pomer. "He really wanted to go on the air."

Marston says Taylor felt frustrated that L.A.'s progressive community
wasn't more forthcoming with financial support. It led him reluctantly to
consider supporting Los Angeles Liberation Radio with commercials.
Shambulia was apparently pushing for advertising, something anathema to
the anti-corporate ethic of the micro-radio movement. Taylor initially
resisted, but came to think the station would have no other means of
support, says Marston. Still, it appears the issue was a serious point of
contention between Taylor and Shambulia. Where Taylor was simply looking
to provide basic income and support the station, Shambulia had more of a
profit motive, says Marston. The issue was not an easy one for Taylor: "We
had long conversations about it," says Sanchez.

Shambulia and Taylor also disagreed about the nature of programming,
according to Marston. Where Taylor wanted content that addressed
African-American, Chicano and other groups' interests, Shambulia wanted to
do strictly black programming. Earlier on, Marston suggested the station
launch the same day as Chicano micro-stations he was assisting, to present
a "unified force." But Shambulia nixed the idea, wanting to be first, he
says.

It's murky what specific issue or happening eventually drove Taylor to
break with Shambulia. Marston says it was just an accumulation of cause
for distrust. Taylor's friends wonder, based on court testimony, if there
was a theft of studio equipment, apparently owned by Shambulia, for which
Taylor was unjustly blamed.

Whatever the cause, it seems clear Taylor backed out of the partnership
with Shambulia a week or two before his murder. "He said he would get
alternative
 backing," Marston says.

At one point Taylor phoned Marston to say he'd received a threat over the
phone, that "things were going to get rough, if they didn't get their
equipment."

At a party a short time before he would be abducted, Taylor weighed the
seriousness of the threats with Sanchez. "It's an unfortunate thing," says
the still-anguished Sanchez, "that it was discussed, maybe he would be
shot. But he didn't think so. He thought people would fuck with his car or
beat him up, that kind of thing. And he also was not getting much sleep,
not eating. ... [He was] in a stressed-out situation towards the last week
of his life, not thinking clearly. I did not think that they would take
his life."

Sanchez still ruminates about the events: "It's a painful question--what
could have been done to change that event. ... Well, he could have stayed
somewhere else for a while ... He could have moved out of town." He says
Taylor had moved from an apartment to Sanchez's old group house, and
thought he would be safe in a home filled with people.

Going to the police was out of the question--"sleeping with the enemy,"
says Sanchez. And when three men later abducted Taylor from his home, his
housemates weren't in a position to take action. "His housemates knew
nothing," says Sanchez. "They knew a little bit, maybe, that he was
working on a radio station. They did however call me, when Michael didn't
come home after 24 hours."

The account of the killing is based on Cogan's reports of police
testimony: Lancaster, Alexander, and Rodriguez arrived at Taylor's group
home; one remained in a car outside. Taylor received many visitors, so
housemates unquestioningly sent the strangers up to his room. A short time
later, Taylor descended the stairs, sandwiched between the two men. He
briefly gave one of his housemates a strange look. Two of the men drove
off in a brown Nova, while Taylor followed in his yellow Volkswagen bug,
one of the men at his side. About five miles away, they pulled into a
desolate site near railroad tracks. Lancaster was armed with a gun and a
gray bottle of Liquid Plumr. He repeatedly questioned Taylor about the
radio equipment, splashing the drain acid in his face when he didn't like
the answers.

Eventually nearby residents heard gunshots and phoned police, who arrived
at the scene to find only Taylor, dead. He was bound and gagged, shot in
the chest, shoulder, neck and face.

Police matched the fingerprints on the Liquid Plumr bottle left at the
murder site to Lancaster. And Shawn Alexander was arrested after police
caught him driving Taylor's Volkswagen, repainted. It had broken down near
police headquarters.

What about Shambulia? Taylor told his close friend Sanchez that if
something were to happen to him, it would be Shambulia's doing, Sanchez
says. And police testified, according to Cogan and Sanchez, that Alexander
told them Shambulia offered $1,000 to execute Taylor.

Police wouldn't discuss the case with Current, but Cogan quotes a
detective saying they simply weren't able to build a case against
Shambulia. Lancaster's lawyer Ron Rothman and prosecuting attorney Eleanor
Hunter did not returned repeated phone calls.

Shambulia was later arrested for a parole violation, according to Cogan.
He served a year in prison and his whereabouts today aren't known.

In July, a jury handed Lancaster a death sentence. Friends say the
sentence is bitter closure because Taylor was an active opponent of
capital punishment.

Pomer says she asked defense attorneys to put her on the stand to plead
for Lancaster's life and play a tape of Taylor's radio work for the jury.
"In the last year of his life he was fighting the death penalty. That was
his life's work," she says. "I felt really strongly that this is a slap in
the face to Michael's memory. . . Michael had a second chance at life. . .
and I think he was the kind of person who wanted to give someone else a
second chance." But the judge would not allow Pomer's tape or testimony.

The penalty phase of the trial was tense because Taylor's family favored a
capital sentence, Pomer says. The Los Angeles Times quoted a brother,
Reginald Taylor, saying that "Michael was against the death penalty for
those he believed were wrongly accused."

If there is another opportunity, Pomer says, she will plead for
Lancaster's life. "It's not an easy thing. ... Here you are wanting to
stand up for someone who murdered a person that you love. In some ways you
feel conflicted. In other ways, it's clear, Michael would not want someone
killed in his name."

It's perhaps another cruel fact that no one picked up Taylor's dream of
micro-radio in troubled and volatile South Central Los Angeles. Shambulia
managed to put a station on the air shortly after Taylor's murder,
reportedly using a transmitter he had gotten at an army surplus store.
(Marston says the transmitter he and Taylor were to use is stored away.)
Shambulia chose the worst call letters imaginable: KLLR. The station had
technical difficulties, and was on the air less than a month.

For now, the case is no longer in the news--not that it was heavily
covered. KPFK and the L.A. Weekly gave the only substantive attention to
it, though the L.A. Times published several news stories. "I feel
frustrated in terms of the way the press and the media handled it," says
Marston. "They didn't do justice to it. [Michael] did all this work and
basically died a forgotten soldier."