Roberto Rodriguez, prolific writer on Chicano life, dies at 69

In the spring of 1979, Roberto Rodriguez was on assignment for Lowrider Magazine in East Los Angeles. The film “Boulevard Nights,” which dramatized the life of Chicano gangs in the neighborhood, had just debuted, and law enforcement officials across Southern California were arresting people for simply cruising in their barrios.
On Whittier Boulevard, where Rodriguez had gone to interview and photograph people, he saw L.A. County sheriff’s deputies beating up a man who had wandered onto the street waving a serape. Rodriguez documented the assault, until the deputies demanded he leave.
“Next thing you know,” Rodriguez wrote in his subsequent article, “I got pushed from behind and then I heard…