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Were the issues that appeared to be most critical to you always the ones that brought you into the case?
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Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Do you find the issues that brought you in are the most
important ones you have to deal with?
Answer:
I think the issues that they convey to me usually are key issues, but oftentimes nuances
come in that nobody shared, and you don't learn about those until you come on site. It only
comes through in your private meetings with the parties, and your discussions with individuals.
Then in a couple of cases I've had sheriffs escort me for my personal safety and to give me some
background. Then, they tell me, "Do you realize what had taken place here? What's the history
of this tribe? What the families are like? These guys are felons." And all these things come out
when you're just dropped in there and you're on the site. So it's really just becoming a sponge.
To me it's like, you're going through the setting, and you sit down with people, and you try to
observe and absorb as much as you can. You're just probing, you're reading peoples' behaviors,
you're reading their styles, their trust levels, and you're hearing the messages. Then you go to the
other side, and they're talking about the same issues, but it looks like a whole different world. As
the mediator, you're kind of stifled because you have these broad differences of views on the
same relative issue in history of these parties. So it becomes valuable to get other peoples views.
For example when the sheriff as an outsider says, "Well this is the way I see it." I'm hearing from
different people in the area to kind of get a flavor for what the parties may be withholding, and
the way they slanted things, versus the other party. The perspectives of somebody neutral who
may have seen the same history and experiences and seen the tensions arise between the parties
are invaluable. I just feel like I'm a sponge, and I'm trying to find some sense of the truth there
somewhere, because I'm not going to get it from the parties. I know it because they're coming in
from such biased perspectives. I often use what I call the Forced
Field Analysis, where you look at the issues and you look at them by rank order, and you kind of
line the issues up juxtaposed to each other by rank. Then you really take to heart the opinions of
those people that you felt were neutral and very objective about the disputed issues to try to see if
you can bleed some truth and logic into the sequence and the viewpoints of the parties' positions.
So that's the way I approach it. It's very intuitive, but at the same time I'm relying on as many of
the neutral perspectives that I can get because I think that objectivity lends some credence to
some of the very biased views of people involved in the conflict. That's the best I can do in those
kinds of cold situations. Sometimes you need time to bleed out the truth by getting to more
levels, in-depth levels. Too often, we just don't have the time to do that, so I have to
take that intuitive position and then attempt to work through it. When you get to the table, the
biases work themselves out. When somebody makes a demand or an allegation about an
injustice, the other side could counter it. The truth kind of works its way out, just by saying, "I
don't understand how you can make that allegation, because I see it this way. Can you see the
other person's point of view? Does it sound the same? There is some miscommunication here,
and I want to see how we can sort this out. Can anybody state that again or reframe this so I can
get it?" I'll play dumb and bleed it out until they shake loose and we get some concurrence or
interpretation of what in fact took place, and can begin to find a solution. I think it's a very
intuitive process.I think it's important to find other neutrals.
| Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
There was a Hispanic lawyer who has since passed away, he was
very active in civil rights in Texas. He was very anti-
Department of Justice because he felt it wasn't doing enough.
We happened to meet in a town where the issue was over a
Hispanics family, a pregnant mother, a father, and two
kids. They'd been run over by a truck that was being operated by
a person in the army who had attended an Oktoberfest festival.
This person was drunk and killed them all. The guy was found not
guilty. So the Hispanic community wanted the district attorney to prosecute
all of the deaths-- even the child that was unborn. The
prosecutor wouldn't do it. So they
asked us to help because they were going to have some
demonstrations and picketing.
The Hispanic lawyer showed up and he
didn't want to work with us, he didn't want us involved. I sat
down with him, said, "Look, you don't like the present administration, and
there's some things I don't like about the administration myself. The political winds in
Washington change every four years. It goes in one direction,
then another, and yet the people are still here. You're still
here and I'm still here, so why don't you and I work together to
help these people here the best that we can help them in this
current situation? Let the administration do whatever, I know
you have strong feelings about that, but let's think about these
people here. Let's see how you can help them and I can help them
and maybe we can help them even more if we both work together."
So we did that and they and the D.A. finally worked a deal where they got a new
prosecutor.
What can we do together, that's our position with law enforcement.
With the F.B.I., local police, and others, we try to form teams or work together
and not be worried about turf or who gets the credit.
| Angel Alderete
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
There was a
racial overtone in this case. Some shootings had occurred recently in
North San Diego, at a time when the Vietnamese were being brought in from Vietnam
into San Diego and then processed by the local Marine Corps, before being placed in homes
in North San Diego. Well, North San Diego has a tremendous number of Marine and Naval
retirees, so this really didn't go over well with them. There was tremendous upheaval there,
but that actually settled. The Navy, as far as they were concerned, settled that very quickly.
But, it didn't settle the kids.
So at one point, these Vietnamese kids were being harassed by Latinos and African
Americans, to the point where one Asian kid got so angry that he pumped a bunch of
rifle shots into a community center where these kids hung out. He didn't hit
anybody,
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