Jim Heimann Sins of the City: The Real Los Angeles Noir, Chronicle Books: San Francisco, CA, 1999, 159 pp., 1871.
. . . L.A.'s first notoriety in national headlines was spurred by the massacre of Chinese immigrants near the old city plaza on the Calle de los Negros. . . . Morrow Mayo's book Los Angeles . . . "a dreadful thoroughfare forty feet wide, running one whole block, filled entirely with saloons, gambling-houses, dance halls and cribs. It was crowded night and day with people of many races, male and female, all rushing and crowding along from one joint to another . . . Nigger Alley was a madhouse, filled with a mass of drunken, crazy Indians of all ages, fighting, dancing, killing each other off with knives and clubs, and falling paralyzed drunk in the street. Every weekend three or four were murdered."
"In 1871, this crowd went on a killing spree after a Chinese resident, shooting wildly in the street, accidently hit "a white man." Within minutes denizens of the area swarmed the Chinese enclave, lynching, ransacking, stabbing, and beating "the heathens." Eventually nineteen victims were left dead. The Grand Jury indicted one hundred and fifty men, with six sent to jail. Several days later the six were released on a technicality. . . ." p. 5