Following widespread rioting, Los Angeles Times reporters Roxana Kopetman and Greg Krikorian suggested that a check of one victim's political credentials might have prevented his death. "If his killers had known of his anger at the system or that he shared their outrage at the Rodney G. King verdict, maybe, just maybe, Matt Haines of Long Beach might not have been murdered when the rioting in that day turned its streets into battlefields," they wrote. But there was a communication problem. The "white 32-year-old mechanic never had a chance to talk with his murderers. Or to tell them where he was headed—to the home of a black friend who could not start her van."

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