Five years have passed since we wrote the last 'milestone'. The world has seen some turbulent events and changes in those years. One thing struck me in the last couple of years, I've always known it but it became so much more apparent recently, and that is the power of an 'official story'.
As consumers of media we have an inherent trust in what it is that we are being shown, these people who present us the story must know best right? After all they are the ones with access to the story right. So they'll tell the truth, right?
Most consumers are not fanatical about the history that they are being fed, they just want an easy to swallow pill, a meal that slides effortlessly down the gullet, a single serving 'I've watched that so now I understand the whole thing'.
We saw, for they are plainly obvious to those with even a modicum of curiosity that the official stories and retellings of this event were consistently flawed.
Documentaries with conflicting 'facts', unsubstantiated myths allowed to endure, easy to swallow bite sized 'history' but it wasn't true, at least not in its entirety and those who have a vested say in the story being presented correctly, the LAPD seemed content to allow these perversions of the story to endure.
We wanted the real meal, no matter how hard to swallow, because truth no matter how ugly (and it is very rarely pretty) will always be the truth, and the enormity of this event deserves that truth be told in all its naked shameful glory.

Other entities' sensationalising an event this profound has always left a bad taste in our mouths. Did we really need the Larry Phillips character in '44 Minutes' giving the finger to the cops just before the suicide shot? Garbage film I know, but all the same 'why does it need to portray something that never happened?' Does it make it more edgy? Does it nail home the final insult? Its almost as if cracking off an AKM for forty minutes at anything that moved was not insult and assault enough for the directors.
Don't get me wrong, I'm far from being a prude, but what purpose did that action serve. Needless and insulting to the guys who faced down Phillips that day. Insulting to historians, and insulting to its viewership.
Well known documentary makers, ones you would trust to tell the correct story no less that could not even agree on where these two men exited the bank! When their researchers were contacted as to where they sourced their information as it was blatantly false in at least one case they all of a sudden had massive bouts of amnesia.
Everything so far produced about these men and this event has been sensationalised beyond belief, needlessly so. The truth doesn't matter to these people, only the revenue from having the 'Whole story' out there....their version of the 'whole story'.
When the real story alone would have sufficed these people went another route, and made it Hollywood, for no logical reason other than money.
These people had THE platform to tell the story, no jazz, no spice, just the story. They knew everyone would watch at least once, for it is an event that captivated the world and remains to do so until this day; and yet when it really mattered to tell the truth they told a stylized lie and the honor and brutality of the day was lost in slow motion edits, poor research and things that just, well, never happened.

The ironic thing that struck us a while back is that everyone, and I find it difficult to actually find someone who doesn't fit into this bracket, is in this to make money.
From Phillips and Matasareanu who started this whole ball rolling and who placed their family's sanity, peace and privacy far below their own greedy desire for money to film makers, documentary makers, authors, family members of one of the families who wanted extraordinary amounts of money to tell their story. Everyone and their dog are in this for a buck.
Some entities love the media spotlight, never failing to present themselves to retell their story. For most though it's about the money.
It's the quiet ones, the ones that shied away from the media spotlight, who stayed out the documentaries, the podcasts and the like, those are the ones I have had the most pleasure from speaking to. No dog in the fight, just a story to tell. And some of those stories have gone quite heavily against the grain of certain narratives.

I remember when I came to this story thirteen years ago and the Wikipedia page (yeah yeah I know I know) could not even identify the firearms correctly, and people were actually using that source to quote 'fact'. It was only due to one of our readers constantly editing that page with our thoroughly researched information that the Wiki article on this event even holds any sort of accuracy.

Questions remain, large important questions. They are the virtual elephant in the room.

Why has Larry Phillips history been sanitised to an almost redundant degree. Where are the background checks on him?
Where are the records for PD interaction at 244 West Loma, Altadena? Before Jeanette Federico ever surrendered herself in Thornton, Colorado this address was the last one the LAPD would have on file for Phillips. Yet no record of a police visit, let alone a search is available to the public. What exactly happened in the 1995 Angeles Forest 'arrest', where Phillips and Matasareanu were taken into custody whilst both in possession of stolen firearms. NO record of arrest and the firearms were given to the attorney for safekeeping! How does that work? I have a million questions regarding that particular incident, and so should you!
What is the ATM fraud incident about?
Apparently, those undisclosed incidents were just the tip of the iceberg of what Larry, Emil & possibly others, were involved in.
Sgt. Ian Grimes, the undercover auto-theft detective responsible for the traffic stop incident in Glendale of 1993 had maintained his suspicions on what exactly the pair were up to and subsequently kept an investigative file on the pair. After the two successful 1996 takeover robberies made the news, Grimes was shouting these guys' names loud to the FBI, sending them his investigative file on the men.
It is unknown if the FBI ever followed up with that particular lead, but some 'sources' have told us that both the FBI & the LAPD had turned a blind eye to a lot of the activity Larry, Emil & possibly other parties were involved in way before North Hollywood went down.
The aforementioned 1995 Angeles Forest incident should have earned these guys years in prison, afterall, they were felons as a result of the Glendale arrest.

Where exactly did certain vehicles belonging to Phillips and Matasareanu end up, for it is like they one day vanished off the earth as if by magic. A green and white truck, a Jaguar, a BMW amongst others.
What exactly was seized at the Ludlow Street safe house location? Beyond the small tidbits that were released to the press nothing else has ever been shown. No photos, no record of the recovered articles, nothing.

This list goes on and on, from the mundane to the critical.
So, as you would, you attempt to speak to the people that have that information....or at least those that should have it.
Yet everything is hidden behind the California Public Records Act, an oxymoron in itself. For these records are far from public, and are only able to be released (in the case of police files), at the discretion of the police and if the investigation is not in active status.
Thirteen years we have been asking, and for thirteen years we have gotten only dead air or ignorant answers in return. The LAPD have been steadfast in their treatment of people who would tell the truth about their day of shining valor.
Why can we not read the police files for this case? Is there still an investigation under way? I would have thought twenty five years sufficient time to close the file by now no?
One particular file, the January 1998 after action report we have chased especially hard, through unofficial channels too, to have the reply from a retired police officer come back that we would never see inside that file whilst we have a hole in our a$$. Charming.

Seems like transparency and accountability has been sacrificed to protect 'the official story'. If you want a stellar example of an official story, look back at the story about the bullet hole in Phillips forehead. Allegedly it never existed, yet photographs and TWO witnesses say differently. Yet maybe, just maybe there is a reason that the pertinent information is hidden away from people like ourselves, and maybe it started many years ago with people who would never know of Phillips and Matasareanu; people who unknowingly set in motion their own chain of events which when combined with Phillips and Matsareanu's own warped trajectory in life created the perfect storm of circumstance.
To explain that I shall hand you over to my good friend and fellow researcher, Adrian, without whom much of this site would not be possible. Pay close attention to his writing, for it is meaningful in relation to what we know about these men.

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Throughout the duration of this entire project, we have been analyzing and interpreting the events surrounding the North Hollywood shootout. We have been studiously breaking down the events leading up to 2/28, 1997 and analyzing details so as to gain insight into the type of mindset that it takes to pull off a such a daring bank heist and engage in a stand fast gun battle with responding officers.

After all, that is one of the goals of this project, is to understand and try to answer the 'why?' We also attempt to correct some of the myths, perceptions, and flat-out untruths that have been widely spread in the form of 'historical' documentaries, news specials with an anti-police slant, and genuinely misrepresented information. Whether this has been done with political ideologies in mind or they are genuine oversights in journalism, it nevertheless affects how this event is perceived by the public; and I don't need to tell you that in the world of news and politics, perception is reality.

The North Hollywood event has been painted as a David vs Goliath story, where the severely outgunned police officers are pinned down by this onslaught of automatic gunfire by two 'monsters' in full body armor, who through courage and sheer will eventually overcome the gunmen's superior firepower.

It's the type of story that the public likes to read, a story with a simple plot line that is easy to follow: The good guys come out on top, and the bad guys lose.
Exactly the outcome that the LAPD so desperately needed at the time, a decade rife with political and racial turmoil between the LAPD and the city it swore to protect.
For this 25th anniversary article, I will focus not so much in the minutiae of the event as the other pages detail, but rather take a few steps back and look at it from a much wider lens to give you a broader perspective into just how North Hollywood came to be and why the two guys the LAPD were fighting that day were, in part, the indirect result of past failed leadership and unsuccessful reform that was compounded by an enabled police department whose culture of abuse and use of force went unchecked for so long. Please note, that this particular piece is solely my opinion and interpretations of events that have been taken from research from books, newspaper articles, personal interviews and the fact that I am a native Angeleno .

First, I want to touch on the perception that North Hollywood was the sole reason for the militarization of police departments across the country. Although it was a major catalyst in the up arming of modern police departments, the truth is, militarization for all intents and purposes truly began during the first half of the 20th century in the 1930s ironically as a result of reform efforts, that's right, to root out corruption within the LAPD, who at the time essentially served as a private army to protect political business interests.
However, it wasn't until 1950 when William H. Parker became chief that the LAPD that the structure began to take on a more organized, Para militarized form.
The 1962 Watts riots that erupted under Parker's tenure as chief gave the LAPD further cause to assemble a highly specialized team to deal with large crowds and potential civil unrests in a Los Angeles metropolis that was experiencing a rapid change in racial and ethnic makeup, and a police department firm on maintaining its discriminatory often brutal policing of LA's minority communities.

Twelve years after Parker retired in 1966 his legacy would be resurrected by a man who had once been, amongst other things, his driver. Daryl Gates.
Chief Daryl Gates, truly one of the most polarizing figures in LAPD history, a man who truly saw great value in SWAT's militaristic style; a man whose tenure over the LAPD saw the explosion of the cocaine epidemic and the street crime that rose to fund the addict lifestyle, a man who believed in the paramilitary implementations and the need for the expansion of SWAT's role.
A complex character; at once both loved and revered by his rank and file and both appreciated and distrusted by the public he was sworn to serve. It all depended on which side of the fence you stood on as to your view of the man.

One year into his reign and Gates would oversee a large public shootout. The confrontation between the Black Panther party and LAPD which lasted four hours and in which thousands of rounds were fired was an incident that necessitated a team trained to handle violent and dangerous situations in LA's neighborhoods.
The 1974 SLA shootout was another, in which SWAT was also deployed, another shootout with thousands of rounds of gunfire exchanged.
High volume shootouts in California were not a new thing, but they were becoming more prevalent.

So, as you see, these watershed events in which thousands of rounds of ammunition were directed at the LAPD, although not all that common but extremely dangerous, coupled with the department's operationally independent status had given the LAPD and its reactionary culture, a sort of righteous authority to maintain and expand a team suited to respond to such situations without any external influence from the city's mayor or other civilian elected officials.

One such city official was LA's first black mayor, Tom Bradley who for 20 years in office sought his right to exercise control of the LAPD but saw resistance at every step of the way from LAPD chiefs Edward Davis and his successor Daryl Gates. Bradley was a testament to the changing racial makeup of political leaders at the city level. Bradley and Gates never saw eye to eye on tactics, but Bradley's passive nature allowed Gates to continue to operate without any form of significant reform.
As Bradley sought to run for governor of California, he had been riding the fence on Gates' policing of the minority communities he represented. He wouldn't condone the brutality but did not call it out either, so as to not alienate the white voter, who was still largely in support of Gates and his message of cracking down on crime that was encroaching on white suburban neighborhoods.
One such quote from Gates springs to mind: "If someone looked out of place in a neighborhood, we had a little chat with him."
So, what's this all have to do with Larry and Emil, you may ask?
In a 2020 conversation with Larry's half-brother Denis, he recalled stories of the two of them being out during the early morning hours doing dirt, boosting cars, getting shot at together, into all kinds of nefarious activities and one detail he slipped in was the way in which they both deliberately 'dressed up' so as to not attract police attention at these odd hours.
Wearing polo shirts, dress pants and looking every bit the part of a couple of jocks just out and about the streets of LA. Not the type of character police at the time were looking for to lean on, and Denis remarked how that attire got them out of a lot of jams.
This was precisely Larry's forte. He would read a situation and find a way to exploit it, and 1990s Los Angeles was just the type of environment suited for him to operate under.
Whereas some police were cracking the heads of what they deemed to be a shifty looking black guy if they thought he was up to no good, Larry and his polo shirt and thick wire-rimmed glasses flew under police radar. Free to do as he pleased then returning home to watch news reports go on about how gangbangers did this and that whilst him and his brother sat laughing at the television set telling each other "They have not a fucking clue."
But the LAPD & the FBI knew, eventually, what this pair had been up to. After North Hollywood happened, Denis was grilled for hours by both the LAPD & the FBI and pulled out a massive red file, inches thick, containing all of the activities and crimes both Larry and Denis had been implicated in, which far exceeded the five bank robberies and armored car robberies attributed to Larry & Emil.
According to Denis, there were things that the LAPD knew and things they could prove, which they tried to use against him to extract any information they could out of him. Denis clammed up and "Didn't tell 'em shit." as he put it. There was one interesting remark from Denis regarding the 16 hours long interviews he did with the FBI & LAPD, and he emphasized this fact, about how the LAPD had turned a blind eye to a lot of the activity they claimed they had implicated them in. From the multiple trust deed scams Larry & Denis did together to other, violent crimes that could have some serious legal implications for Denis which we decided against publishing.
Because our focus is on Larry & Emil, we will re Under Gates, sixteen round Beretta 9mm pistols became standard issue, the V100 armored personnel carrier and its battering ram extension now part of LAPD's inventory and heavily armed metro division units all to combat the new 'war on drugs' had given the LAPD an ostensibly militaristic look.
There was a political rhetoric to the 'war on drugs' that had helped to turn the LAPD from civil servants to perceived 'soldiers' and along with that it had changed the role of the rank and file patrol officers into something more of a army of occupation that pursued crime and suspects with aggressive and brutal tactics.
Initial support for cracking down on drugs and crime plaguing poor Black and Latino communities unsurprisingly came from the leaders of those hard-hit communities. The neighborhoods in South Los Angeles had already been experiencing devastating economic decline, compounding this were the drugs which flooded the streets of Los Angeles, seemingly overnight.
Whilst the takedowns of genuine dealers and drug houses was obviously welcomed in these communities the stop and search and harassment of young folk, whether legitimate or 'sport fishing' by unscrupulous officers started to take its toll very quickly on the perception of the LAPD.
A more efficient means of taking down crack dealers was needed and Gates' stubborn old ways did not lend itself to innovate in that regard. Drug dealers adapted, and simply moved to a street corner to deal their dope which in turn gave the LAPD no chance to crash in on their property with the mini tank. Needless to say, the aggressive tactics being employed were vehemently opposed by certain groups, such as the ACLU which represented the ever increasing changing LA population from a white, protestant conservative to a more liberal black, Latino and Jewish one.
Then in 1991 came the final nail in the coffin for Daryl Gates. A event seen worldwide that sparked massive outrage and not just in LA's black community: the beating of Rodney King. The subsequent acquittal of the police officers in April 1992 involved would ignite the touch paper, hell it threw a full gas can on the populous and flicked a lit Zippo on top, and once again LA would burn. For six whole days.
It is said that the beating of King didn't come as a surprise to some LAPD officers who served under Gates as it was seen as just the way they did things, only they happened to record it on video this time. Even contemporary criminals said there was no way King wasn't going to catch a beating once the LAPD had caught up to him. It's just the way things were back then.

Gates' response to the beating was poor and typical of his persona. Instead of allaying the situation he doubled down on his officers' actions and even remarked how he would take pleasure in putting the video of King's beating on repeat. Not exactly the sensible response you'd expect from someone in such an important leadership position in charge of policing the second largest city in America and holding a racial pressure cooker in his hands. Therein lies part of the problem of Gates' perceived failed leadership as Chief of LAPD. He had a seriously understaffed department stuck doing things the old way. You can say he did the best he could to police a city like Los Angeles rife with crime and an increasingly diverse population that were not compatible with his politics and who were being mistreated by certain elements of the rank and file that served under him.
This is not to say Gates should be exonerated as he categorically enabled this type of friction between his officers and the public to go on. Allegations of abuse and police brutality were often swept under the rug, Gates sent out a message that he will not fold to the public pressure that demanded community-oriented policing, and with that he had further solidified the loyalty the rank-and-file officers had shown towards him.

The vicious beating of King and the subsequent riots that had caused the city of Los Angeles billions of dollars in damage and further strained the relationship between LA's residents and police was simply too much collateral damage left behind by LAPD's poor leadership. The writing was on the wall, and Gates' unwillingness to change the methods of fighting crime had reached a level that the city council and the police commission could not tolerate any longer. They were simply not conducive to the political climate of Los Angeles at the time. Gates' head had to go on a pike to assuage public anger and so his resignation was called for and Gates, true to his form, resisted and refused to accept his fate as chief of police.
In June 1992 Gates bowed to the pressure and finally stepped down. It was the end of an era that LA wanted to put in its rear view mirror and attempt to mend. City officials wanted to make that point clear and appointed what seemed to be Gates' complete opposite: A black, and inexperienced former chief of Philadelphia police Willie Williams, whose track record as chief of Philadelphia police was less than stellar. During his tenure as chief of Philadelphia police, crime went up and morale in that department had hit rock-bottom. When LA city officials took the mind-boggling decision to appoint him as LAPD's next Chief it had been unclear what they saw in him that made them believe he would be the reformer they were looking for to turn things around.
From the get-go, Williams was an outsider and not very well liked by LAPD officers. For years, they had been spoiled by Gates and they saw Williams as something that had been shoved down their throats all in the name of perpetual politics being played by the city council. This was precisely what Williams represented, he was the face of change from one state to another, the perception that something was being done to make up for past scandals. A glaring difference between Williams and Gates that had stood out to LAPD's rank and file was his physical appearance. Officers felt his being overweight gave the LAPD an unprofessional image, and his refusal to wear 'blues' had also rubbed officers the wrong way. Williams had also not passed the POST examination to become a peace officer, disbarring him from the right to bear a firearm with his uniform. Instead of passing the POST exam and restoring some faith within his officers, he lobbied the California legislature to change the rules which they promptly did.
Instead of the work, just move the goalposts.

He most definitely had been an outsider, but, he was the right color at the right time, and despite all of Williams uninspiring leadership and disapproval amongst conservatives in city hall and the Mayor's office, he did put on a friendlier face to the department and managed to not set off any more racially charged events like the Watts riots and the Rodney King scandal to more indiscriminate gang sweeps and raids in South Central Los Angeles.
As a side note bank robbery numbers came off the boil from 1992 also.
In a sense, under Williams, less policing was more. Apart from that, he managed to get little done in his 5 years as chief in the way of coming up with innovative methods of policing. The city had seemingly got what it needed: a police department and not a hard-charging street army. As the LAPD transitioned from an army of occupation to essentially social workers, morale was extremely low amongst LAPD officers. As part of the department's efforts to sell its new softer, gentler force, the LAPD commissioned some PR work in the form of TV shows like 'Life on the Beat' which gave the viewer an first person view of the day-to-day patrol around Los Angeles which centered mostly around routine calls and civilian interactions. The Los Angeles Times writers and photographers were also given access to a behind-the-scenes look into the world of policing, in particular, the Van Nuys division had granted the paper 3 months access to sit down in roll call and ride with cops while they patrolled the streets. It was within this three month access that we wholeheartedly believe yet another catalyst in the lives of Larry Phillips and Emil Matasareanu was born.

Cops, with their ride along journalists, were not shy about sharing their grievances about just how politically battered they were by this transitioning period from Gates to Williams. The balance between fighting crime while being diplomatic was, and always will be, a delicate one. Some officers adapted to said transition, while others move on to smaller suburban police departments, putting a dent in the LAPD's plan to increase its force and patrol presence.
The LAPD were losing as many as 400 officers annually, crime inevitably went up and along with it so did 211's. With the little public confidence, the LAPD had gained at the expense of a depleted police force and declining morale no amount of slogans posted inside the Van Nuys division station walls could have reversed that.
More damningly, but brutal in its honesty was another piece of information posted on the Van Nuys station bulletin board that the consistent response time within the division was seven and a half minutes.
Why is this relevant you may ask? While bank robbery in LA had peaked in 1992 and saw a decline each year thereafter, Los Angeles, with its politically battered police force and thin patrol units, had presented just the right conditions for a pair like Larry Phillips and Emil Matasareanu to flourish in the 'trade'.
There has been a misconception that these guys stayed at the bank too long and the only reason they did so was because they were looking for a fight. But with a seven and a half minute response time (a city-wide best no less), can you really say that the six minutes they stayed at the Van Nuys bank was excessive?
People ask 'How did they get it so right the first time?'
The answer is simple; they read it in the newspaper!
There could be something said about what journalists are allowed to publish when given exclusive access to behind the scenes police work and the type of sensitive information they are privy to, which the criminal element can use.
The takeover epidemic rose sharply because a newspaper printed the record take of $400,000 in the Tarzana takeover robbery in the spring of 1992.
People wondered why all of a sudden banks were getting jacked at the rate of one every 49 minutes. The newspapers put in the criminals hands the information that they needed, how much money could be taken from these institutions. There should have been no surprise that banks were getting hit so hard.
The next culpability of the media is the LA Times publication of the seven and a half minute response time.
Any criminal with a Grade three ability to read has in the space of three years just been handed the exact tool he requires. How much is in the bank, and how long does it take the cops to get there.
A MENSA candidate you do not need to be to figure out what happens next.

According to some patrol officers of that era, they observed their fellow colleagues do little proactive police work as there was more opportunity for conflict or use of force to occur. Then there was the odd civilian who gave patrol units the finger as they drove by. Although this was just a microcosm of citizen feedback police officers would often get, to some cops this is how they believed all of Los Angeles felt about them. So it may not come as a surprise that Phillips and Matasareanu appeared to flourish, it is only when you look deeper that despite $1.5m in cash they were actually failing pretty hard.
A quote springs to mind here regarding police response time: "some people feel the later you get to a call, the better off you are."
Now place yourself in the cops' shoes, will you take a bullet getting to a call for a city that hated everything you stood for? I'm not implying the LAPD were swerving these guys when the call came in, but it is certainly within the realm of possibility with the way the city wanted cops out helping grandma cross the street as opposed to seeking out crime. It would have smacked too much of Gates' old LAPD.

In closing, when North Hollywood came around, the LAPD was quick to use the event as a popularity win and rightly so. But it had been the officers on the ground who found themselves in the eye of the storm that day that had given the department its win even if its leaders at the management level didn't deserve it.
The same management that continue to parrot the official story with crucial parts of it proven to be spurious and will allow no further access to their investigation files.

The is no way to make the truth pretty bar lying. And if you're lying, then it is no longer the truth right?
The vast 3,800 words above is a mere fraction of what could be written to delve into the LAPD's history.
On the face of it, it seems pretty negative right? Well, some pretty negative events happened; but what should always be remembered is that this is not a snipe at your average Patrol officer; we have met, worked with and spoken to many from this period, and for the most part they are fine folk. What this is in fairness is an appraisal of how politics allows actions.
One of the recovery methods instituted, of allowing free access to the daily life of the LAPD was done so in an irresponsible fashion with little to no oversight, and in that gap where professional oversight was sorely lacking regarding what information was being shared with the public, Phillips and Matasareanu waited.

Twenty five years ago today, thirty two peace officers held the inner cordon of a failed escape attempt of a successful bank robbery.
No matter 'who did or didn't do what', for those things do not matter, those thirty two took to task two men absolutely hell bent on making their own rules outside of societal boundaries.
What makes their efforts that day more incredible is when, as you hopefully have, learn something of the political scene that they had to endure before they even stepped foot on the street in an attempt to do their job.
Five years ago the thematic tone to remembering that anniversary was 'loss'. This year I would suggest we remember 'truth'.
For the truth is exactly why we got into this project, and it has grown beyond all recognition or expectation, yet we steadfastly stick to the principle that the truth is the only story that deserves telling, not the often stylized recounts that pervade the collective conscious in relation to this event.
To those who have access to items that would tell the truth regarding these men, and these events, and who steadfastly refuse to allow them to be public I say only this, nothing stays hidden forever.
To those who found themselves in that horrific arena that day, who faced an adversity that most people can only imagine, I can only say thank you for your service. Your truth was one hamstrung by internal politics and yet you still did your duty. Thank you.

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So what does all this have to do with the anniversary? Well the last time we spoke it was to bring to the fore about how even the smallest of our actions have a monumental butterfly effect upon others. This time it's about honesty.
Forget money, forget fame, forget meaningless internet points on random forums, forget social media likes, for it is the truth that matters. I know when we are finally done with this project that we can walk away with our heads held high and be able to say 'We did our best, we did the honourable thing, we never tried to bring pain to any party and we tried at all times to treat this event with dignity and understanding without judgement, despite the difficulties that were presented because of certain peoples attitudes'.

In short, if you have a story to tell, and we all do, then tell it honestly. Its much more appealing that way.

- L.M. & A.M.