LATIMES.COM S SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2019A
daughter to a stray bullet
from a drive-by shooting.
Her son Stephan was diag-
nosed with schizophrenia,
had his own bouts with
homelessness and was in
and out of mental institu-
tions. And her daughter has
struggled to cope since
being assaulted.
Lola carried all of these
burdens without her hus-
band’s help, and I asked
whether she had ever re-
sented him.
“I didn’t resent him
because I knew he had
mental issues,” she said. “I
still love him. To hear that
he’s dead, that’s devas-
tating.”
Stephan was conflicted.
He remembered horsing
around with his dad, he
said, then wondering where
he was and finally getting
used to his absence. The
other kids had a range of
views of their father.
“I told my son Justin,
don’t be bitter,” Lola said.
“Just forgive him because he
had mental health issues,
and I need your help to bury
your father. He said mom,
I’m not bitter. I’m just indif-
ferent.”
She paused and added:
“I can’t leave him like he’s
a nobody. I have to bury him
the right way.”
An autopsy of Alvin
Robinson did not reveal a
cause of death, and the lab
work could take 60 to 90
days. But in some ways, this
is a relatively straightfor-
ward case for the Medical
Examiner-Coroner’s office.
Lt. Brian Kim, who leads an
identification and noti-
fication unit, said it can take
weeks or longer to identify
someone who dies on the
street.
Sometimes the bodies
are decomposed, or there’s
no ID on the person and no
one in the vicinity knows the
decedent’s full name. With
Robinson, they were lucky:
He had an ID in his wallet,
and once they knew who he
was, they were quickly able
to locate his wife. It often
takes a long time to find
next of kin, and sometimes
they’re never found. At the
moment, Kim said, 97 next
of kin notification cases are
still open, and a lot of those
involve homeless deaths.
Robinson’s story also
illustrates how complicated
it can be to address home-
lessness when a man with a
mental illness or any other
ailment refuses help.
In my view, the civil
rights pendulum has swung
too far in the wrong direc-
tion, providing an excuse for
not intervening even when
people are desperately in
need of intervention. We
stand by and watch, para-
lyzed, while people die of
disease or addiction or
both.
I told Lola I’m going to
Italy this month to check
out a model that Los Ange-
les is planning to try next
year in Hollywood. In the
United States, we closed
mental hospitals without
building the community
clinics that were promised
as replacements. Trieste,
Italy, did build the clinics,
and it built a culture in
which the entire community
is involved in rescuing and
nurturing the lives of the
most vulnerable.
She took a measure of
hope in that, and in the
thought that her husband’s
death might help shine a
light on the need for a better,
more humane response.
At the coroner’s office,
Lola wanted to see her
husband, but viewings are
not offered. A clerk wheeled
her husband’s belongings
into view.
“That’s a huge back-
pack,” said Stephan. “It’s
probably everything he had
to his name.”
The attendant then
made copies of Alvin Rob-
inson’s photo ID and gave
them to his wife. For years,
she had told me earlier, she
had maintained her
strength with God’s help.
But seeing her husband’s ID
nearly broke her.
She slumped and buried
her face in her arms, and her
body heaved as she let loose
a stream of tears.
Stephan put his arm
around her and tried to
comfort his mother, but
that brought no relief.
“He’s in a better place,”
Stephan said as his mother
reached for a box of tissues.
It took several minutes
for Lola to stand, still sob-
bing. She placed the copies
of her husband’s ID into her
purse, along with the photos
that showed her family
intact, in better times.
Lola Robinson began
making arrangements a few
minutes later for the crema-
tion and a burial ceremony
in Bakersfield. A few hours
later, she and Stephan
caught a bus back home to
Las Vegas.
[Lopez,from A14]
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. —
Samples of Alabama’s hemp
crop are in line with state
law, so far.
State inspectors have
taken samples from hemp
growers producing their
first crops of the plant.
Alabama Agriculture
Commissioner Rick Pate
said that samples from 45 li-
censed growers have all
tested below the 0.3% limit
for THC, the psychoactive
compound in marijuana.
That’s the level required by
state law.
The news comes as a re-
lief for some growers, who
had expressed concern that
their entire hemp crop could
be destroyed if some of their
plants tested above the legal
limit, Al.com reported.
Alabama growers arefarming hemp for CBD oil, or
cannabidiol, which is used
for medicinal purposes and
is now widely legal.Across the state, dozens
of licensed farmers this
spring planted Alabama’s
first legal hemp crop since19 37.
David Johnson, owner of
Bama Green in Cherokee
County, said he’s growing1,000 hemp plants. About
half of them are in pots in a
greenhouse, with the others
planted in the ground out-
doors.
“We’re in the greenhouse
business,” Johnson said.
“We’ve been doing poin-
settias since 1983. I have no
experience on this. We’re
kind of experimenting,” he
said.
Johnson said his hemp
has done well, and he’s used
many of his techniques for
growing flowers.
About five producers,
mostly in south Alabama,
have already harvested
hemp, Pate said.
Now it will be sent to a
processor to be turned into
CBD oil.
In Madison County, tres-
passers went into a hemp
field, mistaking the plants
for marijuana and tamper-
ing with them.
“They’re going in think-
ing it’s something it’s not,”
Pate said.
Pate has repeatedly em-
phasized that anyone trying
to smoke hemp will just get
sick, not high.So far, so good for Alabama hemp
GROUND HEMPat a Cynthiana, Ky., facility. Some Alabama growers worried
that their entire crop could be destroyed if some tested above the legal limit.Alex SlitzFor The TimesCrop samples all test
below state maximum
for THC, a relief for
some growers.
associated pressas a professor at the Cam-
bridge school, university
President L. Rafael Reif
said. The resignation was
first reported by the New
York Times.
Ito’s resignation comes
after the New Yorker
reported late Friday that
Media Lab had a more ex-
tensive fundraising relation-
ship with Epstein than it
previously acknowledged
and tried to conceal the ex-
tent of the relationship.
Epstein killed himself in
jail Aug. 10 while awaiting tri-
al on sex trafficking charges.
Federal prosecutors in New
York had charged the 66-
year-old with sex trafficking
and conspiracy, alleging he
sexually abused girls over
several years in the early
2000s.
In a letter to the MIT
community Saturday, Reif
called the allegations in the
New Yorker “deeply disturb-
ing.”
“Because the accusa-
tions in the story are ex-
tremely serious, they de-
mand an immediate, thor-
ough and independent in-
vestigation,” Reif wrote.
“This morning, I asked
MIT’s General Counsel to
engage a prominent law firm
to design and conduct this
process.”
Reif said last month that
the university took about
$800,000 from Epstein over
20 years.
That announcement fol-
lowed the resignation of two
prominent researchers from
Media Lab over revelations
the lab and Ito took money
from Epstein after he served
time a decade ago for sex of-
fenses involving underage
girls.
The New Yorker reports
Epstein arranged at least
$7.5 million in donations, in-
cluding $2 million from
Microsoft founder Bill Gates
and $5.5 million from in-
vestor Leon Black.
Although MIT listed Ep-
stein as “disqualified” in its
donor database, the Media
Lab did not stop taking gifts
from him and labeled his do-
nations as anonymous, the
New Yorker reported, citing
emails and other documents
it obtained.
Last week, Ito said Ep-
stein gave him $525,000 for
the Media Lab and $1.2 mil-
lion for his own investment
funds.
Epstein’s July 6 arrest
drew national attention,
particularly focusing on an
agreement that allowed him
to plead guilty in 2008 to
soliciting a minor for prosti-
tution in Florida and avoid
more serious federal
charges.
Epstein was a wealth
manager who hobnobbed
with the rich, famous and in-
fluential, including presi-
dents and a prince.
He owned a private is-
land in the Caribbean,
homes in Paris and New
York City, a New Mexico
ranch and a fleet of high-
price cars.
Phone and email mes-
sages seeking comment
were left for Ito and Media
Lab representatives Sat-
urday.CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —
The director of a prestigious
research lab at the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Tech-
nology resigned Saturday,
and the school’s president
ordered an independent in-
vestigation amid an uproar
over the lab’s ties to late dis-
graced financier Jeffrey Ep-
stein.
Joi Ito, director of MIT’s
Media Lab, resigned from
the lab and from his positionMIT professor
resigns over
Epstein ties
JOI ITO,shown in 2018, has stepped down as director of a prestigious MIT re-
search lab. Its fundraising relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is being investigated.Phillip FaraoneGetty Imagesassociated press