Gordon Turner Bio

Last Updated (Wednesday, 31 December 1969 10:59) Written by Administrator Sunday, 10 January 2010 12:32

Gordon Turner for California State Assembly

Gordon Eugene Turner was born in Detroit, Michigan on November 30, 1964.  His parents are Robert Marshall Turner and Mildred Annette Turner who brought four children into this world, Gordon being the third of four.  Like many African American families at that time they lived in the inner city of Detroit and he grew up seeing many things that parents never want their children to see and experiencing things that their parents never want them to experience.  Of all the things witnessed and experienced in his childhood, however, he does not think that anything had as profound an effect on him as seeing his father attack and beat his mother in the living room of their home as if she were someone that he didn’t even know.  Gordon was also victim of this type of violence from his father as well.  He feared him.

Gordon attended the local elementary school where his mother also worked as a teacher’s aide. His mother ultimately left his father in the fall of 1973 without really having anywhere to go other than away, with her children.  Although their future was uncertain and he didn’t know where they were going to end up, he was relieved that his father would never hit him, nor his mother ever again.

Gordon and his family lived in a couple of different homes until they landed in the summer of 1975 in Northwest Detroit.  He was 10 years old.  They stayed there while he attended middle school, which had been caught up in desegregation at that time.  He was bussed across town when he lived 2 blocks from his local school.  It turned out to be for the better as the school was a magnet and he met students from many different countries that he never knew existed.  Gordon remembers the question being asked almost every day at his school by students, “What’s your nationality?” However, never to discriminate, only seemingly to know and appreciate and he think that he can honestly say that as an African American student in a predominantly Latino and Caucasian neighborhood, he does not remember one incident of discrimination against him.  Gordon spent 2 years in that system and then his 8^th Grade year he spent at the local junior high school, which was a complete nightmare.

His mother then had him tested for the magnet high schools and he ended up at Cass Technical High School in the fall of 1978.  This changed his life.  He met people there who are still his friends to this day and he had experiences there that shaped his life.   Gordon graduated in the summer of 1982 and took off a year before he went to college.  During this time, Gordon Turner worked a minimum wage job at a movie theater that helped him to realize that he didn’t want to work for minimum wage and that he needed to go to college.

After a chain of events Gordon was admitted into Western Michigan University in the summer of 1983.  He remembers his mother standing on the front porch of their home crying as he was driven off to school. He will never forget it.  Gordon ended up leaving Western Michigan University after some time and attending the University of Michigan –Dearborn.  While a student he worked various jobs as a waiter, bouncer in nightclubs, and eventually as an auto repossessor, yes, a repo - man!!. It was here that Gordon Turner eventually ran out of money and excuses for not having money and he came to Los Angeles, California in early 1992.  He came for a visit and decided to try to find work while here.  After all, anything was better than being a repo – man in Detroit.  He went through newspapers, calls, agencies, until he got an interview with a private investigation firm in the Miracle Mile area that hired him.  He then arranged housing for himself through a friend of a friend who needed someone to live and care for a home that she owned in Altadena.  His decision was made to move to Los Angeles.  Gordon Turner went back to Detroit and packed all of his belongings into his car that he had purchased from the repo company – it had been repossessed, and his younger brother and he pushed his car out of about 3 feet of snow and he got on the road. This was February of 1992.

As Gordon Turner drove across the country he made all types of plans about what his life would be like here in Los Angeles. He arrived with about $40.00 on his pocket in February of 1992.  As misfortune would have it, upon his arrival in Los Angeles he was advised that he would not be able to live in the home that he had been promised. His worst fears were now realized.  Gordon Turner was now homeless and unemployed in Los Angeles without enough money to turn around and go back home.

Fortunate, Gordon was interviewed in a restaurant and finally was hired as a waiter. After working this and various other jobs here in Los Angeles Gordon Turner was hired by the City Attorney’s Office in January of 1995 as a Witness Coordinator in the Hollywood Branch Court.  While at the City Attorney’s Office, he worked on finishing his undergraduate degree and after numerous trips back and forth to Michigan for enrollment, assignments, exams and so on, he graduated in the summer of 1998. Also, by that time, Gordon Turner had demonstrated exemplary work for the office and had been promoted from the position of Witness Coordinator to an Investigator in the relatively newly formed Domestic Violence Unit of the City Attorney’s Office. He though that because of his upbringing he felt a special attachment or sensitivity to this issue.

While preparing to graduate from college Gordon began to prepare for the LSAT.  Paying for a class like Kaplan or Princeton Review was out of the question and not in the budget at that time so he purchased a Barron’s LSAT Prep book and went to work.  As if things were not hard enough at that time, he was told by his mother that his father had been attacked, robbed, beaten and tied up in his home.  Gordon immediately flew to Detroit and saw him before he soon passed away.  He cannot say if this affected his performance on this LSAT but he applied to and was accepted by Southwestern University School of Law that fall.  He worked for the City Attorney’s Office the entire time that he was in law school.

Gordon Turner graduated in May of 2002 on time and after passing the California Bar Examination he was hired as a Deputy City Attorney in June of 2004. He was assigned to the Metropolitan Branch of our office and while there he had the privilege of doing a number of trials involving DUIs, identity theft, hit and runs, child endangerment and so on. He then went to the Crime Prevention Youth Protection Division and worked in the Operation Bright Future program where Gordon Tuner educated families on the truancy statutes and helped them to get their children back in school. It was here that he was first introduced to the hospital patient dumping issue by other colleagues in the office and asked to get involved in the Kaiser Permanente case.  For Gordon, this work was interesting and highly rewarding and it led into the investigation of Medicare and MediCal fraud and all things involving homelessness and skid row as well. His past gave him a special passion for this work. Growing up without much and moving from place to place gives one a special appreciation and understanding of how difficult it is to be homeless and how it can happen to anyone.  From here Gordon Turner worked on the HALO Program (Homeless Alternatives to Living on the Streets) where, as a prosecutor, he actually removed defendants from custody and placed them into residential treatment facilities and dismissed their cases. The goal here was to get them better by treatment and not incarceration and it was his honor to participate in their success.

While working for the Office of the City Attorney over the years, many times Gordon Turner have been approached and asked why he had not considered running for public office.  In many ways he guesses that he did not feel that he   was ready, or that the time wasn’t right however, this changed in 2008.  The condition of our city was such that we needed help in the form of new leadership, new ideas, and someone who was willing to dedicate himself fully to the task.  Gordon Turners was approached and asked to run for Mayor of the City of Los Angeles and after much reflection and counting the cost he agreed.  There were 21 individuals who submitted documentation to be candidates for the March 2009 election – Gordon Turner was one of those.  Of those who made it onto the ballot, including the incumbent Mayor, Gordon Turner, came in third.  For the first time out many felt that this was an impressive start.  We must highlight that this is a start and not an ending. “If the desire to improve a community and speak for those that have no voice is a true desire, such desire doesn’t die at the loss of an election” Gordon Turner explains.

Since that time, looking ahead with the City in the same, if not worse, condition, Gordon Turner have not lost his desire to be an advocate for his community.  As he lives in the 48^th District, and has worked on matters affecting the people in this district since 1996, Gordon Turner is at this time stating his intention to run for California State Assembly District 48.  “I am proud to say that I do not go forward in this endeavor alone.  There has been a tremendous amount of community support for my candidacy and I look forward to the campaign trail, meeting more members of the constituency, and representing the interests of this large and diverse district.  From Korea town to Athens, I have been in and around District 48th for years and this district has my support”.

“I guess that I would have to say that my true passion in life is to help people on a large scale, regardless of where they are from, or their socio-economic level.  Not to do so with rhetoric while passing the responsibility to someone else but to take a very hands – on approach, to implement programs to accomplish this, and establish a culture of empowerment, success and unity.  This is precisely what we do not have here in Los Angeles and as one who holds public office here in Southern California; I seek to bring this about in California State Assembly District 48."

Gordon Eugene Turner