Accident Victim Eulogized as a Leader With Promise

Samuel Law had never been to London before last summer, but when his fellow UCLA law students offered to take him on a tour of Buckingham Palace, Law turned them down flat. The first thing he wanted to do was visit London’s poor neighborhoods.

“Sam wanted to go where he thought he could do some good,” said Marc Allmeroth, who eulogized Law at his funeral Saturday.

Law, who became UCLA’s first Asian student body president when he won a 1981 runoff election, was electrocuted last Sunday while trying to remove a whirlpool device from his parents’ pool in Van Nuys. About 500 people, including Mayor Tom Bradley, showed up at Gardena Baptist Church to pay their last respects to the 27-year-old Chinese-American.

Charismatic Speaker

“There’s no doubt that he would have been an important city leader in the 21st Century,” said Rick Tuttle, Los Angeles city controller, who worked at UCLA when Law ran the student government. “He cared deeply about helping people and was one of the most charismatic student speakers I have ever seen.”

Sheldon Johnson, a black investment banker who served as Law’s vice president, credited Law with unifying a diverse group of student leaders during a transitional period at UCLA. Seven minority members had been elected to the 13-member UCLA Student Legislative Council, which traditionally had been composed of representatives from fraternities and sororities, Johnson said.

“For the first time, we had blacks, Latinos, Asians and whites on the same council, and it was tense,” Johnson said. “But Sam got along with everyone and created an atmosphere of cooperation and understanding.”

In his senior year in 1983, Law bested 300 other applicants statewide for a Senate Fellowship. He worked a year in the office of state Sen. Newton R. Russell of Glendale and afterward became chairman of the Asian Coalition for the Reelection of Mayor Tom Bradley.

Law, a devout Christian, had been studying law but took this summer off to perform missionary work in Hong Kong’s ghettos.

“He died in the same manner in which he lived--helping people,” said Ed Muramoto, an attorney who met Law at UCLA. “He wanted to fix the whirlpool unit because he was afraid it would injure people.”