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King ruling incites L.A. violence

'BYJIMMULVANEY 'Newsday

LOS ANGELES At 3:15 Wednes day afternoon the jury foreman started to read out the not verdicts acquitting police beating Rodney King It was "a verdict that seemed to fly in the face of an oft broadcastamateurvideotape that showed the four white policemen beating the seemingly helpless black suspect

Within six hours Mayor Tom Brad ley had declared a state of emergency Gov Pete Wilson had called out the National Guard'and a spree of looting arson and random killings moved into high gear On Thursday a duskcurfew was ordered By Friday after noon U.S. Marines and Army troops were deployed in staging areas ready to put down the worst riots in the historyof this troubled city

When I heard the verdict the first thing I did was checkmy pistol checked my ammo said Jay Harvey a liquor store owner Then I thought about it

See KING page 6.

'BY JIM MULVANEY

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Rioting destroys many businesses in Koreatown and predominately black neighborhoods in Calif. KING from page 1.

jumped in my car and went right to the gun rack and got out the artil lery. Everyone knew it would be bad.

Harvey who on Friday proudly displayed three rifles a shotgun and several ammo boxes behind the counter of his store admitted he was surprised that the rioting was as prolonged and widespread as it was.

And Saturday after a compara tively peaceful Friday night as the city seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and started to rebuild it also began to look at exactly what hap pened how seemingly justified protests exploded into days of ter ror.

While the cause of the explosion will take time to determine the leading factors appear to be a com bination of the near-complete sur prise of the verdict the volatile mix ofa large disaffected and disjointed minority community the toll of poverty drug addiction and despair slow police reaction and inefficient deployment of the National Guard.

A picture has begun to emerge on how the violence started escalated out of control and by Saturday had seemingly petered out.

This account is compiled from media accounts and staff reporting

At 12:30a.m. March 1991Los Angeles police stopped 25-year-old Rodney King after a high-speed car chase. Police said he resisted and four officers had to beat him into submission while 11 more cops looked on. An unseen bystander George Holliday recorded 81 sec onds of the vicious beating on vid eotape and sold it the following day televisionstationfor$500.

Within hours it was broadcast around the nation. EvenPoIice Chief Daryl Gates a pugnacious man not known for racial sensitivity apolo gized for the beating calling it an "aberration.

The four officers seen in the vid eotape were indicted on felony charges 12 days later. A political storm with heavy racial overtones erupted and Bradley one of the longest blackmayors in the country attempted to force Gates out of his protected civil-service job. Gates eventually announced he would retire next month.

IIi November Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg announced that

he was moving the trial to Simi Valley in suburban Ventura County because press coverage would make it impos sible to pick an unbiased jury in Los Angeles.

Simi Valley 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles is predomi nantly white and the jury was made up of 10 whites a Hispanic and an Asian.

The location and makeup of the jury which returned not-guilty verdicts

on three of the officers and declared itself hung on one count against the copwho struck the most blows fu eled suspicions of racism.

The verdict was broadcast live shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday and although some commentators pre dicted one or two officers'might be acquitted seemingly everyone was caught by surprise when the words "not guilty" were spoken 10 times mistrial once and the jurors filed out without returning a single conviction.

Today this jury told the world what we all saw with our own eyes wasn't a crime Bradley said on tele vision and radio shortly after the ver dict

"Today that jury asked us to accept the senseless and brutal beating of a helpless man

Within minutes after the verdict angry crowds gathered at the intersec tion of 55th Street and Normandie Avenue in the center of the South- Central neighborhood. Someone set up a cardboard sign that read "Black men and women are fair game for shooting and beating at the hands of Gates' gang known as.LAPD.

At the same time acrowd of about 200 gathered at the Lake View Ter- race spot where King had beenbeaten They chanted "We want justice" and "Guilty. Passing police cars were stoned.

Mainstream outrage over the ver dict flooded television news reports with statements from the NAACP the American Civil Liberties Union the American Jewish Congress and oth ers.

Crowds gathered downtown around police headquarters by 5 p.m. and as Gatesl eft to attend a political meet ing he was greeted with chants of "LAPD are rednecks. LAPD are rac ists.

Asduskfell violence explodedback on Normandie. Police arrivingto ar rest looters at 71st nd -Normafidie were showeredwith'rocksandbottlesj' as the crowd got out of control. Wit nesses said that after about 15 min

utes a sergeant got on a loudspeaker and ordered a police retreat i

Television news displayed live pictures of people smashing shop windows andcartingoff goodsWhite motorists were pulled out of cars and a white truck driver was beaten nearly to death by a mob a beating broadcast live from a television heli copter. As night fell fires broke out in the Central district -v.

At about the same time gunshots were heard at Lake View Terrace It quickly became clear that this was different from the 11965 riots in Watts which came to symbolize the black- white tension that has ripped the country apart for so long.

This time Los Angeles was a dif ferent city with a more subtle spec trum. While the haves are still pre dominantly white the "have and the emerging "up by the boot straps" class are now a mix ofblacks Hispanic-Americans and undocu mented Mexican and Central'Ameri- cans and a large number of Asians with Koreans bumping hard against the other groups.

Anger with the authorities appar ently had been bubbling for decades and it was not just blacks who took the King verdict personally it was also Hispanics and whites There is much evidence that the first moments of rage sucked in many opportunists with a need to vent frustration or simply steal and pillage.

Some Koreans who come from a nation where police are traditionally heavy-handed did not seem 'to un derstand the outrage over the verdict However they quickly grew dis gusted with police for failing to pro tect them.

It appears the firstfatality occurred at 8:15 pjn Wednesday when year-old Louis Watson was shot the head by unknown gunmen rat Vernon and Vermont Avenues.

About this time Gates had put the police on alert canceled leaves and called back hundreds of investiga tors But Bradley decided Gates had lost control of the city and at about9 pin he declared a state of emer gency and persuaded Wilson to call out the National Guard

But the violence continued to grow Shortly after 11 pin the first dea i-

for which the police took respond bilitY occurred when a year man waskilled in a shootfiut'be .tweemuniforme'd tJffie&siand fct&Ui

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The pattern in the South area was set early S tores were looted of most.of their goods and when there'seemed little of value'left someone poured gasoline on the floor and set it afire On the first night 150 fires were set

Normal rivalries among street gangs were suspended and the Crips Bloods Hoovers and Eight Trey Gangsters joined in a rampage of looting burning and shootingat po lice officers.

The violence spread throughout the day Thursday as radio commen tators compared the view to the Iraqi occupationof Kuwait City last year with plumes of smoke marking the distance to the horizon.

"For a period of time from mid night to three o'clock we were get ting about three new fires aminute said Fire Chief Donald Manning.

"We had numerous situations where there were attempts to kill firefighters added explaining why fire officials were letting some blazes burn unattended.

The violence spread at 2 p.m. Thursday to the city of Compton where police said a man was shot after he swung a bottle at an officer Mobs took to the streets in Long Beach Inglewood the normally staid shopping and banking district of Mid- Wilshire and even Hollywood Bou levard

At5p.m. a 15-year-old blackmale was killed by sheriffsdeputiesin Hawthorne allegedly after looting a jewelry store'and firing at cops.

By mid-afternoon Gates admitted that his force was unprepared and outmanned.

"We were simply overwhelmed he told a news conference.having" swapped his business suit for a po lice uniform with apistol on his hip.

The National Guard did not pro vide help as quickly as had been hoped.

Although the first 2000 troops arrived in the city by midday Thurs day they were mostly without am munition due to a delivery foulThursday afternoon the violence also spread from South-Central into neighboring Koreatown where most

of the residents are black or His panic and most of the shopkeepers are among the more than 300,000 Koreans'who have arrived in the city in the last 15 years.

Koreatownis a volatile area with greatsuspicioriifnothatred'among the three groups. Many blame the tensions on cultural differences.

The Korean language cap sound rude to English speakers and that perception combined with the lack of black employees in shops run by Asian families has fed tension.

Koreanmerchantssaidthey called for protection quickly but the pleas were ignored by police who said they were quickly overwhelmed by the crisis

The Koreans quickly armed themselves and a security guard was killed Thursday evening in a shootout between shopkeepers and a black mob More than 100 struc ture fires were reported in Koreatown

Theonlybuildingssparedseemed to be ones protected armed Ko reins or some that were identified by graffiti as black or"Latino

By Thursday afternoon the local television airwaves were filled with

live reports from the ground and helicopter.

Traffic reporters who usually coveredfreeway conditions counted blazes and reporters interviewed brazen looters carrying out televi sion sets food liquor and diapers.

"IfI don't take ithome it will just get burned up a man in his 20s said before dashing down the street with a television.

The dusk curfew seemed to take the edge off. Police andguardsmen started tomake their presence felt again at first as escorts for firefighters then fanning.out to minimize looting

By the end of Thursday night the death toll stood at 25 with 572 inju ries more than 1000 fires and 720 arrests.

Dawn broke Friday through an eerie yellow haze from the fires Nearly every factory office school park and beach was closed.

People ventured out in the most heavily affected areas to assess the damage many 16 see police patrols for the firstfime in30 hours.

The violence had spread tQ Long Beach south Los Angelesi1'.where vandals fire to theregionalDepart- ment of Motor Vehicles building which burned most of the day

it was one of 218 fires there Friday A curfew was declaredand 340 people were arrested.

President Bush ordered 1000 fed erallaw officials fromcustoms immigration and other services Ja Los Angeles He later dis patched 1,500 marines'and 3,000 Army troops to act as backups for the National Guard. He took the further step of federalizing the Guard putting them under of Gen. ColinPowell chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rather than local officials

Theviolencebecariiemorespdradic Friday. Police started to make whole sale arrests more thanS.OOOonFriday alone mostly for looting.

There was a missive enforcement presence with 20,960 cops and troops ready for action For most of Friday it was almost 6000 at any given time including 1,800 Los Angeles police officers 700 California Highway Pa trol officers and 2,800inembers of the National Guard.

At 7:30 a.m. Friday three Los An geles police officers were wounded by a sniper in South'In the early afternoon Rodney King gave a statement broadcast on radio and television a move requested by political leaders to calm tensions

Wevegot to quit we've got to quit he said in a halting emotional tone.

"I could understandthe first upset for the first two hours after the verdict. But to go on to keep going on like this its just not right By Friday evening convoys of fed

eral troops had arrived on the outskirts of town r

Saturday morning television pro graming was back to normal power lines were being repaired limited bus service was restored and the commu nity breathed a collective sigh ofrelief that Friday night had been quiet

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