The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 21

LOS ANGELES TIMES THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1992 A21 RODNEY G. KING TRIAL: THE VERDICTS RIOTS: Wilson Calls Out Guard After Riots, Fires Central Los Angeles on Wednesday KIRKMcKOY Loa Angeles Times and is helped to safety, right, during disturbances over King verdict. both deaths to the riots. At California Medical Center near downtown, two other deaths were linked to the rioting. The anger over the King verdict simmered through the afternoon, then turned ugly as dusk started to fall over the city.

At Parker Center, a line of police in riot gear faced off against protesters gathered outside. But when anarchy erupted at Florence and Norman-die starting at about 5:30 p.m., police were nowhere to be seen. No signs of law enforcement were evident for hours as mobs dragged motorists from their vehicles and beat them, hurled rocks and bottles at passing cars and looted a nearby liquor store. Officers responding to the violence retreated after the mob grew larger and angrier. The lack of response puzzled Reiner.

"I would have thought they would have moved in immediately and quickly suppressed it," Reiner said. "The plan is a mystery to me." TV reporters also expressed disbelief at the scene unfolding live before viewers. "I can't believe the cops are looking at this and not doing something, "one anchorwo-man declared. Police initially said they lacked sufficient forces to react to some specific trouble spots. "We didn't have enough numbers to go in," Cmdr.

Robert Gil, a police spokesman, said early in the evening. "You can't go in if you have only four or five officers. You have to have a sufficient number." At about 7 p.m., as violence escalated, police commanders ordered all off-duty officers to report for duty. The city's longstanding racial tensions, which many leaders have said were exacerbated by the beating of King, reached their hottest point on the streets following the-verdicts. Many of perpetrators of the attacks were African-Americans; some victims were white and Asian.

"I'm glad people are raising hell," said Millie Feldman, a 28-year-old South Central resident who hurled a bottle at a late model Mercedes Benz driven by a white woman past Florence and Nor-mandie. "I don't think it's good but it's got to happen. "Xe don't have to put up VV with this," Feldman added. "This is not the right way but it's the only way. This is just beginning." A looter carrying beer out of a liquor store angrily compared the King verdict with that of a Korean-born grocer who recently was granted probation after being convicted in the shooting of a 15-year-old black girl she had accused of attempting to steal a bottle of orange juice.

The four police officers "should have gotten at least six months. It's not fair," he said. They been beating us for months. What's right is right. People can't keep living like this.

People are tired of this." As he spoke, a Firestone Tire Shop nearby was going up in flames. A 20-year-old black resident who gave his name only as E.J. said anger simmered throughout the afternoon. After a crowd gathered at the corner of 71st and Norman-die, he said, police arrived at the scene. When patrol cars arrived and officers attempted to make arrests, the crowd got out of control, E.J.

said. "They was shouting, 'Black and then everybody started throwing bottles and rocks at the police cars," E.J. said. "The police brought out their billy clubs or something, I don't know what, but people got real pissed." After 15 or 20 minutes, he said, "the sergeant or whoever was in charge got on his loudspeaker and started saying, 'It's not worth it, it's not worth it, let's get out of Continued from Al off the streets. It's anticipated that a curfew will be put into effect tomorrow night." 'I At least 25 arrests were reported by 11:45 p.m.

The vast majority of the fires in neighborhoods south of downtown, said Fire Department spokesman Bob Col lis. On a normal night, Collis said, there are only about two to three structure fires reported an hour city wide. "They're coming in about one a minute," Collis said. And I 'think it's going to go on like that all night." i Smoke was so thick in South Los Angeles that the Federal Aviation Authority ordered the rerouting of flights into Los Angeles Interna-tlbnal Airport. The view from a helicopter fly-, ing 600 feet above the city south of the Santa Monica Freeway just after 10 p.m.

was an odd mixture of scattered infernos and eerie normalcy. Funnels of black smoke ipse like slow-moving tornadoes. One of the worst appeared to be at a store next to the Golden State Mutual Building on West Adams Boulevard at Western Avenue, a few blocks from First AME Church, where African-American community leaders hosted an emotional peace rally earlier in the evening. "It's a throwback to 1965," said Atty. Ira Reiner.

"It's Watts' all over again." Downtown, a racially mixed group of protesters massed outside Parker Center, eventually hurling rocks and setting fire to a small kiosk. The demonstration turned into a rampage, as rioters moved "onto City Hall, the Los Angeles Times, courthouses and federal and state office buildings, smashing windows and igniting small blazes along the way. A police car was set aflame, as were four palm trees lining the Hollywood Freeway, shooting flames a hundred feet into the air. Several people ran onto the freeway or hurled objects, stopping traffic for about 15 minutes. Some motorists panicked and made U-turns, heading the wrong direction on the freeway in search of an exit.

Looting and vandalism were reported at points across Los Angeles -County, including Compton, South Los Angeles and Westwood Village. Violence also erupted at the Lake View Terrace location in the San Fernando Valley where King was beaten 14 months ago. Demonstrators there later marched on the 1 Foothill Division headquarters, the. home station of the officers who were tried in the beating of King. Gunshots were heard in Lake View Terrace at 9:15 p.m., prompting -protesters, police and bystanders to duck for cover.

No one was reported injured. Bradley called a local state of emergency shortly before 9 p.m. and Goy. Wilson ordered the National Guard to report for duty minutes later. The RTD shut down bus service, and Los Angeles Unified School District officials ordered that dozens of schools on the city's south side be shut today.

1 A spokesman for Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Center said that between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., the emergency room admitted 22 people with injuries, including five gunshot victims. The spokesman said the admissions were "a very high number," and the injuries from minor to critical. Two operating rooms were in use to handle the flow, he said.

At Daniel Freeman Hospital in Inglewood, two men were reported dead. Mary Schnack, a hospital spokeswoman, said a Latino man died at 9:37 p.m. of traumatic injuries and a gunshot to the chest. The second fatality, a black man who was thrown from a car, died of head and internal injuries, Schnack said. Hospital workers attributed March 30: Bradley appoints former Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher as chairman of a seven -member citizen commission to conduct a broad inquiry into Police Department practices and procedures.

April 2: More than a dozen police officers, none of them involved in the beating, transfer from the Foothill Division in an effort to restore public confidence. In a televised address, Bradley says he asked Gates to resign, but Gates refused. Hi i tiii Apr" 4: PoIice lire LmiE Commission places of Absence Gates on paid 60- day leave and the chief pledges to appeal commission's action. Christopher and 11VUNGWON KANG Los AngelcsTirncs auto store at the intersection of Crenshaw Boulevard and 52nd Street. Glass, Ransack Times Building A man is attacked, left, in South An L.A.

firefighter flees the heat "And after that, man, they left. They just left. They shouldn't never have left." After that, E.J. said, the mob surrounded and rocked cars that carried people "who were light skinned or white. There was one guy, a guy in a gray Volvo, who jumped out of his car and started taking pictures.

But when the police left, the black people chased him back to his car, and jumped on him and jumped on his Volvo, stole his camera, his briefcase, pulled him out and started jump kicking him in the head. He just barely got away. If some black guy hadn't helped him, he probably would be dead right now "One Caucasian lady was driving down the street in a van with a whole bunch of little kids in the back. I told her, 'Get out the neighborhood, you better get out of here look at all these About 200 people lined the intersection, with many raised fists. Chunks of asphalt and concrete April 22: A California Highway Patrol lieutenant is recommended for demotion and a captain and sergeant face suspensions without pay for failing to investigate the King beating quickly enough.

The King incident began as a pursuit by the CHP. April 24: State attorney general announces insufficient evidence to file criminal charges against King in two San Fernando Valley armed robberies that occurred weeks before the beating. April 30: The Christopher Commission holds its first public hearings. May 1: City Council rejects Larry Drasin, Bradley's nominee for the Civil Service Commission, as a signal to Bradley that the council will as fire engulfs a Firestone tire and were thrown at cars. Some yelled, "It's a black thing." Others shouted, "This is for Rodney King." In gruesome scenes recorded by the TV news helicopters, an 18-wheel truck was stopped in the intersection, its driver, identified as Reginald Denny, dragged from the cab and beaten by the mob.

He lay bleeding and motionless for several minutes. He was taken to Daniel Freeman Hospital, where he underwent surgery and was listed in critical condition early this morning. Cars were smashed in the intersection and abandoned by their owners. A brown Jeep Wrangler came to a stop when the driver who appeared to be an Asian male in his 30s or 40s was hit by a rock thrown through the front windshield. When he got out of the vehicle, he was smashed in the face with a bottle, leaving him bloodied and dazed.

A few people braved the mob to assist victims. not tolerate his interfering with the city's Civil Service system in his bid to oust Gates. Police Commissioner Melanie Lomax is accused of leaking confidential documents to a lawyer with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. May 2: Police officers receive a copy of a memo from Gates that emphasizes their obligation to intervene if they see another officer engaged in misconduct and to report the matter immediately to their superiors. May 7: Gates takes disciplinary action against the four criminally charged officers.

He fires probationary Officer Timothy E. Vandals Smash Some Offices in The Los Angeles Times building was among several downtown structures damaged by rampaging vandals Wednesday night, several hours after verdicts in the King case. Most employees on the ground level of the historic structure at 1st and Spring streets had gone home by the time of the 9 p.m. attack. Two employees were evacuated from the first floor, but dozens of reporters and editors continued to work in the third-floor newsroom.

No one was injured. Executive Editor Shelby Coffey III estimated that damage to the building would run into the tens of thousands of dollars. The vandals were part of a crowd of about 200 that had first formed in front of Parker Center, the police headquarters, two blocks away. After being repelled by po Wind and suspends the other three without pay. May 10: Grand jury decides not to indict any of the 17 officers who were at the scene but did not take part in the attack.

May 11: King is pulled over in Santa Fe Springs, but not cited, when sheriff's deputies decide his vehicle has illegally tinted windows, then determine that his vehicle registration has expired and he is not carrying his driver's license. May 13: A Los Angeles Superior Court judge rules that the City Council acted within its authority when it preempted the Police Commission's move to place Gates on a 60-day leave. lice there, the crowd surged through downtown, smashing windows, setting trees afire and uprooting newsstands. In front of the Times, several young men threw newsstands into plate-glass windows, shattering 17 in all. The missiles left broken glass and equipment around the offices of the Los Angeles Times Magazine, which occupies much of the first floor.

The mob then ransacked the offices of Times Special Events, which organizes promotional and charitable events for the newspaper. The crowd left the Times building within 10 minutes and went on to vandalize other downtown buildings. But marauders returned an hour later and pelted windows with more debris. JAMES RAINEY May 14: The judge in the King case refuses to grant separate trials for the four indicted officers. May 22: Judge calls published confidential details of a 314 -page Internal Affairs report a "distraction," but says they will not jeopardize a fair trial.

He orders a Times reporter to appear in court and disclose the source of the material. May 23: Lawyers and community activists state publicly that Gates' department uses embarrassing personal information collected on political figures, particularly members of the City Council, to ensure support. May 28: King is HE Hll arrested, then released fjfract after he allegedly tries to run down an under- Arguelles commissions merge into a single independent commission. April 5: City Council orders the reinstatement of Gates, and the chief agrees not to sue the city for monetary damages. The Christopher Commission meets for the first time, promising a top-to-bottom inquiry of every aspect of the Police Department.

Gates returns to work after a five-day forced leave of absence. April 15: Paul Jefferson, a black police captain, replaces John Mutz, a white captain in charge of patrol officers at the Foothill Division. April 17: Los Angeles Police Protective League's Board of Directors votes unanimously against backing a proposed recall of the mayor..