Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

[News] Uneasy Calm Settles in over L.A.; Riot Death Toll Reaches 44

1 view
Skip to first unread message

Bo Xiong

unread,
May 3, 1992, 1:14:26 AM5/3/92
to
This is a forwarding.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|From: ***@***.***.edu
Date: 3 May 92 01:05:05 GMT

LOS ANGELES (UPI) -- An uneasy calm settled over riot-torn Los Angeles
Saturday as residents cleaned up burned and looted businesses under the
watchful eye of thousands of police and federal troops.

The county coroner's office said the death toll from three days of
rampant violence stood at 44 and could go higher, surpassing the 43
killed in the 1967 race riots in Detroit. Nearly 2,000 people have been
hurt and damage to buildings has been estimated at $550 million.

Although a few fires were reported Friday night and Saturday, the
widespread rampage of looting and violence of the previous nights and
days was not in evidence, although there were scattered reports of
gunfire.

In sharp contrast to the first hours of the riot when outmanned
authorities stood by as stores were looted, police were taking a hard
line against lawlessness Saturday.

About 450 police snuffed out a downtown rally by about 50 mostly
white college students staged to protest the acquittal Wednesday of four
white Los Angeles police officers in the beating of black motorist
Rodney King. All were handcuffed and hauled away in police wagons.

``We were surrounded by about 50 police, and then reinforcements came
in,'' said Sylvia Williams, 20, of Santa Cruz, Calif., whose hands were
bound behind her back with plastic handcuffs. ``They beat us. We were
not doing anything. We were walking down the street, on the sidewalk.''

The citywide dusk-to-dawn curfew was extended throughout the weekend,
and several downtown blocks surrounding Los Angeles police headquarters
remained cordoned off to deter further protests. An anti-police rally
Wednesday turned violent, triggering the first wave of violence and
looting.

Gov. Pete Wilson announced that President Bush signed a second
declaration Saturday to speed disaster relief to victims of the riots.

Among the areas hardest hit by looting was Koreatown, said to be
targeted because of widespread anger lingering from the probationary
sentence given to a Korean grocer for the shooting death of a black
teenager in a dispute over a bottle of orange juice. Authorities said
some 100 business owned by Korean-Americans were damaged or destroyed.

Many Korean-American shopkeepers kept vigil over their shops with
guns and rifles early Saturday, and later thousands staged a peaceful
rally to show solidarity against the violence.

Volunteer clean-up crews, meanwhile, fanned out Saturday to help
extinguish smoldering fires, clear rubble and board up broken windows as
groups of fatigues-clad National Guard troops watched.

The only structures still standing on Vermont Avenue south of the
Harbor Freeway were those marked, ``Black-owned business.'' The smell of
melting plastic and scorched wood was prevalent as sirens raged
throughout the city.

``I didn't want to be out there protesting and all this violent
stuff,'' said Rosavelle Des Tombe, an Occidental College student who was
shoveling dirt on a smoldering fire. ``I wanted to do something
positive.''

Hollywood's entertainment community also pitched in. ``I come here
with a shovel in my hand,'' said actor Edward James Olmos, famed for his
role in the movie ``Stand and Deliver.'' He said a small minority of the
community was responsible for the violence and looting.

``Cleaning up a couple of dozen buildings doesn't seem like very
much,'' said actor Lloyd Bridges, who was joined by his actor son, Beau.
``I think that the important thing is our presence -- showing that we
care.''

Most of the stop lights in the area were either flashing red or
inoperative, causing massive traffic congestion. Military vehicles,
covered in desert camoflauge, were a common sight among the rattletrap
cars driven by impoverished residents looking for the few remaining gas
stations.

Some gas station owners, taking advantage of the situation, raised
gas prices to $2 a gallon even though oil company representatives
insisted there was no shortage of fuel.

Long lines snaked out of markets that escaped the looting, and food
staples were in short supply. At a damaged but not looted ABC grocery
store at Vermont and Vernon avenues, National Guardsmen, dressed in
camoflauge and brandishing automatic M-16 rifles, combined forces with
the LAPD officers to keep the peace.

With mail delivery halted, thousands of welfare and social security
recipients lined up at regional post offices to pick up their end-of-
the-month checks. No incidents were reported.

``Everything was calm and quiet, everyone was orderly,'' said Sam
Ferguson, a volunteer handing out welfare checks at the post office on
Vermont Avenue. ``What can I say? It turned out to be a nice day.''

Ferguson, wearing a shirt bearing the appeal, ``Calm down Los
Angeles,'' said he witnessed no violence at the post office and
attributed the calm to the heavy police and National Guard presence.

``There was no violence, no altercations. People were well-behaved in
a very trying situation,'' agreed Michael Ahern, a U.S. postal inspector
who carried a handgun and wore a bullet-proof vest.

Though 3,500 welfare recipients got their checks Saturday, there was
a great deal of confusion over where they would be cashed. Most of the
banks in the area had been gutted, looted and torched.

Deputy David Pelitz of the Emergency Operation Center said 1,984
people have been hurt since the rioting began, with 198 of those
injuries considered critical. More than 6,781 people have been arrested
since the unrest began, Pelitz said.

Three arraignment courts were opened Saturday -- in downtown, Long
Beach and Torrance -- and doing a brisk business processing the flood of
arrestees, said sheriff's department spokesman Hal Grant.

There number of National Guard troops deployed in Los Angeles County
rose to 7,742 Saturday. They joined some 1,000 sheriff's deputies and 5,
000 LAPD officers and several hundred federal law enforcement officers.

The number of arson fires early Saturday was down by 80 percent.
Firefighters have responded to more than 2,000 fires, while three
firefighters have been shot, said David Plucinski, a Fire Department
inspector.

With at least 44 people killed, according to the county coroner, the
L.A. riots surpassed the worst U.S. riot in the turbulent 1960s -- the
1967 Detroit race riots that claimed 43 lives. The carnage and damage
were worse than that of the 1965 Watts uprising in Los Angeles, for four
decades the symbol of racial anger in the United States.

Los Angeles city officials estimated damage to buildings at about
$550 million, and that did not count the enormous loss of merchandise to
looters. The six-day Watts riot claimed 34 lives and injured more than
1,000, leaving $200 million in damage that was felt for years in the
city's black ghetto.

The chaos paralyzed the nation's second largest city for a time, as
businesses were closed, bus service halted, phone service interrupted
and one sporting or entertainment event after another was canceled.
Residents struggled to restore normalcy to the stricken areas.

LAPD Sgt. John Williams said police were providing security Saturday
for utility company workers who were trying to repair severed phone and
power lines. Some 50,000 customers remained without power Saturday.

``We respond now at the request of the particular agency,'' Williams
said, ``to assist them in providing coverage while they go in and re-
establish service to the community that has been broken.''

He said residents came from their homes to help shield police from
the threat of violence. ``Some of the neighbors came out and indicated
to us that we had nothing to worry about,'' Williams said, ``and if we
were able to get their power on, that they would help us and keep any of
the violence away from us and the crews.''

The Southern California Rapid Transit District, which had shut down
bus and train service overnight, resumed daylight-hour schedules but
continued to keep most buses out of the sections of South Los Angeles
considered to be dangerous. Some 50 buses were donated to help ferry
police and federal troops to stricken areas.

Families of victims meanwhile, recounted the terror of loved ones cut
down by random violence.

``When one of Matt's friends called our house to tell us what had
happened, my father answered the phone. Moments later he screamed out in
pain, and I ran downstairs, because my father is not usually given to
emotional outbursts,'' said Katrina Haines, 21, niece of shooting victim
Matthew Haines.

``I asked him what's wrong, and he said 'Matt's dead,' and at that
time I did the same,'' Haines said. ``They had shot Matt in the back of
his head.''

Unrest from the infamous police brutality case continued to spill
over into other cities, as police stood vigilant and shopkeepers swept
up in the wake of scattered violence. Among the cities struck by
scattered violence were Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and
Springfield, Ill.

World leaders also commented on the urban strife, with Pope John Paul
II saying he was ``deeply saddened'' and Libya blaming the trouble on a
``racist, unjust verdict.''

A new opinion poll found most Americans think the Los Angeles police
officers should have been found guilty.

Nearly all blacks -- 92 percent -- and three-fourths of the whites
surveyed said the innocent verdicts for the four officers were wrong,
according to the poll published in Newsweek magazine's latest edition.

Additionally, three-fourths of African-Americans said that black
people were treated more harshly than whites when charged with the same
crimes, the poll said.

Almost half of the whites surveyed, or 46 percent, felt the same way.
The poll also found that Americans have less respect for police than a
generation ago.

Peter Ueberroth, highly regarded as head of the 1984 Los Angeles
Olympic Organizing Committee and later as baseball commissioner, was
named by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley Saturday as point man in a
public-private effort to rebuild South Los Angeles.

Ueberroth, often mentioned as a candidate for political office,
recently headed up a blue ribbon task force appointed by the governor to
study ways to improve California's ailing economy.

``What we are seeking to do is make hope realistic,'' Wilson said in
making the announcement with Bradley.

Ueberroth said he hoped to find short- and long-term solutions to the
problems of poverty-stricken communities in Los Angeles, to ``make this
a blueprint for inner-cities in this country.''

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Forwarded to SCC by Bo Xiong in Chicago

0 new messages