The news reports had us stymied. Violent or peaceful, that was the question, and only the city of Los Angeles held the answer. I was convinced nothing would be happening, but we had planned too hard and broken too many laws in the process to back out. Besides, wasn't there a cleanup effort? Surely there must be a dry, banal story in that.So we drove to L.A. through the deserted freeways. All of the good citizens were at home; given the third day off work since the riots started, and paralyzed by the fear the media had created.
I didn't know what to expect, but the normality of West L.A. wasn't it. The same old self-centered, BMW-driving Angelinos were polluting the streets. The sun reflected off the glass buildings created by the wealth of L.A.'s finest citizens; glass unharmed by the angry mobs I was already tired of hearing about.
The statements I'd heard in Santa Cruz about the riots not being a black thing suddenly seemed like so much bullshit. Why was East L.A., a primarily Hispanic community, not razed by angry mobs? Life was safe and normal here, just as life is always safe and normal here, and we headed east.
Around Town
The news had given us little indication of what L.A. would really be like. The streets themselves were fascinating, but from the moment we turned on the scanners, purchased at Radio Shack that morning, we were thrust into another dimension. Radio traffic was constant on over 50 channels. Entire squads, referred to as 'Queen,' followed by a number, were being deployed and shifted around constantly.
The post-riot crime wave had reached unmanageable proportions, and the police were only responding to the highest-priority calls. In the wake of so much destruction and illegality, people had lost all respect for the largely symbolic power of the law, and violent crime was rampant. Incidents like 'Suspect armed with a shotgun on the top of a building," were classified as 'information only, no units respond.' More interesting crimes occasionally roamed the airwaves, like the report of a man walking the streets armed with a bazooka.
As we headed into South-Central L.A., rushing from crime scene to crime scene, the scanner was our enigmatic guide. By the time we had fixed a channel, figured out their jargon, and made it through the traffic, the suspect had invariably escaped and the police gone on to chase and lose another.
I was unnerved by the smoldering ruins that had once been homes and businesses. National Guard temporary command posts were set up at every ruined mini-mall in the district, one-block long parking lots surrounded by charred beams and broken glass.
Powerless traffic signals at every street corner provided the finishing touches to an already powerful air of surreality, causing such horrendous gridlock problems that we would have doubled our speed walking.
"We Want Peace"
We decided to head towards Koreatown, where a peaceful march of 25,000 (later estimated by news helicopters at 100,000) had blocked traffic for miles. Reports of people shooting into the crowd didn't surprise me, most of the day's 6,000 incidents had involved armed suspects.
The Korean community was hit particularly hard in the riots. The aggression was primarily due to an incident last year, in which Korean store owner Soon Ja Du was given probation for fatally shooting 12-year-old, black, Natasha Harlins over a bottle of orange juice she hadn't paid for.
Though we were in the middle of the march, the constantly moving crowd hadn't passed us when we left, 45 minutes later. The protesters had been chanting 'We want peace,' and singing the Korean National Anthem since 10:00 in the morning. At 3:00, they were tired, but still going strong. Many had driven from as far away as San Diego to join the march, in protest of "The violence that has ravaged the Korean community for years," in one protestor's words.
We would return to Koreatown later that night, after curfew, to find the streets empty. Empty, that is, except for a small crowd of about 30 people hanging out in front of a local convenience store. There, in the darkness brought about by massive damage to the city's power grid, the civilian defense volunteers were discussing plans for the night's guard duty over a cup of coffee. They all had white armbands and guns, and many wore headbands. The National Guard didn't seem to mind their presence, although one Korean had already been shot earlier by police for standing on top of a building with a gun, mistaken for a sniper.
- Incidents like 'Suspect armed with a shotgun on the top of a building," were classified as 'information only, no units respond.'
I wondered if more innocent people would die tonight at the hands of these vigilantes; mistaken, perhaps, for looters. But the Korean people here have had their fill of violence; they are committed to defending their community by any means necessary.
As we drove down the street, I could barely pick out the dozens of National Guardsmen in the darkness, marching along the street with their machine guns raised. We found their Koreatown base, a darkened parking lot in front of a badly battered supermarket. The openings in the brick wall that surrounded it were blockaded with shopping carts, and most of the troops were carefully crouched behind the four-foot wall, the tops of their helmets our only clue to their presence.
Throughout the day, the Guardsmen had been our buddies and our security blanket, always happy to chat, pose for pictures, socialize, or share a smoke. Having them on the street with us lent a measure of security I have never had on the streets of my hometown, even in the most peaceful of times. And yet, as I confronted the guards here, I found myself fearing for my life.
I could feel the tension in the air even before he lifted the rifle over the brick, still crouched. His voice quavered as he said, "Go away." I expected the tension to level out when I flashed him my fake press pass that had served me so well over the course of the day. He didn't care. Yelling with all of the force his frail, boyish body could muster, he screamed, "Get out of here. I mean it."
Land of the Lost
We knew he meant it, and we made a beeline for Hollywood Boulevard. While it had certainly seen some destruction and violence, the rumors of Hollywood's death were greatly exaggerated. The press and the rest of L.A.'s white denizens hold the has-been neighborhood in higher regard than Compton, Watts, and South-Central. But buildings had been burned and looted, and there was the potential for violence. The National Guard was out in force here, too.
The strict curfew had cleared a street that normally would have been bustling at 11:30 on a Saturday night. After 20 minutes of much-needed rest and socializing with more relaxed National Guardsmen, we set out to find civilians.
Civilians were scarce, but after a few blocks, we found an open newsstand, probably the only operating business that night in the city of Los Angeles. The middle-aged, white owner was predictably hardcore - the newsstand had remained open through even the worst of the riots, except for a six-hour period when the police forced them to close down. "Hollywood is Hollywood, and then you have the riots," he said, "Gangs and crime are just a fact of life here, and this is no different." In a not-so-rare moment of callous indifference, he said, "The way I look at it, half of those people who are out here rioting don't know how to read, so what do they want to mess with a magazine for?"
Down the street from the newsstand lies the Church of Scientology headquarters, perhaps the largest building complex in Hollywood. They alone were permitted to work late, to drive home after curfew, likely because of their predominantly white membership. Outside their building stood an Asian security guard with a handgun, protecting the Scientologists from nothing but the imagined hordes of looters, doubtless created in the mind of some Scientology beaurocrat.
"Burn L.A."
Despite Hollywood's nighttime calm, crime had been rampant here throughout the day. One of the areas we walked through had seen four drive-by shootings within a 300 yard radius, and we were warned by police to watch our backs.
A frantic report of a shooting had attracted us to Hollywood that afternoon and, miraculously, we arrived before the police had left. Four helicopters were scouring the area at low altitude, looking for the suspects, and the noise was deafening. The police officer in charge described a scene that was all too common - the suspects had once again escaped successfully. "We had shots fired here, but by the time we arrived on the scene they were gone. A Channel 2 news helicopter described a yellow car with four Hispanic males inside, but they're gone now, and we'll never find them. I mean, a yellow car around here..."
Despite the sporadic violence, Hollywood was alive and bustling during the day. Although the police had shut down the street, "To get rid of all the lookie-loos," in the words one officer. The community was alive, and the people were friendly.
One resident, sitting on the sidewalk with a sign saying, "Burn Pigs for L.A.," said that, while he regrets the damage inflicted on the city and its residents, the riots were a necessary evil. "... the establishment pushed things too far this time. We sat back and waited for justice to be served, for things to go through the proper channels, but it didn't work. That Simi Valley thing was ridiculous. Barney Fife [of Andy Griffith show fame] is their local cop, and you figure if Barney did something he must have had a good reason. But these guys aren't Barney Fife, I've had my own troubles with them. We've tried everything else, so what can we do now?"
- "The way I look at it, half of those people who are out here rioting don't know how to read, so what do they want to mess with a magazine for?"
He also spoke of the difficulties the many homeless in Hollywood have been forced to endure because of the curfew restrictions. "I live in a one-room studio here, but I used to be homeless, and a lot of my friends are. Nobody's allowed to be out after curfew, so I've been putting people up in my one-room place. I had 18 people there last night, and I'm expecting even more tonight."
Another resident of Hollywood, who said he spent the weekend guarding his friend's pawn shop with a shotgun, had little sympathy for store-owners who had lost everything. "I'm a Vietnam vet, so I'll waste somebody with no conscience at all, right? These store-owners who got looted and burned, they didn't stay and protect their interests." He also expressed outrage against the rioting in Hollywood, primarily a white and Hispanic neighborhood. "The Latinos, they were the major instigators. It was like rats, man, a fucking feeding frenzy. Nobody's gaining from any of this."
As we continued down the boulevard past looters hawking cigarettes and gold jewelry at firesale prices, we saw two store-owners sitting in front of what had been a swap meet two days before. Now it looked like so many other buildings we'd seen today, burned to the ground, smoldering, water still filtering out of the coals from whenever the fire fighters had doused it. There was a sign nailed into a charred beam, leaning at an odd angle against the building to the left. The sign read, 'This was our life in this building, and now it's gone.' They had no insurance and the building was all they owned. "We're going to sit out here, until somebody tries to help us," they said. I got they feeling they'd been saying it all day and were already tired of it. Nobody has offered them help yet, and they admitted they'd probably give up their chairs on the sidewalk before they got help.
Compton
We had spent most of our time thus far in non-black neighborhoods, and we knew it. We'd spent much of the day in fear, driving through rougher neighborhoods with the doors locked and the windows up. But the sense of optimism and harmony on the streets was contagious, and we were soon driving around with the windows down, and even getting out of the car on occasion. After an interview in broken Spanish with the grungiest-looking chicken I've ever met, we decided it was time to go to Compton, perhaps the most infamous of L.A.'s inner city neighborhoods.
Compton looked like the rest of inner-city L.A. Every other business had been looted and razed. According to some residents, gasoline and food were unavailable for 30 minutes in all directions, and there was no power.
The National Guard's Compton base of operations sits next to the new Metro Rail system, in the heart of the neighborhood. The building was surrounded by hundreds of troops and barbed wire. The mood was tense, so much so that the sentries couldn't speak with the press because, "We've really got to keep an eye out."
Their neighbors, a group of about 10 gang members, were out drinking beers, hanging out. Had the National Guard not been next door, I would have been afraid to talk to these people myself (No, they didn't just happen to be neighbors with 300 fucking army troops.) So I couldn't help but wonder if the Guardsmen's fear also came from lack of friendly contact. If only they had talked to the frightening black folks next door for a few minutes, the Guardsmen could have been lounging out on the grass enjoying the sun, like their neighbors. As it was, they didn't and, since they couldn't kill the neighbors unless they were doing something wrong, they didn't.
The residents were delighted for the opportunity to speak with us. They seemed at ease with the troops, but felt discriminated against because of their neighborhood. "They don't have to be there. We ain't worried about them, but ain't nothing goin' on over here. This is our house, we live here every day. Why they so nervous, why they got so much barbed wire out there? Ain't nobody gonna shoot at 'em. But we know they just out there doing their job - ain't nobody worried about it."
But they did mind the imposed curfew. Several of them worked as security guards, and the official word was that security guards were exempt from the curfew. The unofficial policy was that if you were from Compton, you'd better stay home. "We can't go to work, we can't do nothin'. They catch you out here after dark, and they try to arrest you for nothin'. They don't want to see your ID, they don't want to see your work badge, they just take you straight to jail."
"We Got Our Point Across"
While only one of those in the group admitted participating in the riots and looting, the rest agreed that a violent protest was justified. "We got our point across, you know what I'm sayin'? Everybody seen in plain sight they beat Rodney King half to death. And then, you know, they expect everybody to be calm. It ain't going to be like that."
But four days after the violence began, the residents are beginning to feel a relative sense of calm return to the inner city. "That shit [the rioting] is over now. People have heard our message and we're ready to clean up. Even the gangs is uniting, and we never thought we'd see that." In fact, all through the streets of the L.A. inner city, gang members and yuppie suburban volunteers began to work side-by side, sweeping up glass and directing traffic.
Unity
As we were talking to these residents, another person, well-dressed in gang-member style, wearing gold chains, approached us. "I heard about your all conversation, and I got somethin' to say. You may think I got enough money and all, but money ain't the problem here. [The rioting] was a good-ass call. That shit [the verdict] was fucked up. We was fucked up. We was pissed, we was ready to loot, and we hurt each other." He turned and spoke with one of the members of the group who was wearing a red T-shirt.
"Where you from, brother?"
"I'm from Compton, I'm from L.A., I'm from Compton.
"Check this out, where you from, are you a Blood or a Crip?
"B-dog. [Blood]"
"Okay, and I'm a Crip, right? You know what I'm sayin'? What, it's love. Check this out..." And this Crip grabbed the Blood we had been speaking with and hugged him. It was incredible. I'd heard about the peace treaty both gangs had signed, but I never thought I'd live to see a scene like this. "This is a white man's nightmare," he said, still embracing the other, patting him firmly on the back, "They hate to see this, it makes them crazy. It's love, man, unity." Check this out, I'm from Neighborhood Compton Crips."
"Westside Campanella Four."
"Best 'luck. It all there is, it's like that. Their girls is our girls, and our girls is their girls.
[Laughs] "Yeah, it's like that."
"'Cause when the white man took us from Africa, they took us from North, South, East, and West. We was all different, but we was all in this together. Until now, people always saying black men can't stick together. It took a man like Rodney what? to make us see it, bring us back together again."
One woman, perhaps thinking he forgot the name, sheepishly responds, "King."
"Rodney what?" he repeats, a little louder this time, with a smile, and everybody says, "King."
And, louder this time, "Rodney WHAT?"
"KING," they all scream in unison
"Yeah. Check yourself before you wreck yourself."
And even before the Reverend Milton Burns appeared on the scene, I knew that these people were speaking the truth.
"We Are Not Gorillas"
Burns is a powerful figure in Compton, although his power rests less on his title than on his vision and eloquent speech. "I'm here to tell you what both of these brothers has [told you,] that we are not a divided people. We're one people trying to reach our goals. This situation has caused us all to wake up, and let us know that we are all one people with common needs."
"All the shit that happened this weekend, that will cause change. It's already started. They wouldn't listen to our peaceful voice. I hate violence, I'm a man of God, but every action deserves a reaction and, except for this one, our reactions have not been heard. The next violation of rights may be against whites. What kind of riot do you think that will spark?"
Burns continued, expressing anger at the media for generations of misrepresenting blacks, and for biased coverage of the riots. "We need the media to stop printing little portions and little statements that make us look foolish. 'Cause every black person is not an intellectual mannequin, every black person is not a gorilla out of the mist. Every socially inadequate person is not a fool, or a stupid person. We need to stop printing stuff that makes every person who doesn't live on Nob Hill look like a fool."
"We want you all to be able to come to our community without rocks and bottles flying," Burns continued, "and we want to be able to go to your community without the cops following us. But that's not going to happen until people understand that we're people, just like them."
Have you folks heard the message? 'Cause if you haven't, all this [violence] will be back here in 30 years. When you get home, you tell them that Compton is not torn, and the people who live here are not gorillas in the mist. We want people to finally say, "Them is not a bunch of niggers, those are people, those are Americans like us."
Daily Press, Get Real
As we left Compton, I thought about the Reverend's words and knew that they were right. The daily press may have used the word 'hoodlums,' but they meant,