L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

      BACK IN SOUTH-CENTRAL, the Watts riots seemed to be replaying themselves. Once again, the rioters broke into the liquor stores first, then the pawnshops, where they found an ample supply of guns. Once again, confusion reigned at 77th Street station. No effort was made to regain control of the street. No perimeter was established to contain the violence. The major routes into South-Central were not sealed off. Meanwhile, the area’s gangs took control of the streets, much as they had back in 1965. White motorists who ventured into the riot zone were dragged out of their cars and beaten. The most horrifying episode involved a white big-rig truck driver, Reginald Denny, who was pulled out of his cab by a handful of black youths, kicked, beaten with a claw hammer, and then nearly killed by a youth, Damian Williams, who struck Denny on the head with a block of concrete. As Chief Gates drove toward Brentwood—and Mayor Bradley drove toward the launch of his “Operation Cool Response”—Angelenos watched in horror as news helicopters hovering overhead televised Williams doing a touchdown-style dance and flashing the symbol of the Eight Tray Gangster Crips.^* Not until 8:15 p.m. did Gates return to Parker Center.

In 1965, Parker had pushed early and hard for the National Guard while Lt. Gov. Glenn Anderson hesitated. In 1992, it was Gov. Pete Wilson who pushed hardest for the Guard. At 9 p.m. that night, Wilson finally prevailed upon Mayor Bradley and Chief Gates to allow him to summon the National Guard. Not until later that night when he went out into the field did Gates grasp the magnitude of the disaster that was unfolding—and the extent of the LAPD’s failure. The staging area at 77th Street station was complete chaos. The most basic tenets of riot control, such as cordoning off the area where violence was occurring, had not been observed. Gates had trusted his commanders, and they had failed him. The chief, who treated his senior commanders much more kindly than Chief Parker had, erupted in rage. Then, like a ghost, he disappeared into the night with his driver and a security aide.

In the early hours of the morning, two officers guarding a church at the corner of Arlington and Vernon were startled to see the chief pull up. Gates asked if they needed anything. One of the officers requested a Diet Coke from a nearby convenience store. “No problem,” said the chief. A few minutes later, Gates’s driver returned—without the soda. Gates wanted them to light their safety flares so that no one would run into their car by accident.

“There’s a riot going on, and the chief is micromanaging how our car was parked,” one of the officers later marveled. He laughed at this advice. The other officer was more upset. She’d really wanted a Diet Coke.

Gates did not return to the command post until 6 a.m. that morning. Only then, on Thursday morning, did the LAPD request assistance from the sheriff’s department, which was prepared to lend the department up to five hundred officers. That night, the National Guard at last began to deploy. Not until Monday morning, May 4, was the violence finally stopped. By then, fifty-four people had died, more than two thousand had been injured and treated in hospital emergency rooms, and more than eight hundred buildings had burned—four times the number destroyed during the Watts riots. Because of the LAPD’s failure to cordon off the area where the violence started, the looting and violence spread much farther than it had in 1965. Venice and Hollywood saw outbreaks of violence. Homeowners in posh Hancock Park and elsewhere hired mercenaries to protect their neighborhoods. Ultimately, property damages exceeded $900 million.

As the historian Lou Cannon has noted, there was a terrible irony to what had transpired:

Ironically, the L.A.P.D. was unprepared for the riots largely because Gates had not demonstrated the independence he feared would be stripped from future chiefs. Instead of standing up to Mayor Bradley and the black leaders who feared that aggressive police deployment might cause a provocation, Gates had attempted to appease politicians by ordering the department to keep a low profile during jury deliberations.

By failing to respond forcefully to the riots, the LAPD had shown, in effect, that it had already lost its independence.