Threats of Bloodshed Put Dallas on Edge : Race relations: A politician throws himself into the fray, heightening tensions. Voters decide this week on a plan for more minority representation.

John Wiley Price pumps iron. He drives a Lotus. He is a Dallas County commissioner. He is black. He is angry. And he is the man who has brought the simmering racial tension in this city to near-boiling.

Say what you will about John Wiley Price, there is no halfway about him. He has a radical’s mind and a showman’s disposition, a flare for just the right quote to get him on the evening news and in the morning papers.

Back in September, when Dallas began looking for a new police chief, he warned that “if you try to bring in a good old boy in this system, we’re going to be in the streets. Physically, literally, shooting folks,” he told the Dallas Morning News. “We’re not going to tolerate it.”

Then came Price’s arrest following a Nov. 5 fracas with an off-duty cop, and Dallas held its breath. More than 1,000 blacks marched on City Hall, threatening bloodshed if anything happened to the militant and very vocal county commissioner.

Price and the policemen eventually made their peace, and the grand jury decided there was no case against the county commissioner.

For now there would be no blowup. But for Dallas, the incidents underlined a long-term problem: the growing chasm between the city’s solidly conservative Establishment and the black and Latino communities.

Voters will go to the polls this week to decide if they approve of a reorganization of the Dallas City Council, a move that would give blacks and Latinos a greater voice. It is representation they have been trying to win for 20 years, with little success.

“Dallas is like a person with cancer who wants to ignore it and think it will go away,” Price said in an interview. “The old oligarchy is still fighting to do things the old way.”

This Texas city is known more for its bankers’ image than its problems in the ghetto and barrio. But over the last several years, a series of events have served as building blocks for racial unrest. And the two sectors most caught up in those events are the city’s black community and the Dallas Police Department.

“It’s definitely worse than it was before,” said Dallas Police Sgt. Jack Means, president of the Dallas Police Patrolman’s Union, the most outspoken of the three organizations representing the city’s rank and file policemen.

During the last four years, racial events can be divided into two phases: the first was policemen shooting minorities, most of them blacks. The second phase was policemen being shot in the line of duty.

In the first phase, which occurred between 1986 and 1987, police shot and killed Etta Collins, a 70-year-old black woman who had reported a burglary; an 81-year-old black man patroling his apartment parking lot as a crime watch volunteer; and a 62-year-old Latino man suspected of bootlegging. In other cases, a 16-year-old black girl was shot as police illegally searched her apartment. And a 30-year-old black man was killed while struggling with police during an arrest.

It was Price, then a new county commissioner, who took up the cause, accusing the police of using excessive force. Price went to Washington to testify before a congressional committee on what he believed was racism within the police department. He became known as the politician who was out to get the cops.

Then a series of policemen became the victims in later incidents that also caused a furor in the city. The debate moved back and forth. Then-Police Chief Mack Vines, a reform-minded chief unpopular among the rank and file, was fired last August after being charged with a misdemeanor perjury charge.

The firing of Vines prompted Price’s incendiary remark about a violent backlash in the streets.

Already, Price had been arrested and placed on probation for painting over billboards advertising cigarettes and alcohol that he had found offensive to blacks. Then, policeman Robert Bernal went jogging past Price’s home on Nov. 5, allegedly yelling obscenities. Price said Bernal also used a racial epithet.

Price gave chase. Price said he confronted Bernal with a pellet gun. Bernal said it was an Uzi submachine gun. Price said he then punched Bernal several times. While the details of the incident are in dispute, Price was charged with aggravated assault.

“Hey, that was my home,” Price said in an interview. “I take a lot . . . when I’m here, I’m not going to do it at home. Next time I might have to get a scope or something and not run after him.”

The outpouring of the black community over the arrest of Price was astonishing. At the next City Council meeting, the crowd filled three floors of City Hall and washed out onto the ground floor plaza.

Al Lipscomb, the city’s only black councilman, said “this was bigger than John Wiley Price. This acted as a catalyst to bring it (community anger) to the forefront. We said come and show your disgust for what has been going on.”

Price and Bernal eventually issued a joint statement, after hours of negotiations, in which both basically apologized for their actions. But rhetoric remains heated as the council reorganization vote approaches. Black leaders say a victory will be the beginning in the long road to equal power-sharing. Opponents use talk of “quotas” in filling council seats to arouse white opposition.

And Price remains at the center of it.

Lipscomb thinks Price will be the next new congressman from the Dallas area.

“At least he’s doing something,” he said.

Means, the police sergeant, described Price’s actions as “silly.”

“He overreacted. He didn’t act like a normal person,” he said. “I just wonder whether his next step is going to be to pull the trigger. I think he’s going to kill someone. I’ll bet dinner on it.”