Residents’ Views Mixed on Lake View Terrace Incident

Lake View Terrace--thrust into the public eye this week by the brutal beating that Los Angeles Police officers administered to a man they stopped for speeding there--is a largely working-class, racially mixed community where horse ranches coexist with gangs and drugs.

The hillside area of 12,000 residents, sandwiched between Hansen Dam Recreation Area and the San Gabriel Mountains, includes comfortable homes with views of the northeast San Fernando Valley, one- and two-acre horse ranches and small bungalows. Half the residents are Latino and one-quarter are black.

Residents say they are plagued by violent crime--some local, some spilling over from adjacent neighborhoods where gang members and drug dealers play cat-and-mouse with police.

In an informal survey Thursday, community leaders seemed more forgiving toward the police than some residents.

The beating of Rodney G. King early last Sunday morning “only reflects the actions of a few policemen,” said Melanie Bernard, co-president of the Lake View Terrace Home Improvement Assn.

Bernard, who, like King, is black, said that in the 20 years she has lived in the community she has never heard “anyone complaining about being treated with disrespect. If we had, we would have gotten right on it.”

“I think the good rapport we have with the police will continue after this ugly incident is over,” said Arthur Broadus, a longtime black activist in the area. “This is just a few officers messing it up for the rest of the force.”

Homeowner Lorena Maciel said the beating reminded her of an incident in nearby Pacoima two years ago in which two officers drew their revolvers on her family after her husband ran a red light.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Maciel in Spanish as she walked her son to school on Terra Bella Street, a hilltop enclave of large new homes. “We had our two little children in the car. They kept pointing their guns at us. They told us not to move, and I said, ‘Who do you think we are? We’re not robbers.’ ”

And Eddie Thomas, who owns Eddie’s Rib Cage, a local soul food restaurant, said such brutality “has been going on for a long time. It’s just now coming to light.”

King and his family have declined to label the beating a racial incident. And community leaders were inclined to presume that police would have behaved the same if King was of any other race.

“My gut level reaction is that, once the adrenaline started flowing, they would have beat the guy up--whether he was black, or white, or whatever,” said Lewis Snow, president of the Lake View Terrace Homeowners Assn.

Jose De Sosa, president of the valley and statewide chapters of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, disagreed, saying: “I don’t see cases of police inflicting this type of injury on whites. It’s almost always blacks, or other minorities.”

De Sosa said he investigates three or four complaints a month involving police brutality in the valley.

“Almost always the investigation concludes that the police claim the victim resisted and there’s no way to prove otherwise,” De Sosa said. “This time there was a smoking gun.”

Capt. Tim McBride, Foothill Division commander, said that, despite the dark days of the last week, his officers have conducted business as usual.

“They are disturbed by what they see on the tape and they are disturbed by the pending action against the officers. I think they expected something to happen in a negative way. But those (officers) are co-workers and there are mixed emotions. You cannot work with someone every day and trust your life to them every day and not have some empathy for them.

”. . . But there is nobody saying what they did was right.”

Times staff writers Michael Connelly and Jocelyn Y. Stewart contributed to this story.