Stop the Violence, Start the Renewal : The King verdict spawns unwarranted violence, but also acts of courage and leadership that show the way to a better future

Los Angeles is a great city, and we must not allow it to self-destruct.

The highly questionable--and undeniably volatile--jury verdict that found four local police officers not guilty in the world-renowned videotaped police beating of Rodney King has created a war zone of violence, burning and looting that is outrageous, unacceptable and morally wrong. Worse yet, the widespread violence is defeatist.

Let there be no doubt, the American system of justice misfired horribly in Simi Valley Wednesday. But that is not the last word.

A huge and infinitely valuable police reform movement is under way, with a new police chief--Willie L. Williams--coming in and the June 2 vote on all-important Charter Amendment F in the offing. Some voices can be heard in Los Angeles denigrating the reform movement and the hopes represented by new leadership, but make no mistake--before long a new day in Los Angeles policing will arrive that will usher in a far better era and atmosphere for both community and police.

What’s more, a separate and purposeful federal investigation into the beating case is under way. President Bush not only confirmed that fact Thursday--it’s being headed by Wayne Budd, former U.S. attorney in Boston--but emphasized that its work was now being accelerated. That point was underscored later in the day by U.S. Atty. Gen. William P. Barr.

Those expressions of concern and involvement were helpful and timely. After all, the use of the Justice Department’s civil rights unit to probe violations of the civil rights laws after local authorities were unable or unwilling to do the right thing is scarcely unprecedented. In the 1960s the procedure was invoked often and well in the prosecution of crimes against blacks in states like Mississippi and Alabama, where white juries or white prosecutors would not act in the interests of justice. And the reputation of the unit is not to be underestimated: It is known for being thorough and impartial and serious about its work.

POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS

To overcome the trauma, sadness and horror of these past two days, this city will also require the commitment and help of all Angelenos who care about their community, who deplore any and all justifications for taking the law into unwarranted hands and who are dedicated to the process of ending the violence and rebuilding the city. This group constitutes the vast majority of our citizens, and many of them have been abundantly in evidence since the strife began.

Heroic firemen--working without rest, beyond their normal shifts and all too often in the face of thrown bottles, hurled insults and even gunfire--have confronted fierce fire after fire with courage and determination.

Police officers often reached for, and found, their professional best to put duty above emotion and help ease tensions and calm nerves.

And so many good Samaritans--from all walks of life--have helped the city cope with this hooligan’s holiday by extending a hand, providing a lift home (or to the hospital) or helping out in ways above and beyond a citizen’s normal call of duty. Some even put themselves in danger to save strangers.

Perhaps in no area of the city was the crusade of dogged good Samaritanship more in evidence than at some of the churches in the very neighborhoods most impacted by the destruction.

Consider the honest, decent, hard-working people who live there, now held hostage by fear and violence. Consider the sales clerks and floor managers of the Thrifty stores now burned to the ground. What did they do to deserve this?

But admire the pastoral efforts of many of the city’s churchmen, including the Rev. Cecil P. (Chip) Murray of the First AME Church in the Mid-City area. From an all-night vigil to bring the neighborhood together to organizing teams of young men to go out into the streets and try to reduce tensions, Murray and other church leaders in those areas have offered the city a clinic in good citizenship.

Without them we would have been the poorer not only in leadership but in spirituality.

NEGATIVE ERUPTIONS

These sunbursts of citizenship contrasted starkly with the vile ugliness of all the looters, arsonists and plain thugs who assaulted innocent passersby.

Whatever the probity of, and justification for, the outrage that erupted after the verdict in Simi Valley, the consequent orgy of destruction was without reason, integrity or honesty.

It was little more than base thuggery when it was not mere petty pilferage. Consider that for more than two decades--in the aftermath of the Watts riots--people have been trying to figure out how to get more services to the inner city, more investment, more development. But in the last two days all that seemed to have been for naught.

Yes, there is a difference between looting and protesting. There is a difference between criminality and political activity. There is a difference between cowardice and citizenship.

It’s true that people who feel burned by the system might think of wanting to burn something down in an atavistic act of revenge.

And it’s true that when people play by the system and then get the short end of the deal, the anger deepens and grows into an emotion that can develop into a self-destructive force.

The Simi Valley verdict--and the woefully inadequate sentence meted out to the killer of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, shot by a Korean grocer-- just added to the growing sense that African-Americans do not get a fair shake in the American criminal justice system.

Indeed, the distance that America still must travel to elevate the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection to all citizens, regardless of such things as skin color, is vast, even after all these decades of effort.

But rightful anger is no justification for violence. Think, in that context, of Gandhi--or for that matter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

THE CITY’S FUTURE

The need now is to rise above the evil and unreason that now stalk too many streets of Los Angeles. The imperative now is to ask all Angelenos to renew their commitment to the very idea of this extraordinary metropolis.

Thursday there was some evidence of the city coming together.

Regardless of what preceded that morning’s news conference with the mayor and the chief of police--whatever slips each might arguably have made, whatever questionable comment here or there--it was a reassuring moment. Mayor Tom Bradley spoke with an assurance and determination that reminded some people of the Bradley of old. Chief Daryl F. Gates joined the mayor at the press conference and seemed more interested in calming fears than roiling emotions.

Together the two of them seemed to be saying that the city must now come together. That is the message all must hear now.

This is no time for finger-pointing or recriminations, no time to assess blame.

President Bush as well as state and local authorities must also work together to help the city work its way out of this dark moment. This is now not simply a Los Angeles matter, or even a California matter; it is an international incident.

In the eyes of the world, America is on trial as much as this city. The world will insist that if America can save Kuwait from foreign occupation, help save Russia from economic collapse and propose a grand new world order, it can turn its attention to its cities and now, especially, to Los Angeles.

This is the agenda America must organize and deal with after the last L.A. looter is arrested, the last fire is put out and the last wisp of smoke clears.