San Diego Protests Remain Peaceful; Ammo Sales Rise

San Diego reacted in peaceful protest for the most part Thursday in the aftermath of the not guilty verdicts returned against four Los Angeles police officers in the beating of Rodney King, and community leaders urged restraint in the days to come as they watched violence erupt to the north.

“What happened in Los Angeles is a tragedy,” San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor said during a morning news conference. “We cannot condone the violence, but we understand the rage. San Diego’s prayers go out to Los Angeles for the tragedy that is engulfing that city.”

Although San Diego was quiet compared to Los Angeles, local residents made runs on ammunition, engaged in demonstrations, assisted law enforcement officials in Los Angeles and appealed to keep the calm that has not lasted in some other U.S. cities.

Police were kept busy Thursday night on calls of broken windows and minor theft, but had no reports of serious injuries or major property damage.

More than 200 students from a Southeast San Diego high school joined a group of 100 students from another Southeast school in a rally to protest the King verdict. Later in the day, about 20 high school students, some with placards, protested outside City College.

About 250 UC San Diego students staged a four-hour protest starting at noon Thursday, burning posters that bore police caricatures and smashing two windows, one in the student union and one in the chancellor’s office.

While Los Angeles vented its frustration in much more violent fashion, San Diego was urged by officials to relax, express its innermost feelings and talk out its anger.

City leaders formed a phone bank at 5 p.m., staffed by the mayor, City Council members, city manager, chief of police and other volunteers of all races to answer questions about the King beating and the verdict. Four sets of volunteers were to have worked two-hour shifts until 1 a.m. today.

Dave Cohen, a San Diego Police Department spokesman, said the phone bank was designed to give people “a non-destructive means of venting anger and frustration.”

Councilman George Stevens will hold a community forum at 4 p.m. today at Lincoln High School to encourage people to write to the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego and urge federal officials to prosecute the four Los Angeles officers, whose beating of King was captured on a now-infamous videotape.

“I implore you to display your anger, demonstrate your outrage and unfurl your conviction to the guilt of the officers that you viewed as Mr. King was beaten,” Stevens said during a news conference at the NAACP San Diego chapter office.

“I urge you to take action now, but just action,” he said. “Action cannot be the violence demonstrated in Mr. King’s situation, but action to get those who carried out the violence convicted.”

Other officials at the news conference also called for calm and asked that residents vent their anger by writing letters of protest, not wreaking havoc in the streets of San Diego.

“We are working to make sure we keep a lid on San Diego, to ensure this will not take place in San Diego,” said Frank Jordan, president of the local NAACP chapter. “To say you are mad about the verdict is not justification to destroy a community.”

Local members of the NAACP discussed whether to hold a rally Wednesday night after the King verdict was announced that afternoon. But they decided against it, fearing that the “criminal element would infiltrate” as it has in Los Angeles, Jordan said.

The San Diego black community has carefully hammered out a relationship with the Police Department that is far better than the stormy one forged in Los Angeles, black leaders here said.

“We are working in cooperation with the Police Department--we are not at odds with each other,” said Councilman Stevens, who is black. “Yes, we are going to react in the most direct manner we possibly can, but not with bottles.”

But Stevens and other civic leaders, including Councilman Bob Filner, acknowledged that there is great concern in the San Diego black community about how to respond to what they view as the travesty unfolding in Los Angeles.

In the first two hours after the verdicts were announced, the San Diego NAACP received more than 300 phone calls. Some people felt that the group’s message was far too mild to meet the rising anger in the city.

“It’s not in sync with the times or in tune with what the generation is about--this is not the ‘60s,” said Melvin Taylor, 27, a campaign coordinator for Greg Akili, who is running for Congress in the 50th District.

“How can you expect people to believe a letter-writing campaign is going to bring justice?”

Still, the need to vent and protest was encouraged throughout San Diego.

Even Police Chief Bob Burgreen, in a videotaped message to his 1,850 officers, warned Thursday that residents could take to the streets to demonstrate and that authorities should make an extra effort to be sensitive to them.

“We must--we will--protect the constitutional rights of our citizens to assemble and to express themselves,” Burgreen said. “Given what has happened, the need for free speech has probably never been greater, and I expect each of us to be sensitive to the value of spontaneous expressions.”

For example, the chief told officers to be extra lenient in checking parade permit requirements.

“A little discretion goes a long way at a time like this,” he said.

Meanwhile, San Diego police remained stunned by the King verdicts.

“I got in at 6 a.m. and the mood was somber,” said Capt. Rulette Armstead, the highest-ranking black woman in the department. “The officers were in awe and disbelief of what had happened, in terms of the verdict and then what was happening in Los Angeles.”

The verdicts will hurt law enforcement nationwide, Armstead said, because it “sets us back in our ability to build a positive partnership with the community.”

Late Thursday, only one arrest had been made locally, that of someone suspected of hurling a Molotov cocktail at a Dow Stereo store at 4404 El Cajon Boulevard on Wednesday night. A second Molotov cocktail was thrown at a police storefront at 29th and Imperial avenues. Another police storefront was vandalized on Market Street downtown.

Also Thursday night, about 80 protesters marched outside the federal building downtown to hold a candlelight vigil. Half a dozen groups, led by the year-old People Against Police Brutality, were represented.

“When you have a video, you can get a prosecutor to put on a case, but if the case involves officers acting in the pursuance of their duties, it doesn’t matter how far they go to beat or kill someone,” said Bruce Root, one of the group’s organizers. “It’s always justified.”

Root said People Against Police Brutality will also stage a protest Saturday, but had not decided on a place and time.

Mayor O’Connor said she was proud of San Diegans for not resorting to violence after the verdict.

“By and large, this community last night responded like they always respond . . . with a lot of dignity, with a lot of class and, yes, they were angry,” she said. “Out in the community, across the board, people were frankly outraged by the decision, but they were not condoning the violence.”

Students at Mesa College and Kearny High School arrived at their adjacent campuses Thursday morning to see National Guard troops at the nearby armory standing guard at the building.

About six troops, dressed in camouflage fatigues with gas masks attached to their pistol belts and armed with M-16 rifles, stood casually in front of the building on Mesa College Drive.

The rifles had ammunition magazines attached, but a National Guard spokesman said the weapons were not loaded. Staff Sgt. Bill Marsicano, spokesman for the 40th Infantry Division (Mechanized) in Los Alamitos in Orange County, said the troops were ordered to guard the armory as a precaution.

“All I can tell you is that we were called and told to be on alert because of the Los Angeles riots,” said Marsicano. He said he was not aware of any threats to the building.

Marsicano said he does not know whether any National Guard troops from San Diego would be included among the troops expected to be dispatched to Los Angeles to help police in riot control. A television report said more than 200 had been sent.

San Diego County sheriff’s spokesman Dan Greenblat said four sheriff’s administrators were sent to Los Angeles on Thursday to observe the riots. The officials were identified as an assistant sheriff, two commanders and two captains. Greenblat said they were expected to spend only a day there.

“We are sending a group of our senior management personnel to observe the Los Angeles police and Los Angeles (County) sheriff’s methods and tactical plans in dealing with the riots and utilize this as a learning experience. This is in case we have to deal with similar unrest here in the future,” Greenblat said.

More than 50 San Diego sheriff’s deputies, 30 Chula Vista police officers and 13 National City police officers were also sent north.

Nearly 100 firefighters with about 22 engines countywide were being sent to Los Angeles as part of a mutual aid agreement.

In all, six San Diego police officers were sent to Los Angeles as part of the National Guard deployment.

About 120 California Highway Patrol officers were deployed from San Diego to Los Angeles to help restore order, a CHP spokesman said.

In addition, 750 officers are on standby to assist if necessary, spokesman John Marinez said. The San Diego officers join 1,500 others from throughout the state who have been deployed to Los Angeles since Wednesday night, he said.

The violence in Los Angeles caused an increase in ammunition sales in San Diego County on Thursday, according to gun shop employees.

“Everybody is scared that there is going to be some kind of cutoff in sales or trouble in the local areas, and they want to be prepared,” said Angelo Nigro, 48, a salesman at The Ammo Depot in San Diego.

According to Nigro, sales at the small North Park store were about five times normal.

“There were a lot of customers that we had never seen before,” he said.

Like Nigro, sales clerks in other parts of the county found customers buying ammunition in response to the burning and looting in Los Angeles.

“There is no reason for ammunition sales to increase like this. Sales have been at least double,” said Harley Davis, 44, a clerk at Woody’s Gun World in La Mesa.

“We’ve heard several people who said that they were afraid of the rioting, and they were afraid it’s going to move down here,” Davis said.

Jabie Gray, 33, owner of Discount Gun Mart in San Diego, said the violence in Los Angeles coincided with a long-planned sale at his store. By closing time Thursday, the store had sold out of several brands and sizes of ammunition.

“I heard people say, ‘I thought I should have some ammunition around the house just in case,’ ” Gray said.

Times staff writers Paul Chavez, Lisa Omphroy, H. G. Reza, David Smollar, Julie Tamaki and Nora Zamichow contributed to this report.

RELATED STORIES B3, B10