Violence and Looting Spread Into the Valley : Reaction: Schools, courts and businesses are shut down. Some stockpile ammunition before ban goes into effect.

Despite pleas for peace from police, political and religious leaders, scattered looting and confrontations with police broke out Thursday night in the San Fernando Valley, where the Rodney G. King chronicle began.

Police and private security guards fought running skirmishes on streets in the northeastern Valley with groups of up to 200 people who gathered to break into stores and scattered at the approach of officers. A Panorama City market was destroyed by fire.

The Foothill Division police station--where protesters gathered after the verdicts were announced Wednesday because the officers who beat King were assigned to the station at the time--asked for National Guard protection. Late Thursday, police said guardsmen, busy elsewhere, might not get there until today, if protection was still needed.

A group of about 10 Valley religious and community leaders gathered Wednesday night and spent much of Thursday appealing for peace in black and Latino neighborhoods.

Many Valley institutions and services shut down Thursday after a night of protests, scattered looting, vandalism and a few gunshots in the immediate aftermath of the King beating verdicts.

Shut down were some schools, courts, bus routes and shopping malls. Some of them planned to remain closed today, including Cal State Northridge.

The city of San Fernando declared a curfew to match the Los Angeles city action. Residents were told to remain off the streets between sunset and sunrise.

Some residents stocked up on food. Gun stores reported brisk sales of ammunition until Mayor Tom Bradley banned them.

“People are scared,” and some had been stockpiling ammunition for several days in anticipation of the verdict, said a salesperson at Art’s Guns in Canoga Park.

At the Ace Gun Shop in Northridge, owner Edward Valencia said: “A 70-year-old guy who looked like he could use a little comfort came in and said he wanted a box of ammo for his old 30-year-old gun. He said he wanted to protect himself.” Valencia said he refused to sell the man any because of the city ban.

At least until nightfall, the Valley escaped the level of violence that set southern parts of the city ablaze.

Acrid clouds of smoke, drifting over the Santa Monica Mountains from fires in the city to the south, spread through the Studio City and Universal City area.

The only Valley fire blamed on verdict violence broke out in Panorama City shortly after 10:30 p.m. Neighbors said looters set a fire that appeared to have destroyed a small market. Although identifying signs were charred beyond recognition, neighbors said the store was called Smiley’s Market and that it had been looted sporadically during the night until it burst into flames.

As the night continued, a small looting incident was reported in the West Valley. Police arrested four females and one male--a juvenile and four young adults--who were allegedly fleeing a Target store in Northridge in a four-wheel-drive vehicle laden with clothes, cameras and a small television set. A wild chase ensued, which ended when the car crashed.

In North Hills, residents enraged by the sight of two youths rifling an appliance store on Parthenia Street halted the looters’ car as they tried to escape, recovered the stolen goods, and beat the pair until police arrived and arrested the thieves.

Looting began in the Valley on Thursday afternoon when about a dozen youths smashed windows at the Panorama City mall. Police and security guards quickly dispersed the crowd, which became the nucleus of a group that ranged along northern Van Nuys Boulevard, growing as the day ended.

The crowd hit the Grocery Warehouse at Van Nuys Boulevard and Parthenia Street, where police found an unidentified man with a head injury. It was unclear if he was shot or hit with a rock, police said.

Growing to about 200 people, the mob broke into the Valley Indoor Swap Meet at Tobias Avenue, scattering when police arrived. A looter drove through the metal gates and glass window of Powerhouse Stereo at Columbus Avenue and Roscoe Boulevard and electronic goods were stolen. About 100 looters broke windows and doors at the Vannord shopping center at Van Nuys Boulevard and Nordhoff Street, then broke into the Valley Food Warehouse across Van Nuys Boulevard.

Three police cars and several officers with guns in hand drove them out, but across the street police were unable to stop about 15 youths from carrying out boxes of recordings from the Blockbuster Video store for about 20 minutes.

At about the same time, about 100 looters also smashed windows at a mini-mall at Plummer Street and Van Nuys Boulevard.

A pickup truck rammed through a security gate and a wooden door at Hall’s Furniture and Appliances at Terra Bella Street and Foothill Boulevard in Pacoima. Four armed security guards chased away looters who took two television sets.

“We’re just trying to save the place from burning down,” said guard Fritz Maxwell, owner of Maxwell Security.

Hundreds of Latinos taunted police in the North Hills area, some shouting “Rodney King, Rodney King,” and refusing to return to their apartments even when pushed back by a marching phalanx of police in riot gear.

The police presence had little lasting effect. Looting at a liquor store near Sepulveda Boulevard and Nordhoff Street resumed just seconds after 25 police officers swept down the sidewalk. Within minutes, the parking lot was strewn with six-packs and broken bottles.

“It’s a losing battle,” said one officer. “We push, they push back.”

Around the corner at Columbus Street and Parthenia Avenue, the same group of 25 officers arrested eight people who refused to budge from the road. But they beat a hasty retreat when they realized they were surrounded by angry people on the sidewalks, on front porches and on rooftops, including a small child shouting “stupid cop.”

“Let’s get in the cars and get the hell out of here,” said the sergeant in charge, who declined to give his name.

Wednesday night, soon after the verdicts, a crowd of about 200 gathered at the spot in Lake View Terrace where King was beaten 14 months ago, chanting “guilty, guilty” and occasionally pelting police cars with rocks and bottles. A group of black ministers gathered in a church nearby to call for peaceful expressions of anger.

The crowd from Lake View Terrace eventually linked up with another 100 protesters outside the Foothill Division station, about a mile away.

Almost all of the protesters were black, and a few turned angry words on whites--even those who had joined them to protest the verdict. A white woman holding a sign that said “We Want Justice!” was reduced to tears when a group of blacks shouted at her and chanted, “She must go!”

A tense standoff between protesters and the police went on for hours.

Police moved a school bus in front of the glass doors of the station. Fifty officers in riot gear spread out at six-pace intervals along the sidewalk. Inside lights were dimmed to spoil the aim of snipers, and four officers with binoculars were posted on the roof of the two-story building.

The crowd alternately chanted, “Guilty, Guilty” and “We want justice!” Some impromptu leaders walked up and down urging protesters to be peaceful.

But first one rock and then another was thrown at the officers, then three quart-sized bottles.

That forced officers to break ranks, but they soon moved across Osborne, dispersing the crowd.

A man running through a parking lot fired three or four pistol shots into the air, sending several people ducking for cover. Two dumpsters were set ablaze, and more bottles and rocks were hurled at the police.

The police spent the next two hours moving up and down Osborne, using dispersal tactics until only a handful of demonstrators were left.

Police Capt. Tim McBride, Foothill Division chief, blamed Latino students from Cal State Northridge for much of the rock-throwing melee at the headquarters.

“Out here the problem we had was all with Hispanic kids from Cal State,” McBride said in an interview Thursday. “We had 400 or 500 of them here.” Pressed to explain, McBride said he did not know that all the youths involved in the rock-throwing disturbances around the Foothill station were from CSUN. But he noted that a Cal State banner was waved by many of the youths.

McBride said he had requested 50 National Guardsmen on Thursday to protect the Foothill station from attacks.

Darryl Richardson, a 33-year-old RTD driver who had emerged as one of the leaders of the protest, said he was dejected by the gunfire and throwing of objects at the police.

“I think we lost a bit of what we were trying to say when people did that,” he said. “We--most of us--wanted to show that the Valley was different from L.A. Then somebody starts shooting.”

Manuel Delgado and his sister, Leticia Jimenez, moved into a single-story, stucco house across from the Foothill police station three months ago, thinking “what safer place to live than across the street from a police station?” he said.

But as soon as the verdict was announced, they said, demonstrators gathered in front of the station, chanting and throwing rocks.

Near Foothill Boulevard and Gain Street, a contingent of youths broke windows in stores in a small shopping center, set fire to a fast-food stand and fired guns in the air, said Robert Peralta, a security guard at a mobile home park next door.

“I looked out the door of the office and one of them fired at me twice,” Peralta said. “I ducked back inside. I wasn’t going out into that. They hit the roof of the office.”

A resident of the mobile home park, who declined to give his name, said he armed himself with his .45-caliber handgun after hearing the shots.

“They got guns, now I got a gun,” he said. “They better not come back.”

Dawn found Joe Tong, a Korean immigrant, shuffling through wet soot and broken bottles in his looted and fire-ravaged grocery store in Pacoima. Tiny Hendrix, a black resident of nearby Lake View Terrace, poked her head into the door and broke into tears.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes. “You know, I was watching TV and I couldn’t watch any more. I’m just so sorry. I’m angry at the verdict, but this isn’t what we want.”

She offered to go home to get a shovel. Tong declined with a smile.

Vandals also had thrown rocks and broken windows at the Glenview Plaza in Pacoima and tried unsuccessfully to burn a hamburger stand there. Jae Kim, 55, owner of Key Burger, said, “I can’t open today because the fire cut the electrical lines.” Michael Cho, the Korean owner of Video Expo in the plaza, said six of his storefront windows were shattered by rocks, causing up to $2,000 damage.

“I don’t think they aimed at us specifically,” Cho said, “but they just hit the first thing they came upon.”

Rod Lloyd, the British-born owner of Launderland, agreed with Cho’s assessment. “It looks like they did one window in each store,” he said. “They didn’t aim at anyone in particular.”

Kathy Williams, a black woman who has owned Kathy’s Coiffures since 1962, said she stayed at her salon all night to protect it against vandals who had smashed her front window and set fire to a drape. While fixing the hair of a customer Thursday morning, she said nothing had been stolen from her shop but she was angry about the damage.

Looting had also occurred at a liquor store at Osborne Street and Foothill Boulevard, close to where King was beaten; A&D; Liquor in Lake View Terrace, where vandals apparently used a stolen car to batter their way through protective steel bars, and Star Sports, Osborne and Glenoaks Boulevard.

“The guys that burglarized me are my customers,” said Stu Green, the sports store owner. “This was a chance for opportunists . . . local punks who normally work as shoplifters to progress to looting.”

But Ty Burgin, co-owner of Flesh Dreams, a tattoo shop across the street, said he chased off a group of young men who started to kick at his shop window.

“Calling 911 was a joke, it just rang and rang,” Burgin said. “So I stuck a .45 out the door and pointed it at them. I said, ‘Hey, knock it off’ and they all ran off.”

A group of Valley ministers and community leaders tried a different approach, gathering at the Greater Community Baptist Church in Pacoima to preach peace and encourage the 80 people who had gathered to show their anger at the ballot box instead of the streets. Midway through the meeting, six of the religious leaders left to see if they could spread that message to the group that had gathered at Foothill.

Members from several different community organizations, including the ministers, patrolled Valley streets through much of the night, trying to persuade youngsters who had gathered to return home to safety. They said a plan to return to the streets with community patrols Thursday night was scrapped after police told them it might not be safe for even the peacemakers to be out.

But they continued their mission Thursday by going to local schools to urge the children to write letters in protest to elected officials and telephoning hundreds of parents to tell them to keep their children indoors at night. “We want to avoid any resemblance to what’s happening in L.A.,” said Linda Jones, chairwoman of the San Fernando Valley Chapter of the Black-American Political Assn. of California.

This story was compiled from reports by Times staff writers Leslie Berger, John Chandler, Henry Chu, David Colker, Michael Connelly, Aaron Curtiss, John Dart, Sam Enriquez, Hugo Martin, Julio Moran, Amy Pyle, John Schwada, Stephanie Stassel, Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Carol Watson, David Wharton and Jim Herron Zamora.