2 Cities--Under Siege and Under Threat : Compton Declares a State of Emergency as Looters Run Wild

When dozens of their neighborhood markets and liquor stores first went up in flames and the night streets filled with the sound of breaking glass and police sirens, Compton leaders held out hope that at daybreak Thursday tempers would cool and quiet would come.

By midafternoon Thursday, those hopes were long forgotten. Compton was a city under siege.

Mayor Walter Tucker III declared a state of emergency and demanded to know why the National Guard was slow to arrive. Every available Compton police officer, including reserves, had been called in to patrol the city in teams of two.

About 40 Compton Unified School District police officers were also deputized and deployed around the city. Police were stationed to seal off city boundaries.

By noon Thursday, more than 150 people had been arrested for looting, including an 11-year-old boy and a 70-year-old man. The city Fire Department had battled nearly 50 major fires and others were still being set throughout the heart of the city. No deaths or major injuries had been reported.

“Your response is not an unjust response,” City Councilman Omar Bradley said in an urgent plea to rioters for calm. “In fact, it may be proper, but black or brown or white, Crip or Blood, you must stop. “

But even as the City Council prayed for peace on the local cable channel, dozens of looters ransacked a drugstore and deli not two miles from City Hall, carting away rolls of toilet paper, potato chips, soda and a butcher’s platter loaded with raw steak.

At a neighboring mini-mall, black and Latino looters--some of them mothers carrying children--hauled away lamps, chairs, stereos, cellular phones, bottles of cranberry juice and disposable diapers. With the police busy elsewhere, the scene resembled a huge party. Children scampered amid the smoking rubble of a nearby market, and people of all ages cruised around the block, hooting and whistling.

“This place is gonna burn tonight!” one young man shouted as police sirens sounded in the distance.

The state Department of Corrections probation office had already been destroyed by fire, taking the office of Compton’s Community Legal Services with it.

“There is not only a spirit of rage and destruction, but it is almost like the community is drunk with release,” Tucker said. “In a very perverted way, it’s almost like a party. The people feel they have been denied so much and now it’s open season.”

West of City Hall, a chilling pattern emerged. A string of Asian-American-owned liquor stores and markets were set afire and looted. On Compton Boulevard a Korean-owned liquor store was burned to the ground while a black-owned store just yards away stood unscathed and open for business.

In the window of an auto parts store on Compton Boulevard, a hastily scribbled sign reading “Black-owned” was placed in the window. Not far away, a young man carrying a bucket of paint wrote the same words on the boarded-up windows of a floral shop.

“There is a method to this madness,” City Councilwoman Patricia Moore said. “I think we should be aware that the buildings being hit are not owned by African-Americans. The destruction is strategic and that action--that anger--is something we should be paying attention to.”

At least one small-business owner, Sam Chung, said he planned to close his liquor store and market on Compton Boulevard at 3 p.m. But he said he feared the store might not last through the night.

Chung said he was luckier than other neighboring Korean-American grocers, whose stores had become smoldering ruins. Chung and his wife arrived at their store at 2:30 a.m. to find the back door broken and 150 cases of beer stolen, along with some more expensive pharmacy items.

Several Latino families who lived in apartments behind Chung’s store took it upon themselves to save the market from violence sweeping up Compton Boulevard.

On Thursday, a small group of Latino gang members stood outside the front door of the shop, arms crossed, watching the street for signs of trouble. Behind them, they placed a white banner reading “Protect Our Neighborhood Store.”

“I don’t think the verdict is right,” said a 27-year-old tattooed man named Rhino. “But I also don’t think it’s right to harm our own people’s store. My grandma, she’s 67 years old, she shops here. Where is she going to go if it’s burned down? Where are we going to go? If I can help it, this store is going to stand here tonight.”

Compton Police Lt. Steve Roller said that businesses owned by people of all ethnicities have been hit.

“They are hitting any business they want merchandise from,” Roller said flatly. “And now that that has happened, they are going to drive business away from Compton, whether it’s black-owned, Latino-owned or Asian. Who is going to do business here? It’s sad, they are hurting themselves. They are destroying the community.”

Roller’s words ring painfully true in the ears of city leaders, who have struggled for much of the last decade to beat back Compton’s reputation as a crime-filled gangland ghetto where only the brave dare tread. In the last few years, they have brought in scores of new businesses and allocated money for beautification--and had several gleaming new shopping centers to show for it.

On Thursday, most of those shopping centers were closed, some guarded by police. One had been ransacked.

“We were proud of (what was happening here),” said former Councilman Maxcy Filer. “It was a revitalization of the city. . . . It is upsetting to see what is going on. . . . I am just sick.”

Community correspondent Emily Adams contributed to this report