The Open Wound That Los Angeles Must Now Work to Heal : As law enforcement’s presence grows, appeals from the President and Rodney King set the tone

The smoke from thousands of fires began to lessen in the Los Angeles Basin Friday as the orgy of violence and looting that followed the Rodney King beating trial verdict seemed to be winding down. But the community’s sense of unease--a sad, sick feeling that things may never be the same--hovers like an acrid smell.

Of course, if anything is learned from these awful days, some things will change, perhaps dramatically. They will change, if for no other reason than that no sane person in Los Angeles or anywhere else would want to repeat this terrible experience. Precisely what must change, and how, will be the topic of debate for months--or, for such a huge task, even years. And the challenge will be made no easier by the fact that some thugs and criminals--of all colors--remain unrepentant after so brutally taking advantage of the post-verdict protests to victimize individuals and entire neighborhoods.

THE UNKNOWN SAMARITANS

But the overwhelming majority of Angelenos, average law-abiding people who respect their neighbors and care about their community, can take hope and perhaps even find inspiration in the many actions by good Samaritans during Los Angeles’ darkest hours. Most of these people will remain forever anonymous because there were no reporters or television cameras around to record their good deeds.

Indeed, even in one of the most widely reported acts of heroism--four African-Americans saved a white truck driver, Reginald Denny, as he was beaten by an angry mob--the names of only three of his rescuers are known. The fourth--known to his compatriots in courage only as a young man dressed in black--simply disappeared after driving Denny to a hospital emergency room.

As in the case of that young man, nobody recorded the names of the hundreds of men, women and even children who helped tired firefighters with heavy hoses or tried to put out blazes with garden hoses and volunteer bucket brigades.

THE HIDDEN PROTECTORS

And who knows how many local stores were protected from looting by groups of neighborhood people who came to the aid of the owners? In a few instances these good neighbors held would-be looters until police arrived, but in most they just chased them away. On a chaotic day when police resources were at the breaking point, such help was invaluable.

That same type of community spirit motivated hundreds of young people to heed calls from celebrities such as actor Edward James Olmos to start cleaning up the city on Friday. One of the first places Olmos took a group of volunteers from the Community Youth Gang Services Project was a burned-out strip of stores at Western Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard. Like almost everything associated with celebrities these days, Olmos’ act of leadership was widely noted. But, at dozens of other places throughout Los Angeles and other cities, similar community cleanups were organized by ordinary people. It was the most visible example of the good people, the vast majority, pulling together. That community spirit must be nurtured and grow in the days to come.

We must not forget that everyone in the Los Angeles area was victimized by the rioting. No neighborhood or ethnic group was unaffected, directly or indirectly. “Can we all get along?” Rodney King said Friday. “Can we stop making it horrible?”

L.A.’S MANY VICTIMS

Anyone who ponders what comes now must realize that the neighborhoods that will suffer the most in the immediate aftermath of the rioting are the heavily black areas of the South Side. Many black neighborhoods now have no stores where residents can buy food or other vital supplies. Bus service has been curtailed so that even those who still have jobs to go to (most of the work in many burned-out businesses was done by local residents) have a hard time getting there. There wasn’t even mail delivery in those areas. Although it has not been widely publicized, black-owned businesses were hurt, too.

Also hard-hit were the Asian-American merchants, mainly Koreans, who own many of the small stores that serve residents of South Los Angeles, the Mid-City area and Koreatown itself. They bring badly needed services to sections of the inner city where other business people are not willing to take a chance. There has been occasional tension between them and some black customers, most notably as a result of the Latasha Harlins slaying. (Harlins, a black 15-year-old, was shot to death by a Korean grocer, who eventually was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and received what amounted to a wrist-slap sentence.) But were they deliberately targeted by looters or arsonists? Further investigation may be needed to nail this point down with sufficient confidence.

The city’s large Latin American community was not untouched by the violence, either. As in the Watts riots of 1965, many of the “white” victims of mob violence were Mexican-Americans or other Latinos. Several old apartment buildings near the downtown area that were put to the torch by arsonists were home to hundreds of Central American refugees who had moved to Los Angeles in recent years to escape political violence in their homelands.

WIDE IMPACT

Even the Los Angeles area’s sprawling, largely white suburbs were affected. There was serious trouble in Long Beach and scattered looting incidents in the San Fernando Valley, Pasadena and the Inland Empire. And many small cities near Los Angeles imposed curfews to coincide with the dawn-to-dusk rule in effect in their troubled neighbor. Smoke from fires drifted south to Orange County, and there were edgy nerves in Ventura County to the north, where residents were painfully aware that this whole ordeal began with Wednesday’s highly questionable decision by a Simi Valley jury to free four Los Angeles policemen despite the fact that a videotape captured them beating King.

In such a fearful time, it is not surprising that there were instances of vigilantism reported. An unknown sniper, believed to be a business owner, took to the roof of a store on Wilshire Boulevard and fired shots into an unruly crowd nearby. Some residents of the Hollywood Hills blocked access to the area and armed themselves to keep away would-be looters. That is scary behavior. It would have been less likely to happen if police had been on hand and able to control the situations. We can only ask that everyone remain as cool and calm as possible in this still-stressful time, and remember that things appear to be getting better.

THE NEED FOR CALM

The arrival of National Guard units, federal troops and law enforcement agents, and police from neighboring local jurisdictions seemed to have brought the rioting under control. The federal troops are racially and ethnically diverse, which should contribute to calming or containing the situation.

Just as important, the U.S. Department of Justice has affirmed that the not guilty verdicts in the King case did not end the legal process. Atty. Gen. William P. Barr and the U.S. attorney’s office have promised to take another look at the King case, and a federal grand jury has been impaneled to hear evidence. The appointment of Wayne Budd, the department’s third-ranking official and a respected African-American attorney, to take the lead in any civil rights prosecution in the case is reassuring.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that successive state and federal prosecutions can occur in a case in which there is no vindication of the public interest. That should be done in the King case, and politics should not be allowed to interfere with the legal process. Some political analysts suggest President Bush might lose conservative votes in November’s election if a federal prosecution of the four LAPD officers is attempted. Such cynical calculations won’t stand in the way of justice if Bush is true to the promises he made in his speech Friday night.

The social contract in this country requires not only that justice be done, but that there be a perception that justice has been done. That is not the case in much of Los Angeles today, in the smoldering aftermath of the King verdict. Only the federal government can offer the remedy. Until it does, the peace in Los Angeles--indeed, the nation--will remain uneasy.