KING CASE AFTERMATH: A CITY IN CRISIS : Relative Calm Prevails in San Diego County : Tension: Police and firefighters respond quickly to firebombings and other incidents of violence. Students stage protests.

A sniper shot at two police officers, arsonists started dozens of fires causing more than $230,000 in damage and a student protest closed southbound Interstate 5, but San Diego County remained relatively calm, with only sporadic and occasional violent outbursts in the aftermath of the Rodney King case verdicts.

San Diego police made 25 arrests Thursday night and Friday morning, mostly for disorderly conduct, with seven people taken into custody for arson-related crimes, authorities said.

In the most serious incident of violence, Officers Bob Anschick and Stuart Littlefield were the targets of about a dozen shots while they patrolled in the 6300 block of Imperial Avenue in Southeast San Diego at 12:03 a.m., police reported. Neither of the officers was hit, but six shots struck the car.

Other officers, including the SWAT team, were quickly dispatched to the area to search for the gunman, but no arrests were made.

There were 233 reports of fires called in to the San Diego Fire Department Thursday night and early Friday, more than double the normal amount, according to the Fire Department.

Joe’s Credit Furniture in Rolando suffered $177,000 in damage to the structure and contents when firebombs were thrown through the front windows at 1:23 a.m. Friday, the Fire Department said.

Deca Forklift Services in Logan Heights sustained $40,000 in damage when firebombs were thrown through its windows late Thursday night, firefighters said. Unused firebombs were found on the sidewalk, and authorities said they were able to lift fingerprints from them.

Three men threw firebombs into the library at the Western State University College of Law near Old Town, but a sprinkler system extinguished the fire, which caused $8,000 damage, firefighters said.

Random violence also touched Carlsbad early Friday when a Molotov cocktail was flung against the door of a May Co. department store shortly after midnight, fire officials said. The device broke a door, but security officers at the Plaza Camino Real Mall extinguished the blaze before firefighters arrived, and little damage was caused.

Police Chief Bob Burgreen described Thursday night in San Diego as “slightly busier” than usual, a mere shadow of the violence that has racked Los Angeles in the aftermath of the Rodney King verdict.

“In contrast to Los Angeles, you wouldn’t know you were on the same planet, much less 100 miles away,” Burgreen said. “We don’t have the kind of problems in San Diego that we have in Los Angeles. At this point there’s no reason to be alarmed.”

The San Diego Fire Department sent four trucks to Los Angeles to assist in controlling the many blazes there, department spokesman Rick Valdes said.

“We have adequate manpower and equipment to handle these (San Diego’s) fires,” Valdes said.

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department reported that, if there were an outbreak of rioting, deputies would be forced to cope with the situation despite a “lack of adequate anti-riot equipment,” particularly protective vests and riot helmets with face shields.

About 1,300 Marines were dispatched Friday afternoon from Camp Pendleton to join 2,500 Army troops from the 7th Infantry Division from Ft. Ord in Monterey County. A Camp Pendleton spokesman said the Marines were members of the 1st Marine Division, but refused to identify their regiment.

The Marines, mostly combat troops, went by convoy to the Army Reserve center at Los Alamitos, in Orange County, which is being used as a staging area.

About 17 LAVs, the light armored vehicles used by the Corps in the Persian Gulf War, accompanied the Marines. Both Marine and Army troops were outfitted in standard battle gear, including M-16 rifles, gas masks and flak jackets.

But 51 San Diego police officers sent north to help Los Angeles on Thursday night returned a few hours later after being told they weren’t needed, police spokesman Bill Robinson said.

The Sheriff’s Department said the more than 200 law enforcement officers from 11 local agencies sent to aid Los Angeles in the past two days represented the largest contingent of peace officers in San Diego’s history to assist Los Angeles.

The Salvation Army in San Diego issued a plea Friday for donations of clothing, furniture, appliances and bedding to help Los Angeles neighborhoods, and food banks were gathering supplies to send north.

Students were the most active protesters Friday afternoon, engaging in numerous peaceful demonstrations across San Diego.

On Friday afternoon, more than 400 students from UC San Diego walked out onto Interstate 5 in La Jolla and sat down, blocking all southbound traffic headed for downtown San Diego, according to the California Highway Patrol.

No arrests were made in the two hour sit-in, which ended at 3:30 p.m. when students dispersed after UCSD Chancellor Richard C. Atkinson read a letter addressed to President Bush criticizing the not-guilty verdicts for the four white police officers accused of beating black motorist Rodney King.

The freeway sit-in followed a noon rally on the stairs of the campus gymnasium, where the students called for a meeting with Atkinson before marching to the La Jolla Village Drive entrance ramp on to I-5.

“Everyone knows (the verdict) was an injustice . . . a gross injustice and an extreme act,” said Gonsalo Garay, a 21-year-old UCSD senior. “It basically told America, especially white America, that the difference between 1960 and 1990 is no difference whatsoever.

“A lynching, a shooting and the beating down of a black man is socially distorted because it’s acceptable.”

In a separate incident, more than 150 students from Clairemont High School walked out of class Friday morning in a peaceful protest of the King verdicts, marching 2 miles under the watchful eye of several San Diego police officers to Mission Bay High School, which they reached about an hour later.

Several hundred Mission Bay students joined the others and poured outside during their study period for a morning rally, after which four school buses whisked the Clairemont students back to class.

One Clairemont student was arrested for smashing a car windshield during the march.

At San Diego State University, an annual carnival that acts as a fund-raiser for student organizations was canceled, and students staged demonstrations both on campus and down College Avenue that closed the main library and some businesses at the Aztec Center, said university spokesman Rick Moore.

About 40 SDSU students marched toward the freeway intending to shut down Interstate 8, but turned back when they decided their numbers were insufficient, said Merek Findling, one of the students.

“We’re trying to get people to wake up to the reality of what the situation is,” Findling said. “I’m glad to see that we’re not rioting in the streets, because that’s not the way to solve the problem. . . . Racism runs prevalent in every city, as much in San Diego as it does in Los Angeles.”

A rally sponsored by a group calling itself the Emergency Response Committee will be held at 6 p.m. today in front of the Federal Building at Front Street and Broadway to address questions regarding the federal case against the officers.

In an unforeseen economic turn of events, San Diego hotel operators reported an upturn Friday in the number of reservations being made by Los Angeles residents who were seeking a respite from that city’s violence. But there was no sign that massive numbers of Angelenos were making last-minute reservations at San Diego hotels and resorts--especially since many of the hotels already were full.

“I’ve spoken to some of the properties and asked about (last-minute reservations) but they really haven’t seen that,” San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau President Reint Reinders said Friday. “The hotels already had a very strong weekend on the books because the weather is nice, and May is usually a good month.”

Similarly, Reinders said hotels received a flurry of calls from anxious travelers outside Southern California who feared that the violence in Los Angeles had spilled over into San Diego. Hoteliers did their best to assure travelers that the violence had, thus far, been restricted to Los Angeles, Reinders said.

Reinders praised San Diegans for sparing their city the kind of devastating publicity that seems certain to hurt the upcoming tourism season in Los Angles.

“Considering how we’ve responded locally (to the King verdict), by keeping our sanity, we can come out of this smelling like a rose, compared to Los Angeles,” Reinders said. “We have used restraint and dealt with the situation.”

Times staff writers Greg Johnson, Gil Reza and Julie Tamaki contributed to this story.