KING CASE AFTERMATH: A CITY IN CRISIS : Arrests Burden Crowded System of Jails, Courts : Justice: As the number of suspects in custody hits 5,200, officials struggle with new problem: where to put them.

It was standing room only Friday afternoon at the Hawthorne City Jail. In Inglewood, 130 people were jammed into a slammer built for 29. The county’s big Central Jail was faring slightly better--it still had a few hundred spaces left by dusk. But bunks were going fast. In the morning alone, about 500 new inmates had been squeezed in.

As crackdowns began on the widespread looting and rioting that followed the verdicts in the Rodney King case, the county’s already-groaning criminal justice bureaucracy braced for what promises to be an avalanche of new court filings.

Los Angeles police were under orders to arrest rioters “for the most serious crime evident” and the district attorney’s office announced that it would file the harshest charges legally possible against those involved in this week’s violence.

The upshot: By 11 p.m. Friday, the number of riot-related arrests countywide had almost reached a whopping 5,200, and in some areas, people--most of them suspected looters--were being taken into custody a dozen or more at a time.

Special sheriff’s teams were dispatched to book suspects in the field, taking their mug shots and fingerprints before shipping them off by the busload to the county jail. About 600 convicted felons who were still in the county system awaiting paperwork necessary for their transport to state prison were hustled off early at the behest of local authorities, who needed to make room for new arrestees.

The Los Angeles Municipal Court downtown announced it would reopen for the weekend to handle the arraignment rush. And, just in case things got too heavy, the state Supreme Court extended the usual 48-hour deadline for filing formal charges against arrestees to 96 hours.

“It’s got to be done and we’re going to do it,” Municipal Court information officer Marcia Skolnik responded when asked how the overloaded system could handle yet another burden.

But local jailers weren’t so sure.

“Every inch of floor space has an adult standing on it,” said Sgt. Dan Milchovich, the watch commander at the Inglewood jail. “We’re bursting,” added Lt. Richard Didion, watch commander of the inmate reception center at Central Jail, which was just 400 inmates short by Friday afternoon of its court-ordered cap of 6,800.

“This place is really bulging and we don’t know how many more we’ll have,” Didion said.

A court order to limit jail overcrowding restricts the overall inmate population at the county’s 13 jails to 25,488. But on Friday morning, the head count stood at more than 23,000, and the mass arrests made in the aftermath of this week’s riots threaten to put the system over the limit, authorities say.

Consequently, the state Department of Corrections agreed this week to waive the administrative paperwork needed to move about 800 convicted felons out of county jail cells and into the state prison system.

The first batch, 601 in all, were shipped out Friday, said Sheriff’s Sgt. John Boyle. Meanwhile, hundreds more--from suspected murderers to curfew violators--were streaming in to take their place.

The situation was especially taxing for local jails, most of which are built to hold only a few dozen people at a time.

In Inglewood, for instance, the hallways were crammed with booty confiscated from people arrested at looting sites. A stereo. A box of Tide detergent. A dozen cans of hair spray. Four packs of raspberry cookies. A two-ton cable hoist pulley.

Ten men were crowded into one decrepit four-person cell, eight women into another. Some sat on metal bunk beds, others slept on floor mats, all complained that they hadn’t been fed since breakfast.

“I was just picking through what everyone else already picked through,” whined a man in a baseball cap. One woman complained that she was “just borrowing” those groceries she took from a 7-Eleven Food Store. Another sniffed that it shouldn’t matter that she stole food from a grocery store, because it was going to spoil anyway.

“It’s been standing room only,” said Hawthorne city jailer Jerry Reed. “The more we’ve searched and processed here, the more of ‘em they’ve brought in.”

About 45 people--yelling, crying, cursing, demanding to have their handcuffs removed so they could go to the bathroom--were in custody Friday morning, he said, most of them squeezed into a drunk tank built for 30. Pregnant women were being routinely cited and released because “we don’t need the liability,” Reed said. When possible, he added, suspected looters were being charged with misdemeanors, such as petty theft or trespassing, instead of felony burglary so they could be cited and released.

In Long Beach, however, authorities were under strict instructions to file the harshest possible charges against looters.

“We’re trying to keep as many people in custody as possible,” said Sgt. Rick Colbert, “because every time we cut them loose, they go right back on the street and do what they were doing before.”

From the local facilities, anyone unable to make bail was being shipped as quickly as possible to the county jails, where the head count edged ever upward.

“Well, we still got a few more beds,” said Deputy Hal Grant, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman, “and when they run out--well, we’ll do something. Maybe go out and rent a Holiday Inn.”