KING CASE AFTERMATH: A CITY IN CRISIS : When Wrong and Right Blur : Looting Assumes Trappings of Justice If System Is Seen as Failing, Experts Say

As the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. toured the aftermath of the Watts riots in 1965, a group of young men approached him and--even amid their ruined neighborhood--claimed victory. King was confounded by their joyousness.

“How can you say you won when 34 Negroes are dead, your community is destroyed and whites are using the riot as an excuse for inaction?” he asked. Their answer so moved King that he wrote it down: “We won because we made them pay attention to us.”

Twenty-seven years later, behavioral experts say that same sentiment has fueled some of the looting that has blighted this city in the wake of the Rodney King beating verdict. But there is, experts say, much more at work: For many people, the acquittal of four white policemen accused of beating King blurred the line between right and wrong.

“Rodney King was a person that a lot of people could identify with. People feel that, ‘I could have been that guy. I could’ve been stopped by police. I could’ve gotten beaten up.’ And there was an idea that somewhere in this system there’s something that sets things right,” said psychologist Henry Tomes, the executive director for public interest at the American Psychological Assn. in Washington.

The verdicts belied that belief, Tomes said, especially for those who had seen the 81-second videotape of the beating. “At some level there is an implicit contract that operates in the society,” he said. “But all of a sudden it seems like it’s gone.”

Larry Bobo, a UCLA sociologist, agreed: “The bonds of civility are broken.”

For days, as many areas of Los Angeles have been engulfed in a destructive free-for-all, groups of looters have appeared almost gleeful. Many have been self-righteous, explaining to onlookers that the King verdict justified their actions. Many found it easy to rationalize.

“It’s not stealing,” a looter told a reporter matter-of-factly. “The jury did us wrong.”

“The food would spoil!” shouted another woman who carried three bags of stolen groceries from a ransacked market at Western Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard.

“The verdict of the Rodney King trial is the catalyst of these behaviors but not the cause,” said Gordon Clanton, who teaches sociology at San Diego State. Today’s rage is stronger than that expressed in Watts a quarter-century ago, he said, because expectations have been raised.

“People don’t rebel or riot when they are completely crushed or powerless, but (they do) when there’s been some improvement but not the promised improvement,” he said. “It’s 25 years later and from the point of view of blacks, things have not gotten any better.”

Once the first plate-glass window was broken, once the first auto parts outlet or electronics store was stripped clean, even people who are usually law-abiding got swept up in the frenzy. Some of the looting appeared professional and organized--caravans of young, sharply dressed men swooped down on shops in phone-equipped BMWs. But many of the vandals said this was their first time.

“Everybody’s doing it, so we do it,” said a 16-year-old girl who, along with her mother and aunt, was stealing compact discs on Vermont Avenue. Another woman, whose daughter was loading her car’s back seat with booty, insisted, “I’m really not like this.”

Denials like those illustrate that people who loot are aware that their actions are illegal. Empowered by their sense of the verdict’s injustice, they are applying a different standard.

“When you push people far enough, they will lash out in ways they ordinarily wouldn’t and in ways they wouldn’t even condone,” said Marvin W. Berkowitz, an associate professor of psychology at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

Moreover, they will encourage their children to do the same. Among the most poignant images in this city under siege have been the tiny children--some no older than 3 or 4--struggling to help their parents carry stolen goods.

Students of behavior cite mostly practical reasons why parents would loot with their children in tow. With the closure of schools and day-care centers, many parents had no place else to leave their kids. Others were eager for another pair of hands.

Whatever the reasons, the effects are potentially devastating.

Carole A. Rayburn, a divinity scholar and expert on morality and juvenile delinquency, said children who learn to loot at a parent’s knee also learn an approach to life--one of despair and hopelessness--that discourages children’s aspirations.

“It’s a negative message . . . that nothing the family or community or black people ever do is going to be enough because the white Big Daddy is always going to be looking over their shoulder and holding them down,” Rayburn said.

Clanton, of San Diego State, drew another lesson from the images of whole families looting together.

“When we do things in front of children, neighbors and television cameras, we are operating with relatively little shame,” he said. “The looters weren’t hiding their faces. They didn’t say, ‘This is terrible.’ They said, ‘This is the way it is.’ This is what happens when people have no other way to articulate their rage and no political channels to express it.”

Rodney Hammond, a psychology professor at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, said that while simple greed motivates some looters, much of the recent vandalism has its roots in a deeper feeling of discontent.

“What you see is an ungluing of the normal sense of structure and self-restraint that we have to depend on in this country,” said Hammond, who sits on the American Psychological Assn.’s Commission on Violence and Youth. “It’s unfortunate . . . but there’s nothing much to thwart that kind of thinking in a situation where you’ve lost faith in the other systems of justice and morality that you’ve been told will normally prevail.”

What many observers have found so puzzling is that, for the most part, the rioters have devastated their own neighborhoods. While no one is eager for the destruction to spread, many have wondered why more of the outrage has not been focused on affluent areas.

Chaytor Mason, an associate professor of psychology at USC, said people feel bolder in their own environs. Unless they have a specific grudge with a shopkeeper, he speculated, some looters might avoid the stores where they usually shop. But still, they stay nearby, on home turf.

In that way, he said, looting is similar to other crimes. “The average burglary takes place within a mile of the burglar’s own home. They don’t move that far afield,” he said.

Calvin Frederick, a UCLA psychiatry professor, agreed.

“It takes time and thought to get in a car and go out to Simi Valley,” he said, referring to the Ventura County city in which the LAPD officers’ trial took place. Staying close to home, he said, ensures that you won’t be alone. “It’s easier to follow the herd.”

Group dynamics help explain some of the celebratory atmosphere that has turned ordinary roadways into surrealistic street carnivals this week. Experts said that as people lost themselves in the rush of bodies, it was easier to do what had been unthinkable before.

“It’s called de-individuation,” said Arnold P. Goldstein, director of Syracuse University’s Center for Research on Aggression. “You become anonymous to other people and yourself. You become part of the crowd. . . . This is the lowering of the threshold that sets it free.”

Once inhibitions are lost, Goldstein said, the thrill of being part of something bigger than oneself can intoxicate people. There is a giddiness--however fleeting--to being in control.

“It’s partly a tension release. Partly a regaining of power and self-esteem,” he said.

“The ability to dish out some hurt and some pain probably makes people feel good,” said Tomes of the psychological association. “There’s camaraderie even in this situation.”

Not everybody was looting just for kicks. Some people, worried that their local markets would not survive the siege, said they resorted to looting just in order to survive. One hungry woman said she wanted to buy food, but could find no place to spend her money--stores were closed or looted and buses weren’t operating in the riot-torn area.

Some families stole laundry detergent and diapers. One man, the father of twins, explained his actions this way: “I have food for my babies.”

To the horror of community leaders across the country, the riots here ignited outbreaks elsewhere, including San Francisco, Las Vegas and Atlanta. Experts say most people regarded the King case as a symbol of the plight of blacks at the hands of police.

“It’s touching a chord. It was a national case though the incident happened in L.A.,” said Berkowitz, who is the associate director of Marquette’s Center for Ethics Study. “It was not four bad police officers but police against minorities. People everywhere wanted to see those policemen convicted--when they didn’t, they felt anger, shock.”

Thanks to satellite dishes, widespread media coverage and the now infamous videotape, Tomes said, many people around the country felt they knew the facts of the case as well as the jury did.

“In the world we live in now, the so-called electronic village, everybody gets to see everything,” he said. “It’s like when Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis, people everywhere responded to that. Rodney King is certainly not Martin Luther King, but in a certain sense he’s our brother.”

What will the looters feel once the embers are extinguished, the shelves emptied, the windows boarded up?

“Certainly not any fulfillment or satisfaction,” said Bobo of UCLA. “They will have the momentary sense that ‘We showed them. We made them look at us. We made them see how angry we are.’ But in the end, that’s not satisfying. That won’t heal the hurt of the King verdict. That won’t solve the problem of poverty, gangs, and crack.”

Bobo predicted that, along with their booty, looters will be left with feelings of disappointment and bitterness. But Hammond, of Wright State, said he believes that even before the King verdict, life was so desperate for some people that it will be difficult for it to get any worse.

“If you’re without hope, generally speaking, for a better standard of living based on anything you can do, I wonder what difference it would make that your immediate surroundings are even further deteriorated than they were before,” he said.

“Yes, some people will be very sobered by what has happened--the futility of it all. But for the masses, I’m not sure. They may look back on it as a moment of temporary good feeling in an otherwise rotten world.”

Times staff writer Pamela Warrick contributed to this story