Jittery L.A. Sees Rays of Hope : Few Crimes, No Major Fires Are Reported : Aftermath: With 44 deaths, riots become the worst in contemporary U.S. history. Four-day arrests total 6,720.

Los Angeles awoke Saturday from a horrific three-day nightmare with sunny skies replacing plumes of smoke and expressions of hope--even optimism--finally surfacing in its riot-torn streets.

Like a child interrupted in its sleep, the city stumbled gingerly into the daylight, uncertain whether to celebrate or distrust the jittery calm, confused about what had transpired over the previous 60 hours and searching anywhere for a comforting embrace.

“It’s necessary for everybody to get together,” said Jonathan Kim, 25, who was among 7,000 at a cleanup rally. “This is a time for the city to be together.”

Among Saturday’s major developments:

* As the city inched toward recovery, volunteers trucked food and clothing to hard-hit South Los Angeles neighborhoods, cleanup crews from the far corners of the region sorted through rubble and thousands cheered as power was restored in the heart of the ruin.

* Authorities reported no new major fires and few major riot-related criminal incidents for the first time since violence erupted Wednesday after the not guilty verdicts in the case of four Los Angeles police officers charged with beating motorist Rodney G. King. Mayor Tom Bradley said “a very significant change in the picture” occurred after midnight Friday.

* The Los Angeles County coroner’s office reported a total of 44 riot-related deaths, making the Los Angeles disturbances the most violent and costly in human terms in contemporary U.S. history. The 1965 Watts riots had 34 fatalities. The previous record was 43 deaths during 1967 riots in Detroit.

* President Bush declared much of riot-torn Los Angeles a disaster area, signing a declaration making homeowners, small businesses and others affected by the violence eligible for federal relief.

* Many residents were determined to make something positive emerge from the blight. Tens of thousands of people marched for racial healing in Koreatown, while other spontaneous--and peaceful--rallies occurred across the city. At Manchester and Broadway about 100 marchers pushed into a crowd of about 3,000 waiting at a post office to receive welfare checks. Their goal: registering people to vote.

* Presiding over Saturday’s relative calm was a peacekeeping force of more than 6,550, including police, National Guard, federal agents and, by late afternoon, Marines from Camp Pendleton. The massive law enforcement presence resulted in hundreds of additional arrests, bringing the total to 6,720 over four days.

* Despite a near postcard perfect spring day, county officials closed an eight-mile stretch of beach in Venice and Playa del Rey, a precautionary move requested by the Los Angeles City Council. At the Venice Beach boardwalk, usually crowded with tens of thousands on weekends, National Guard troops chased people away, some of whom had come to escape the oppression of their inner-city streets.

* Even with the calm, there was widespread residual anger in the poorest neighborhoods of South Los Angeles, anger that was not going to go away because the fires were out and the streets were protected. Many residents, even those victimized by the violence, said they hoped that the rebellion might at last send a message “to the system” that the price of ignoring them was high--and should not have to be paid again.

* The city seemed a checkerboard of contradictory images: white volunteers from the San Fernando Valley swept littered streets in South Los Angeles, while military convoys got stuck in weekend traffic jams.

Return to Normal

There were signs everywhere of a city getting back to its everyday business. Even if residents were not sure they could head out to a Saturday night movie, they could at least find a video store. There were even small traffic jams citywide. Some restaurants opened their doors tentatively, as if trying to figure out if there were still any customers left.

Four women who sat on the front steps of an apartment building at 65th Street and Hoover saw an encouraging sign as well: right across the street, a DWP crew was working frantically to repair the power lines. The women, who said their apartments had no electricity, were eager for the crew to finish its work.

“We’ve got no TV, no phone, no mail, no buses, no washing machines, no lights--I mean boring,” said Cynthia Griffith, 37. “But as soon as they get those wires put together, it’ll be on around here. Hair will be curled, clothes will be ironed. We’ll be kicking.”

At the Solid Rock Missionary Baptist Church on Broadway at 82nd, there was a simple funeral for Bernice Turner, a loyal church member who died last week--at age 55.

Despite the presence of national guardsmen who directed traffic nearby, Turner’s friends and family arrived at about 1 p.m. with big bouquets.

“The church has to carry on,” said the Rev. Clarence Devereaux, whose small stucco church was undamaged by the rioting. “I don’t care how bad things get. We’re the answer to the problem. I’m not afraid to go on.”

About five blocks away, Samuel Bryant stood outside the door of Jimmy’s Smokey Pit on Broadway near Manchester Avenue in a white chef’s hat, starched white shirt and big smile.

“I’ve had three customers today,” he said at lunch time. “Yessir. That’s a mighty good sign.”

Throughout the city, cars that could not travel after dark became vehicles for tourists as even some of the most cautious residents ventured out in daylight to survey the damage.

By late afternoon, blighted Vermont Avenue became a magnet for sightseers. But with the street lights still not working, carloads of camera-carrying families ended up snarled in traffic.

Out of nowhere, ordinary citizens took their places at several major intersections, waving cars through and largely restoring order to the streets. A black man and woman, each armed with whistles and wearing gloves, stood in the intersection of Florence for hours.

At Vernon, there was Eric Brooks, a credit analyst from Mission Viejo. He had come north Saturday with the intention of stopping in at the First AME Church. But he got lost and, seeing that the traffic signals were broken, decided to do his part.

“All people want to see when something like this happens is the negative. There’s more positive than negative. I wanted to help out,” said Brooks, who wore a Malcolm X cap and a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “You do what little bit you can.”

Amid the hopelessness, there was inspiration. Ural Jones, a black businessman and owner of Bluebird Video Inn at Main Street and Century Boulevard, had been lucky: his business was largely undamaged. All the same, on Saturday he was in the street, doling out encouragement to those less fortunate.

“You ain’t leaving--we’re going to fight this out together,” the 69-year-old said to his Korean neighbor, Rory Park, the owner of Red’s Liquor Store a few doors down.

“Oh, sure, I stay here,” Park, 50, said as he nailed plywood to the walls of his store, which had been completely gutted by fire.

Residual Anger

Just under the surface, fear and anger lingered.

In the Crenshaw District, merchants and residents congregated in front of looted, boarded-up businesses and talked of cleaning up and getting on with their lives. But one group said there was also much anger directed at what they called “the system.”

“Rodney King is only a part of it,” said one woman at a nearby bus stop who was holding a shopping bag filled with empty Coke cans. “We’ve gone without for too long like this in this community. This was bound to happen.”

They were angry at Korean-born merchants they said had shortchanged their children and watched them with suspicion every time they lifted a box or a bottle to put it in a shopping basket. They were mad, too, at politicians who had ignored them and even black clergy who had tried to pacify them.

“I don’t like violence, but I understand the frustration they (the looters and arsonists) were going through,” said Juanita Henry, 48, who had stopped at a black-owned Crenshaw District food distribution center to pick up discounted bread and pastries. “I’m frustrated. We’re all frustrated.”

Robert T. Moore, a merchant who is president of the Santa Barbara Plaza Merchants Assn., said he had spoken with police officials as recently as a month ago to tell them that pressure was building in the community and that it might boil over.

“The anguish was coming,” said Moore. “It’s been building and personally I don’t think this has ended. If things have not been done to address needs, it’s going to start right back up. We’ve been ignored, patted on the back. We don’t want to hear clergy pacifying us.”

Even as they expressed anger over the destruction, they hoped residents outside South Los Angeles would hear the cry that the destruction symbolized.

“We fought like hell to get these businesses in here, and then, all at once, everything went the other way,” said Davis Rodgers, the gray-haired president of the Watts branch of the NAACP, who is in his 60s.

Asked how he felt about starting all over again from ground zero, he said: “It’s hard.”

Half a city away, on the northeast corner of Santa Monica and Western, the Flores family looked at 27 years down the drain, 20 years in which their entire extended family had built a jewelry business that turned to ashes in a single day.

“Emotionally, I’m dead,” said Victoria Flores, 63, as her family searched through the rubble Saturday for a safe containing perhaps a few of the hundreds of wedding rings that had wed young couples over the years.

In South Los Angeles, where a crowd of people waited for welfare checks at the Manchester Broadway Post Office, tears were rolling down the cheeks of Shawonia Hudson, 32, who had waited more than four hours in line.

“I’m crying because it takes stuff like this for the people we voted to elect to tell us that they care about us,” she said. “That hurts me. Maxine Waters, Marguerite Archie-Hudson, Jesse Jackson. They don’t care about us. They use us. They use us to get on TV.”

As she spoke, a tall black man--a stranger--stepped up to comfort her.

“Ma’am, everything’s going to be OK,” he said soothingly. “It really is. It hurts all of us. But everything’s going to be OK.”

Optimism was curiously high in some parts of town as residents from portions of the city that had not been looted or burned simply got in their cars and went over to help sweep up.

Charlie Doane, 36, a white Silver Lake film producer from Minneapolis who has lived in Los Angeles five years, was helping sweep up a shattered corner of the Pico-Union District with four friends.

“I love this city,” he said. “I want to be a good role model. I feel that’s very important. I’m hoping we can show the children that by helping out and chipping in, things in the future will be a little better.”

Those who actually lived in the area were far less optimistic. Lacking any dumpsters or trash barrels in which to dispose the rubble, they simply tossed it back into the ruins of burned out stores. Smoke was still rising from a stubborn fire that had been set three days before.

“I’m still afraid,” said Naomi Hernandez, 44. “We are all afraid. They (the arsonists) have no compassion for anybody. I don’t think it’s over.”

The Military

The first Marine Corps units landed in Compton just after 4 p.m., establishing their beachhead at a burned-out Arco station that had been looted and set aflame by rioters.

About 1,200 Marines made the trek from Orange County, their convoy stretching for more than a mile. Marines wore their riot faceplates raised, glittering in the afternoon sun.

The long-debated arrival of the federal forces hit one last snag: The Marines got tied up in traffic.

At first, residents greeted the Marine landing stonily, partly because many people in Compton had become used to the sight of National Guard forces patrolling their neighborhood. The Marines were dressed in nearly identical fatigues and carried the same M-16 rifles, making it impossible for most people to distinguish from the Guard forces at first glance.

But as residents figured out the new arrivals were from Camp Pendleton, many said they were pleased that the government would go to such lengths to protect them.

“I think it’s beautiful. I really do,” said Cynthia Ricks, 33, a Compton mother of four. “This is respect to me.”

The Marines accepted their duty stoically.

“I’d rather be home with my wife right now,” said Lance Corp. David Shaw, a 20-year-old Marine who stood grimly surveying the Compton neighborhood. “But I’m more than happy to be here to try and keep the peace.”

Military commanders and city officials characterized the troop movement as merely an effort to relieve weary National Guard, some of whom had been on duty for more than 24 hours. But it also represented the first landing of active duty federal troops inside the city, a move local officials had hoped to avoid.

In a news conference Friday, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates had expressed misgivings about bringing in federal troops, saying it was something that “goes against my grain.”

But Maj. Gen. Marvin L. Covault, the commanding general of the Los Angeles forces, said he had spoken with Gates and Sheriff Sherman Block about the deployment plan. All three officials had “a meeting of the minds,” Covault said.

LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department made requests for the soldiers at specific locations, and military commanders passed those orders to their troops. The military forces replaced Guard units, so the overall size of the federal presence in Los Angeles was not changed markedly by their arrival.

“They will operate on shifts,” Covault said. “As we rotate those shifts, some active duty component soldiers will take on some jobs being done by National Guard.”

On the street, Guard units awaiting relief were holding their positions after long stretches. In some areas, appreciative residents tried to make their wait easier.

At 82nd and Broadway, part of the ravaged mid-section of South Los Angeles, National Guard Sgt. Jay Clark of Porterville was loaded down with equipment in the afternoon heat. Sympathetic residents supplied him and his unit with homemade lemonade, food and chairs. One store owner let the Guards use the bathroom in his carburetor shop.

“The people are glad to be getting their communities back,” Clark said. “They’re coming up and saying: ‘God Bless you. We’re glad you’re here.’ ”

In more than two days of duty on the Los Angeles streets, no member of the Guard has fired a weapon, officials said.

“We’ve been very fortunate,” said Maj. Pat Antosh, a spokeswoman for the Guard. “This is something that we trained for, and we’re doing it professionally.”

Although some mix-ups delayed the Guard deployment at first, those problems seemed to have been cleared up by early Saturday, when more than 3,500 Guard troops were on the streets. Another 1,000 were in staging areas awaiting orders from the local authorities, but most of the looting and fires had subsided by then.

Military analysts, who warned against moving troops into the city unless new violence warranted it, applauded the decision to add soldiers slowly and only as replacements.

“Using active duty federal troops is the last thing you want to do,” said William Taylor, a military analyst and retired Army colonel. “What you want to do is let the Guard control the situation and then turn it back to the police.”

While the Army and Marine forces remained in staging areas early Saturday, the White House said the decision not to deploy them into Los Angeles immediately had been made by their field commander, who believed such a move was not yet necessary.

Senior Administration officials had said late Friday after President Bush ordered the troops into action that the soldiers and Marines would move onto the city’s streets overnight to establish a powerful visual presence.

But a White House official stressed Saturday that the tactical decision had been delegated to Covault and that he had decided to postpone such a move.

“We had been under the understanding that they would be on the streets by morning,” the official said. “But they assessed it on site and made the decision that for the time being the National Guard would be sufficient.”

The official said Bush, who is spending the weekend at his mountain retreat in Camp David, was being apprised of events through periodic reports from the White House Situation Room and was in full agreement with that decision.

The Continuing Toll

The mayor’s office reported Saturday that since the riot began, 5,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed by fire or other vandalism at a total cost in excess of $550 million.

The grim count in Los Angeles reveals that most fatalities were caused by rioters inflicting harm on one another and innocent members of the community.

Of the 44 dead, 11 died in encounters with police, including three who died in a car wreck Wednesday night after being chased by Beverly Hills police. At least 24 of the other killings were by gunshot, while four were found burned to death in charred buildings that dot the city, one woman was stabbed, one woman was killed in a hit-and-run accident and one 68-year-old man was strangled at a looting scene at dusk on Thursday.

By Saturday morning, the Department of Water and Power, working under police protection, had restored power to half of the 25,000 residents without electricity. The RTD is to resume full service in every part of the city Sunday morning.

Bradley signed an executive order prohibiting landlords from imposing late fees on renters who are unable to withdraw money from damaged banks and has instructed city Building and Safety official to expedite reconstruction permits.

Two South Los Angeles banks, the Bank of America at 87th Street and Western Boulevard, and Broadway Federal Savings will be open for business Monday.

A city hot line to coordinate volunteer cleanup efforts was opened Saturday morning and was receiving a steady flow of calls from residents wanted to work or were donating brooms, dumpsters and trash trucks.

“In short this community is coming together,” Bradley said. “We are pleased about the spirit of friendship that is developing, which may be one of the hopeful signs to come out of this tragedy. People in this community realize they must come together and join in a mutual effort to restore the prestige and image of this city.”

The citywide damage total of $550 million was estimated by a team of building and safety officials who flew over the burned buildings. It is based on structural damage and does not include content loss, the mayor’s office said.

In Long Beach and Compton, two cities pummeled and charred in the riots, the peace seemed to be restored Saturday. But in both cases, the quiet came only after a massive show of force by authorities. And in both cities, that force arrived too late to stop several killings, hundreds of assaults and the destruction of scores of businesses.

“It’s quiet here,” Compton Police Lt. Steve Roller said Saturday afternoon. “We haven’t had any additional fires in the last 24 hours.”

But before that calm, all but two of the city’s dozen or so grocery stores had been reduced to ashes. The two remaining markets, Roller said, were reopened for business under the protection of authorities. Those authorities included Compton police, 250 National Guard troops and about 600 Marines who arrived in the hours before sunset.

In an emergency meeting of the Long Beach City Council on Saturday morning, officials reported that one person had died and 334 people had been injured in the rioting. The injured included 16 police or fire personnel and 21 civilians who were hospitalized in critical condition.

With almost 300 businesses destroyed by fire, hundreds of city employees, residents and merchants began the grim cleanup of Long Beach, moving in sweeps along its major commercial streets like Pacific Coast Highway, and Atlantic and Long Beach boulevards.

There were bureaucratic clashes, too. In downtown Los Angeles, officials from the U.S. Justice Department locked horns with several LAPD officers over the arrest of 30 students at 3rd Street and Broadway.

Two racial conciliators working for Justice Department’s Community Relations Service asked police not to arrest the students, who had come downtown for a rally that was later canceled. Police arrested the students for failure to disperse on police order, but the arrests were held up for 15 minutes while conciliator Vermont McKinney, a former Los Angeles high school basketball star and community organizer, argued with an LAPD commander and sergeant.

McKinney contended that the students--members of a multiracial coalition organized by the AME Church in South Los Angeles--had not gotten word that the demonstration was called off. The students also did not understand that the police order to disperse meant they had to go home, he said.

As the students were taken away by police, some shouted in protest, “No justice! No peace!” and “No justice under fascism!” Others accused the LAPD of “fascism” and “apartheid.”

Contradictory Images

The city seemed a puzzle with pieces in the wrong places, a collage of contradictory images befitting a fractured community.

At the newly built Gateway Plaza shopping center on Rosecrans Boulevard, a Taco Bell was burnt to the ground, while eight steps away, a Wendy’s was serving burgers.

Surfers and sunbathers were missing from broad expanses of Dockweiler State Beach on a hot weekend day. In their place, about 150 National Guard troops were marching up and down about two miles of sand.

“We were looking for outsiders who might be a problem,” said Lt. Don Perez, platoon leader with the 184th Infantry, based in Modesto. “We said we were going to storm the beach--but from the other side this time.”

Contributing to this story were staff writers Dean E. Murphy, Laurie Becklund and Amy Wallace.

Also contributing to today’s coverage are Eric Bailey, James Bates, Leslie Berger, Greg Braxton, Stephanie Chavez, Rich Connell, Tina Daunt, Tammerlin Drummond, Petula Dvorak, Paul Feldman, Andrea Ford, David Freed, Mary Lou Fulton, Laura Galloway, Steve Harvey, George Hatch, Nieson Himmel, Bernice Hirabayashi, Sherry Joe, Ted Johnson, Amy Louise Kazmin, Roxana Kopetman, Greg Krikorian, Patrick Lee, Hugo Martin, Josh Meyer, Michael Meyers, Fred Muir, Jim Newton, Lisa Omphroy, Psyche Pascual, Mark Platte, Bob Pool, Cecilia Rasmussen, Kenneth Reich, Carla Rivera, Ron Russell, D’Jamila Salem, John Schwada, Stuart Silverstein, George Skelton, Sheryl Stolberg, Vicki Torres, Mike Utley, Henry Weinstein, Tracy Wood, Eric Young and Nora Zamichow.

* Additional stories and pictures of Los Angeles turmoil. A3-A11, B1-B3

The Toll

As of 6 p.m. Saturday, authorities reported the following tallies: * Deaths: 44

* Injuries: 1,984, including 198 critical

* Fires: 5,534 responses, including multiple calls to various locations

* Arrests: 7,495

* National Guard: 6,781

* CHP deployment: 750

* Federal agencies deployment: 1,000, including 250 FBI

* Firefighter deployment: 3,350

* Estimate of damage: $550 million, according to mayor’s office; 5,000 buildings damaged or destroyed, including at least 1,600 severely damaged or burned businesses; 3,100 businesses affected by rioting or looting