A CITY IN CRISIS : Police Fight Fatigue, Frustration : Law enforcement: Officers recount what it’s like to fight an urban war. ‘I wish (Powell and Briseno) and those guys could have been out here to fight what they started,’ one says.

During a calm moment at a police barricade in South Los Angeles on Saturday, two Los Angeles police officers had time to reflect on what Margaret Casey called their “three days of darkness.”

It had begun with news of the verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating trial. Casey, 33, was on vacation, but came back to work. Jeff Lewallen, 24, was on duty at the Southeast Division in Watts when officers reacted with shock--and immediately gathered up their riot gear.

“We knew what was going to happen,” Lewallen said. “I wish Laurence Powell, (Theodore) Briseno and those guys could have been out here to fight what they started,” he said about the four officers accused of beating King.

Casey and Lewallen had been on the front lines, almost without a break. Lewallen worked 32 hours straight and then got six hours of sleep. Casey worked 18 hours on Thursday alone.

Both are dedicated to policing and said they have no regrets, even now, about joining the Los Angeles Police Department.

On Saturday they shared a kaleidoscope of images that included fires, looting and citizens attacking them with guns, bottles and fists.

In recounting their experiences, they never used words such as fear or helplessness, but they conveyed a measure of frustration and futility over the violence they had faced.

In disjointed phrases, Casey, a 10-year-veteran, spoke of one looting scene where she and three other officers were hopelessly outnumbered: “One hundred to 200 people throwing bottles after you saying, ‘Kill the police,’ glass breaking, fires burning, smoke thick, with that horrible smell of burning plastic, you know? Horrible headaches. Eyes burning.”

She was still troubled by one child slapping her and shouting: “Bad police.”

Not long after the verdicts were announced, Lewallen was at Manchester Boulevard and Vermont Avenue with eight officers facing a crowd of 100 gathered near a swap meet. “We were trying to get them dispersed,” he said. “Some guy started shooting at us. We all got into our cars and left, went around the block and came back. Now they were looting. I had to fight several of them, who were hitting me and the other officers. We took 10 to 12 into custody, mostly teen-agers.”

A three-year veteran whose father and brother also work for the LAPD, Lewallen recalled one Korean gas station operator at Central Avenue and Imperial Highway who was trapped Wednesday night in his cashier’s booth.

“He had protective glass windows all the way around and people had been shooting bullets at him point blank,” Lewallen said. “There must have been 40 rounds lodged in that glass. He was a basket case. He literally couldn’t function. We had to get him out of there.”

Thursday--when fires and looting seemed out of control--was “mass chaos,” Casey said. Assigned to a car with three other officers, she remembers flying from one trouble spot to the next--escorting firefighters under attack, setting up barricades, trying to keep people away from gas stations on fire.

“It was like we were running after our own tail,” she said. “Everything was happening at once. You did the best you could.”

Sometimes doing their best seemed futile, especially with the hordes of looters, Casey said. “You can’t take 200 people into custody with four of us. They knew that.” When the officers were able to corner several looters “you’d get the crowd throwing things at you.”

But there were some heroes. “There were a lot of people out there praying, singing and praying and trying to break the chaos,” Casey said.

Graffiti messages such as “Kill Police” seemed to line walls on every other block in South Los Angeles, so Lewallen was surprised when the black owner of a burned-out Baskin-Robbins ice cream store “gave me a big hug before I left. He said, ‘Hey, be safe out there,’ all that stuff. I’ll always remember that one.”

As the pair manned at their barricade Saturday in the midday heat, they reflected on the King verdicts. “I was shocked,” Casey said. “But nothing surprises me.”

“I thought at least Powell was guilty,” Lewallen said, referring to the officer who delivered the most blows to King.

Both said they hoped for change. “We need more police and fire officers,” Lewallen said. “Last week they were talking about cutting police and the Fire Department. Cut to what? We can’t do anything right now as it is.”

Casey hoped for more government services in the impoverished Watts neighborhood where she usually patrols. “I just hope after all this we’ll take a hard look at our priorities,” she said. “The schools here are overcrowded and there aren’t many parks where children can play. With all the money spent on armaments, we should be putting money into the lives of our children and the future.”

A resident stopped and offered them cold, bottled water. “That’s a change isn’t it,” Casey said laughing.

Tensions lessened after National Guard troops were deployed on Friday. “Now that it’s peaceful, I feel tired,” she said.

But moments later, other officers armed with rifles joined Casey and Lewallen’s barricade. A local gang was threatening to shoot officers. “It’s not over,” Casey said.