A CITY IN CRISIS : Voices

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’ll say--because it doesn’t make any sense to me now.”

A woman on Normandie Avenue trying to explain why she was taking pictures to save for her children

“A number of aliens have come into this area and are involved in crime. If you talk about undocumented aliens, somebody here who is illegal, and you say anything untoward, you’re immediately marked as an insensitive guy. I’ve been trying to point out that an awful lot of those individuals are here who are criminals. . . . They were participating in this riot in a very, very significant way.”

KNBC report quoting Police Chief Daryl F. Gates

“Last night we had to yell and scream to chase some people away from the bookstore. . . . They’re like cockroaches. You yell and they run.”

Brad McAllen, restaurant manager on Hollywood Boulevard

“They realize the Fire Department and the Police Department can’t help them. . . . This is not an act of aggression. This is just saying, ‘Leave us alone and let us get back to business.”’

Damon, a guard, explaining why a Koreatown mini-mall would hire him

“I moved my computers to the back side where they (the vandals) cannot see them. . . . Yesterday I said I wanted to move back to my country, but today I realized I have to depend on my store.”

A Korean-American shopkeeper

“Everything around here is gone. . . . We’re going to have to go way out to get what we need.”

Cheryl Clark, South Los Angeles

“This is self-destruction. . . . This is just making more tension. We’re supposed to love each other.”

Daniel Chung, a merchant standing guard

“As I look out there, I don’t see the great crowds, I don’t see the looting and I don’t see the fires we had before. . . . I don’t know if that’s due to the threat of being confronted by us or if they’re just burned out. But I’m encouraged by it.”

Guard spokesman Col. Roger Goodrich

On auditing the National Guard to determine what went wrong: “I think it is an outrage that (they) showed up without ammunition. That’s like the Dodgers taking the field without their gloves.”

State Controller Gray Davis

“All we’re trying to do today is salvage what we can. Starting over is another question. . . . A black person won’t be able to get any insurance around here.”

Pharmacist Clyde Hatch

“Just a year ago I was in the cleanup in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. . . . Now you have to turn around and do the same thing in your own back yard. It’s sad.”

Chad Mac, a 19-year-old off-duty Marine, working with a shovel on a pile of embers where an appliance store had stood