A CITY IN CRISIS : Calm Slowly Restored in Bay Area, Las Vegas

Calm descended on troubled communities from San Francisco to Las Vegas on Saturday as curfews and heavy police patrols deterred protesters from returning to the streets.

Over the objections of San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted overwhelmingly Saturday to rescind an emergency declaration that had allowed police to arrest demonstrators simply for refusing to disperse. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was ended.

On Friday night, San Francisco police arrested about 400 people in a successful attempt to deter rioters who had damaged more than 100 downtown businesses Thursday.

Police processed arrested people in a huge, waterfront warehouse before transferring them to City Jail. Sgt. Terence Collins said about 600 officers patrolled the streets, nearly three times the usual force.

“We have a few punk rockers and your basic yuppie outrage,” said Sgt. Mike Sullivan, describing those who had been arrested overnight. “There are a lot of college students. The average age is maybe 28.”

Oakland Police Sgt. Rafael Delgadillo said a march scheduled Saturday morning from East Oakland to City Hall fizzled after protesters dwindled in number from 20 to 12 as they tired of the five-mile walk.

“We were really beefed up here, and we went out early in the day,” Delgadillo said of the police effort. “So people saw us in force, and we had very little disruption at all.”

He said that in light of the calm, police were discussing whether to abandon 12-hour shifts that have put more officers in the streets.

Nearby Berkeley, which suffered looting and vandalism Thursday, also was quiet, but a curfew remained in effect from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m.

The situation was similar in Las Vegas, where rioters seemed to call it quits after police threatened to impose a curfew, deploy National Guard units that were standing by and cordon off a three-mile low-income section of the city torn by violence Thursday.

None of those measures proved necessary, although police barricaded some streets in the stricken, predominantly black and Latino neighborhood. Police reported 21 arrests overnight, two fires and scattered vandalism, but no shootings or looting.

In San Bernardino and Riverside counties, rumors of impending violence kept residents and officials on edge, but the streets remained quiet.

Some businesses in San Bernardino remained closed for the weekend in the aftermath of looting, vandalism and at least one death Thursday, sparked by anger over the Rodney G. King verdicts.

In Palm Springs, a Molotov cocktail was tossed at a vacant building along North Sunrise Way late Friday, but damage was minor and no one was hurt, police said.

Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Richard C. Paddock from San Francisco, John Hurst from Las Vegas and Patrick J. McDonnell from San Bernardino and Riverside.