A CITY IN CRISIS : Voices

“It’s pay-back time! They said it wasn’t going to happen in Seattle, but I knew it was going to happen.”

Quincy Powell, who said he was a member of the 74 Hoover Crips gang in downtown Seattle

“The starting of the situation had nothing to do with the Los Angeles incident or anything else. But I think some frustration certainly came out.”

Dennis Ballantine, police chief in Ames, Iowa, where there also was unrest

“There were some people out looking for trouble. They would circle around a couple of times, see the weapons and move on.”

Capt. Jon Long, a National Guardsman from San Diego

“This has opened wounds that have been there for a long time. This is really a watershed event in American race relations. . . . It’s hard to predict how it will turn out.”

Lawrence Bobo, associate professor of sociology, UCLA

“Until now, I could never say I was embarrassed by black people, but today I am. . . . I am actually ashamed for my race. . . . These people probably have never heard of Rodney King and don’t care who he is. They wanted to take advantage of a situation.”

Inglewood Police Officer Wayne Miles

“I just can’t believe that something like this could happen in the United States.”

Mike Cox, an Orange County-based Marine from Texas waiting to be deployed

“There’s not enough liquor in the world to be worth a life. . . . No, don’t do that. If there’s trouble, just get out.”

Norman J. Maltz, whose Northridge insurance agency covers perhaps 100 liquor stores in the areas hardest hit

“The healing is going to take a long time. It starts with sweeping up the mess. But it just starts there. Folks are demanding respect, equality, justice. Those things take time.”

The Rev. Carl Washington of St. Mark’s Baptist Church

“Looking back, I can be happy for one meager thing. I saw Crips and Bloods together shouting, ‘Black Power!’ My brother is one. Now they are carrying black rags. Not red rags or blue rags. They’re carrying black rags.”

Norman Simples, owner of a business gutted at 82nd and Vermont

“I’m hoping this place stays open and I still have a place to work.”

Salvadore Ortega, sweeping outside a South Los Angeles liquor store

“What we have here is a surface calm and a surface harmony. You can’t have good race relations when there is misunderstanding, tension and inequities between black and white.”

Gail Parrish, executive director of the race relations council of Metropolitan Detroit

“Ninety-five percent of the people are happy to see us --they just wish we were here earlier. The few who didn’t like us--we’d just wave and say, ‘Thank you, have a good day.”

National Guard Staff Sgt. Gregory Johnston, who had just spent a 12-hour shift on the streets of South-Central.