RIOT AFTERMATH : Notes on a Week in L.A.

And so, to quote a postcard I received from an old friend, “L.A. becomes Rodney King, brutalized--as voyeuristic cameras look on.” It’s been a weird week, and here are a few quick thoughts.

The common response to the Simi Valley surprise has been a call for the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the King beating. This was standard operating procedure in the Deep South: after the local yahoos bungled an investigation, the feds would rush in to make things right.

To place too much faith in the federal justice system, though, is to risk another letdown--and all that comes with it.

The feds, to judge by their ineffectual Sheriff’s Department investigation, aren’t much better than Ira Reiner at prosecuting cops. Also, something steered the jury toward acquittal, and it could happen again. Federal juries are recruited from throughout the region--including all the Simi Valley-like suburbs that encircle Los Angeles. If the video didn’t work with one jury, it might not work with the next.

Daryl F. Gates must regret that he did not keep his promise to resign April 1. There’s been speculation Gates has been stalling until his autobiography is published, on the premise he can sell more books if he’s still chief. In the meantime, though, the rioters have jumped in and written Gates’ last chapter for him.

His legacy now is a double-edged disaster: Rodney King and the riot. Gates had molded the LAPD into a paramilitary outfit--a lean, well-armed strike force designed to move quickly across the vast city to contain violence. It was SWAT and Operation Hammer and elite Metro units.

When it counted most, Gates and his army failed. The LAPD could gather a couple dozen officers around Rodney King for the beating, but couldn’t muster enough to control one crucial street corner in South L.A. Generalissimo Gates became irrelevant; it took the National Guard to restore order. One lesson from the Guard’s success is that a strong police presence still has value as a deterrent. This city needs more cops, and it needs them out of computer-controlled squad cars and battering rams and on street corners. Some people call that community-based policing. Others just call it policing.

Peter Ueberroth has encountered early turbulence as Mayor Bradley’s rebuilding czar. Jesse Jackson, Gloria Molina and others have questioned whether Ueberroth--a white man from Orange County--is right for the job. My question is: what’s the job?

If the intent is to heal the city’s socioeconomic cancers, forget it. That task is way beyond Ueberroth--and Jackson, Molina and Bradley, too. A lasting social recovery will take time, luck and the collective will of several million people.

Given enough authority, though, Ueberroth can expedite restoration of burned-out businesses and perhaps even encourage the establishment of new enterprises. More importantly, he can convince nervous corporate executives not to bolt. Bradley, a lame duck with diminishing powers, needs Ueberroth.

My problem with the appointment is the decision not to pay Ueberroth. I understand the symbolic hazards of him appearing to cash in on L.A.’s despair, but his volunteer status smacks of tokenism. Until Ueberroth is given a salary, an office, a staff and a deadline--the trappings of someone engaged in a serious endeavor--he looks like one more blue-ribbon celebrity, recruited to play for the cameras and vent the heat of the moment.

Finally, whether this city comes back will depend in large measure on its immigrant entrepreneurs--the Koreans, Armenians, Vietnamese, Salvadorans, Indians, Mexicans and so on. They don’t squeak and whine as much as the so-called commercial Establishment, but in fact they dominate small business, and small business dominates the Los Angeles economy.

An economist who studied Detroit after its troubles in the 1960s told me recovery there was undercut by the post-riot flight of Pakistani merchants. In the rush to rebuild South Los Angeles and appease the big corporate entities, we’d better not forget those Korean shopkeepers who fought off looters with pistols and pipes. Right now, we need them more than they need us.

Random notes: Am I the only person in Los Angeles who does not own a gun? . . . Violence has been replaced on the streets by a comedy of manners; everyone is full of smiles and excuse-mes, and I’ve even noticed motorists flick turn signals before they change lanes. . . . The riot’s body count makes me wonder about the deterrent value of the Robert Alton Harris execution.