AFTER THE RIOTS : Site of Denny Beating Wasn’t Riot Flash Point, Gates Says : Inquiry: The violence was breaking out all over, he reports. A tape of police radio broadcasts shows that other trouble spots were developing simultaneously.

The South Los Angeles intersection where truck driver Reginald O. Denny was yanked from his vehicle and brutally beaten was “not the flash point” for the rioting and looting, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said Tuesday.

Continuing to defend the Police Department’s overall handling of the mayhem that left more than 50 people dead and hundreds of buildings burned, Gates said that an internal investigation has shown that “the riot was breaking out all over.’

The corner of Florence and Normandie avenues, where Denny was viciously attacked in scenes broadcast live by airborne television news crews, “was one very bad location, but not the only one that existed at that particular time,” Gates told reporters at an informal news conference after the weekly Police Commission meeting.

The Police Department’s analysis of the mayhem was not released by Gates, but a tape of police radio broadcasts obtained by The Times shows that other trouble spots were developing simultaneously.

There were “many incidents that would suggest that the riot was moving before Florence and Normandie, before the assault on Mr. Denny,” the chief said. “As bad as that was at Florence and Normandie, it was not the flash point.”

Isolated disturbances began almost immediately after the not-guilty verdicts were announced in the Rodney G. King beating case, Gates said.

At first, “they were not anything that would suggest we could not control them rather easily,” Gates said. But “that developed and continued to develop” until about 6:30 p.m. “and then it just exploded,” Gates said.

It was about 6:30 p.m. that the first motorists were being pulled out of cars and beaten at Florence and Normandie. Denny was attacked about 6:45 p.m.

The sequence of events is significant, Gates said, because it indicates that unless the LAPD was fully mobilized shortly after the verdicts, the ability to control the violence “would not (have been) much greater than what we . . . had.

“There isn’t a police department in the country that has the personnel power to put down a civil unrest (of that magnitude) quickly,” he said. “We did this in 36 hours. . . . That’s far better than we did in Watts in 1965.”

Much of the criticism of the department in recent days has centered on the pullback of about 30 officers from Florence and Normandie about an hour before Denny was severely injured by rioters. The officers retreated from a rock-throwing mob and did not return to control the violence for hours, leaving unsuspecting motorists to enter the area.

Joining the department’s critics Tuesday was Lynwood City Councilman Armando Rea, who told the Police Commission that the LAPD’s failure to act quickly and decisively allowed the rioting to spill into nearby communities. Lynwood, which had 76 building fires, “suffered a tidal wave of terror and destruction,” Rea said.

Gates has admitted that the LAPD erred by not quickly returning to take control of the intersection. He has blamed the mistake on a field supervisor--identified in interviews as Lt. Mike Moulin of the 77th Street Division--and some of Moulin’s superiors in the department’s South Bureau.

But, in general, Gates has said his officers and command staff did a remarkable job of controlling the riots.

“I think we did a very credible job, with the exception of that one location,” Gates said.

On Monday, the Police Commission, which has been deluged with civilian complaints about the police handling of the rioting, named former FBI Director William H. Webster to conduct a wide-ranging independent probe of the LAPD’s handling of the riot.

Gates had planned to present his preliminary in-house analysis to the commission Tuesday. But the report was canceled because the Webster investigation is to cover the same information, Police Commission President Stanley K. Sheinbaum said.

Gates said his internal studies will be turned over to the Webster investigation team, which includes Hubert Williams, president of the Police Foundation, a Washington-based law enforcement think tank.

Gates also told reporters that the LAPD and the FBI are investigating whether the outbreak of rioting was planned or somehow coordinated, possibly by street gangs.

“That’s one of the things we are attempting to do in the overall investigation . . . to see how much of this was planned. We think probably there was some of it that was planned,” he said.

Regarding Gates’ assertion that the rioting was beginning in many areas before cameras focused on Florence and Normandie, Sheinbaum said he did not have enough detailed information to comment.

But police broadcast tapes show that as early as 5:30 p.m. April 29--when trouble first erupted near Florence and Normandie, problems were developing elsewhere in the area.

At Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Coliseum Street, for instance, members of another group of 20 people were said to be throwing rocks at cars.

At Manchester and Normandie, a large group of gang members were reported looting and smashing windows.

Another large group was reported gathering near Slauson and Western.

Between 5:43 p.m., when Moulin ordered the initial retreat at Florence and Normandie, and 6 p.m., when violence at the intersection was in full swing, the police radio broadcast that yet another large crowd--with “possible gang activity”--was gathering at La Brea Avenue and Coliseum.

By 6:45 p.m., when aerial television pictures were broadcast live showing Denny being beaten, police radios were carrying reports of many other trouble spots.

Vandals were reported smashing windows at 84th Street and Vermont Avenue. A few minutes later, gang members were reported looting a clothing store and “screaming and fighting” at 85th Street and Vermont.

Other gang activity was reported at 88th Street and Normandie Avenue.

Looting was reported at Manchester Boulevard and Vermont Avenue and a shooting was said to be happening at a swap meet at 47th Street and Broadway, with “numerous people down.”

Times staff writer Ted Rohrlich contributed to this story.