UNDERSTANDING THE RIOTS / PART 3 : WITNESS TO RAGE : IN CHARGE : ‘I was horrified. The number of burnouts were incredible.’

I was at home when I heard the verdict. I immediately left for police headquarters at Parker Center. About 6:15, as I got there, I heard on the radio that a demonstration had started there. Foolishly, I drove in front of Parker Center and had trouble getting through. People got in front of the car and I was sort of surprised because it was more white than black. But there were also some Progressive Labor Party and Revolutionary Communist Party signs there, which was not surprising. One guy got in front of my car, but they pulled him away and then I went around.

About 6:25, I drove around to the back of the building. As I pulled into the parking lot, there was Chief Gates. He was just getting into his car and I asked him where he was going. He said he had something to do. After the fact, I learned he was going out to Brentwood for a “NO ON F” meeting.

I went upstairs to the police commissioners’ office. There were four or five people there, including the commander’s secretary, Lulu Fontes, who immediately showed me the television shot of the Florence and Normandie problem--you know, the guy in the truck.

Suddenly there’s a shout: “They’re breaking into the building.”

Our office is on the ground floor and about five or six women ran in, since we’re some distance from the front door. I tried to reassure them, then went out to the front. By that time, rocks had come through the windows above the plate-glass doors.

Deputy Chief Bernie Parks had about 30 or 40 men with helmets standing at the front of the building. The crowd was noisy--taunting and jeering--but the officers didn’t respond. If they had, I’m sure the thing would have gotten worse. Bernie Parks is known to be a good leader and I think he set the right tone.

Later that night, as the situation got more intense, we went to the Emergency Operations Command in the basement of City Hall East, which is four floors underground. During World War II, I ran a war room in the Phillipines. It had that flavor. I didn’t want to meddle or ask a lot of dumb questions with no purpose other than to satisfy my own curiosity.

About 8:30 that night, Gates came into the operations room. He looked harried.

I went back to Parker Center to follow the developments on the tube and, about 9:00, I decided to go home. An officer who works with the commission insisted on driving me. We went through Koreatown and down to Venice Boulevard. There were lots of sirens and a great deal of smoke. But I still didn’t grasp the full dimension of the thing.

It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized how large it was. Everybody was mobilized. Who’s got time to brief commissioners? I was getting periodic telephone briefings, which weren’t very helpful. But, as a commissioner, I wasn’t bothered by that because for me to intervene in anything that was going on would have been a disaster. Commissioners are not technically proficient in handling riots.

I stayed up most of the night watching events on television and receiving briefings over the phone. I became increasingly alarmed. I tried to get in touch with certain people in the department I felt free to call. I didn’t reach many of them because they all were deployed in various places.

The next day was a terrible one. I spent a certain amount of time--starting in the morning through the afternoon--going through the burned-out areas, down to the command post at 54th and Van Ness. All you had to do was see the activity at that command post and you knew something was out of hand.

The situation was not under control. More fires were breaking out almost by the minute. At one point the Fire Department was saying there was a new fire every three minutes.

I was horror-stricken. The number of burnouts were incredible. On the same block as the Wilshire Station on Venice Boulevard there were about three or four or five burnouts within 200 or 300 yards of Wilshire Station. But there wasn’t much they could do at the station because almost everybody was out in the field, deployed.

The situation was out of control.