UNDERSTANDING THE RIOTS / PART 3 : WITNESS TO RAGE : ‘If a world isn’t opened up, it explodes.’

When I heard the Rodney King verdicts, I had just come home from work. I usually turn on the news while I’m fixing dinner, which is 6:30. That’s when I heard it.

I felt just overwhelmingly sad. I worked on the streets in the ‘70s and I met some wonderful policemen. They were very sensitive, very caring. And I also met policemen who were terribly cruel and many times injured these kids. So I’ve seen this pattern where police have gotten away many times with this. And when I heard the verdicts, it was like deja vu.

And I had a sense that something was going to happen. We have 800 boys (at Juvenile Hall) with 800 different worlds that need to be expressed. And if that world isn’t opened up, if they can’t tell that story, it explodes. And I felt that so much of the anger, so much of the frustration was going to . . . And the combination of drinking and drugs and anger and peer pressure . . .

I stayed up late Wednesday watching television. One of the things that outraged me was the voice of the commentator as he commented on the beating of the truck driver. He reported it in such a detached way. And I wanted him to say, “We’ve got to land this helicopter and help this man. What can we do?”

I’m sure everyone felt anger, rage watching the beating. And for me it was a sense of, “dammit, I work so hard with you kids and we give so much to you. Are any of you one of our kids back out on the street doing this? Where did we fail you?” It’s that kind of montage of thought. Why are you doing this? I felt anger toward those boys and then I said to myself, “If he’s in Juvenile Hall tomorrow, how will I treat him?” Because one of the things that we really stress is being non-judgmental. We’re not the judge and jury. We’re here to remind them of God’s forgiving love. But when I saw that beating I didn’t feel very professional. I felt like, “Boy, if I got ahold of you, what I’d do!”

I didn’t go to bed until about 2 in the morning. And they must have been bringing people to St. Luke’s Hospital, which is very close to me, and I could hear the ambulances. I just got two or three hours of sleep. Thursday I woke up and I put the television on. There wasn’t any mention of anything happening in Pasadena, where I live, but later I found a lot of stores boarded up, so there must have been.

I went to work very early and was expecting a large group of young people who had been brought in during the evening. And I was just utterly amazed the population was just slightly above normal. Here we have this tremendous police force who are ready to bring in a gang member sometimes for a slight offense and when they’re doing something very serious, they’re not here. I just was so saddened by that, because they were still out on the streets going wild.

There was a lot of talk among the staff. They were pretty outraged by the verdicts, the riots, the whole thing. A lot of the counselors came from those areas and were inconvenienced in terms of getting gas, transportation. Some people had to take on double shifts.

The administration asked all of the staff and volunteers not to talk about it with the kids. They didn’t know how much these kids knew and they just didn’t want something to happen here. They closed the school for two days and the teachers went over to the units.

These kids were aware of Rodney King and the trial. But they don’t usually watch the news. There was very little discussion of it. I wanted very much for them to talk about it. But some volunteers may not have been able to handle that, they were pretty traumatized themselves.

So I did my job normally, as if nothing had happened, and it felt a bit surreal. I didn’t feel focused. I felt torn. I was trying to do my work and concentrate on the ordinary things that needed to be done, but I felt scattered. I felt pained. I thought, “What can we do better? We can’t afford to be competent here, we have to be excellent.” Because time is so precious that we have them here, this is when they’re vulnerable. On the streets they’re more slippery.

But it was like a Fellini movie--no beginning, no end, just deja vu. And just pray that the phoenix will come out of the ashes. That some good will come from this. That 58 people had to die. And look how many people are going to die inside as they lost their life’s work.

About 3 o’clock, one of the counselors had been listening to the radio and he said it was getting very heated and it may be best to go. As I was driving home, I realized there was a possibility the car might be stopped, and it reminded me of an incident a few years ago: I had stopped at a gas station. It was late at night. I went in and paid my money and I was walking out and I saw this youth, and it was obvious to me he had a gun. And he walked toward the car and I looked him straight in the eye and I said, “I’m Sister Janet. I’m a Catholic nun. I’m on my way to help someone that needs me this moment.”

And so he looked at me and said, “I need money for transportation.” So I calmly opened my wallet and gave him all I had, which was $2, and he said, “Thank you.” And then he looked at me and he said, “I believe in God.” And I said, “I know you do.”

I was making the connection that even though these people come up to you with guns ready to do something, they can be reached. Anyway, I went home Thursday, went out on my porch and read and prayed. Just kind of pulled myself together and kind of got focused. Then I listened to the news.

I was very concerned, wishing that the police would take a more active role. I began to feel they were in collusion with someone to hold back. I can understand them watching the firemen and I think that’s important, but to allow this. It was like Dante’s Inferno. And having worked on the streets and seeing how efficient they are, knowing a lot of my third- and second-graders that became policemen; they’re well-trained. I think Los Angeles Police Department is one of the most militaristic in the United States. I thought, “Is this really happening? Where are they?”

Friday and Saturday were my days off. I don’t think that I slept more than three or four hours any of these nights. I just kept thinking that I’m in the trenches. I live with this reality. I work with this reality. And it touches me very deeply.

In these past few days, I realized my limitations. A sense of, “Yes, I can do so much, but I can’t do everything.” Sometimes, when things like this happen, you come face to face with your own potential and inadequacies. And maybe it’s just a kind of low point because of what has been happening. It’s like pushing this huge snowball up the mountain and it comes running down on you.

I think good will come of it. But people need to take off their rose-colored glasses and take a hard look at what they’ve been doing. They’ve been living in invisible cages. And they’ve shut out that world. And maybe the world came crashing in on them and now people will be moved to do something.

I do think the city is going to change. I was here during the Watts riots, teaching here. I don’t want to sound overly optimistic, but I feel more hope now than I did with the Watts riot. Having listened to so many people from so many walks of life, I don’t hear pessimism. I hear hope in a way that I never heard it before.