Frantic Riot Calls Deluged Command Post

For four numbing days and nights during the height of Los Angeles’ riots, a torrent of frantic telephone calls poured into the Emergency Command Center, a basement compound underneath City Hall that serves as the city’s nerve center during times of crisis.

There were agonized calls for assistance from Los Angeles police and firefighters reporting outbreaks of gunfire and arson. A harried police lieutenant wanted 200 “rover” radios--fast. Another officer had a less urgent request--four portable toilets.

City employees wondered if they should report to work, while a public-spirited merchant offered to donate a million feet of crowd control tape and 20,000 handcuffs to the Police Department.

One police officer relayed a jittery request from Officer Theodore J. Briseno, who only hours earlier had been acquitted in the Rodney G. King beating trial. Briseno had spied two cars cruising by his San Fernando Valley house and wanted police protection.

And there were scores of calls relaying outlandish rumors that often proved false--that Oakland gang members were disguising themselves as police officers, that the Beverly Center was about to be attacked, that carloads of armed Crips and skinheads were driving in from Oregon to cause mayhem.

Newly released logs of telephone traffic to the emergency center offer graphic documentation of the confusion and logistic snarls that beset the Police Department and other public agencies as they tried to contend with the most destructive American riots of this century. The command center was a clearinghouse for key city agencies during the riots and was headed by the Police Department.

The 126 pages were obtained by The Times through a request under the California Public Records Act.

One entry shows that police may not have issued a public advisory warning motorists to stay away from the riot scene at Normandie and Florence avenues until 7:30 p.m.--45 minutes after truck driver Reginald O. Denny was savagely beaten in front of television cameras, and two hours after disturbances first were reported there.

According to the 7:30 p.m. log entry, an aide to Deputy Chief Matthew V. Hunt, South Bureau commander, requested of the command center “a radio announcement for all motorists to stay out of the area of Florence and Normandie because of demonstrations.”

Police spokesman Cmdr. Robert Gil said he could not comment on the speed with which the motorist advisory was issued. “Every question about police performance is being looked into by the two-man investigative commission,” Gil said of the panel headed by former CIA and FBI chief William H. Webster. “Once it’s all looked into, I’m sure there’ll be an answer.”

As the first reports were carried over police radio channels about disturbances at Florence and Normandie and other riot flash points, the Emergency Command Center had begun receiving ominous tips from outlying police stations about threats in the wake of the not guilty verdicts in the officers’ trial.

At 4:40 p.m. on April 29, the logs record a call from a Hollywood police officer who reported that the station had received threatening telephone calls at 3:30 p.m. from two men who said: “Gonna kill cops, watch out.” Another call soon followed from a woman who said: “Gonna get Chief Gates, gonna kill Chief Gates.”

Five minutes later, a Southwest Division police officer reported 10 phone threats.

Although the logs are listed by times and dates, LAPD Legal Service Division Officer Tonya Barnes said the notations are not always accurate.

“Some of these logs could come in earlier than they’re listed,” Barnes said. “That’s because when there’s a crisis, the operators who take the call may not have time to jot them down right away.”

By 6 p.m., 1 1/2 hours after the disturbance began at Florence and Normandie, a detective notified the command center that the situation was “out of control” and that a command post had been set up.

There are no log entries that address Denny’s beating, which took place between 6:45 and 7 that night. But a 7 p.m. report from the 77th Street Station tells of an anonymous resident who walked up to the front desk and asked: “Why are the police doing nothing in 77th Division?”

At 7:25 p.m., 30 minutes after police officials called a citywide tactical alert, a police lieutenant informed the command center that Briseno had noticed “two carloads of people (driving) by his home and his family is worried. Sgt. Wilder (of the) Devonshire (station) has dispatched a black-and-white (squad car) to patrol the area and will provide a rover (radio) for Officer Briseno.”

An hour and 20 minutes later, after three columns of smoke were reported along Vermont Avenue and 85th Street--the first report of arson--police officers at the riot command post at 54th Street and Arlington Avenue were confronted by a shortage of radios.

77th Street’s Lt. Mike Moulin, who had withdrawn the first wave of officers from Normandie and Florence and set up the command post, reported that he desperately needed “100 rovers with batteries.”

A Police Department tactical planning sergeant was informed about the lack of radios. The sergeant informed Moulin that only seven were available. On April 30, 11 hours after the riots started, officers at the command post were still calling for the radios, essential for street officers to communicate with superiors and other officers.

“No rovers available,” the log entry notes.

The first two days of the logs are filled with brief entries of the devastation that spread through the city--whole blocks looted, firefighters unwilling to respond to blazes without police protection, and dizzying reports of random gunfire.

As the violence receded, it was replaced by a wave of nervousness. Police agencies relayed ominous reports of gangs prepared to launch human assaults on the city.

On May 1, an “anonymous citizen phoned and said seven carloads of Crips, Bloods and skinheads are en route to L.A. from Portland, Ore.” Another caller told of gang members’ plans to “conduct hit-and-run attacks throughout the area tonight. They are planning guerrilla war tactics, she said.”

And by May 2, even police paranoia began to give way to the absurdities of life that proliferated as the chaos subsided.

In a 6:04 a.m. entry, a Newton Division officer requested a huge tarp to hang over a “field jail” to protect suspects from a rain shower. At 7:45 a.m., a city worker from the Hyperion Sewer Treatment Plant requested a police escort for chemical deliveries. The plant was “now out of chemicals and the company will not deliver without police protection.”

And by 10:40 p.m., normalcy--or something approaching it--was in sight. “The airport is back to normal,” one caller said. At 11 p.m., another said: “Van Nuys, no new intelligence to report.”