Police, Revelers Clash at Gang Truce Barbecue

A unity barbecue organized at a Watts housing project to celebrate a gang truce ended early Sunday in a brawl when a phalanx of police tried to break up the party and were mobbed, authorities said.

The incident, which involved at least 300 party-goers and 75 officers at the Jordan Downs housing project, began about 11:30 p.m. Saturday and ended at about 1 a.m. Sunday with the arrest of three people, Los Angeles police said.

Thirty-five police officers and an undetermined number of revelers were injured in the melee, which marked the second confrontation in three days between police and residents of neighborhoods where rival gang members have been seeking to forge a truce.

“A similar thing happened in Imperial Courts Friday night,” said Sgt. Don Keith of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Southeast Division, which includes Watts. Residents charged that police have cracked down on them in an attempt to undercut their fledgling attempts at peace, but authorities blamed the confrontation on lingering post-riot hostilities between police and the black community.

“Did we have this before the riots? No!” said Keith. “The more attention the press gives these people, the more they do this stuff.”

Witnesses said the gathering had begun as a peaceful picnic hosted for the surrounding neighborhoods by residents of Jordan Downs, a public housing project on East 103rd Street.

The gathering, they said, had been planned for days and was intended as reciprocation for the Friday night party that had been given by the rival neighborhood of Imperial Courts. That party, they said, was similarly disrupted by a fracas that resulted in two police officers suffering minor injuries.

The area encompassing the two neighborhoods historically has been deadly turf. Dominated by three rival gang sets, the sector has been so fraught with tensions that mothers often kept their children home from school rather than allow them to traverse rival gang territory on their way to class.

Saturday’s picnic was billed as a unity gathering where onetime mortal enemies could transcend their deadly bitterness, getting to know each other as neighbors over rap music, barbecue and beer.

By dusk, an estimated 500 people had gathered in the grassy recreation area at Jordan Downs, munching hot links, ribs and macaroni and cheese. Children romped while their mothers chatted. Football, baseball and domino games were organized.

“I ain’t never imagined it like this,” marveled Solo, an 18-year-old gang member from Nickerson Gardens, as he knocked back a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor amid people who, just a month ago, might have shot him on sight.

“This is history,” Solo said as the sun began to set. “1992 is on the books for sure.”

But by about 11:30 p.m., police said, neighbors were calling to complain. Someone had brought a cache of firecrackers, and the popping was disruptive. Hundreds of people were still milling, many of them drunk in the streets, and there were reports of gunfire, police said.

“When the police arrived, it became apparent that the situation was highly volatile,” Keith said. When officers told the crowd they had 10 minutes to disperse, they were set upon by gang members, who pelted them with rocks, bottles and chunks of concrete, he said.

But residents said the police set the stage for a confrontation from the moment of their arrival when a police helicopter swooped down, locking the picnickers in the glare of a spotlight and using a bullhorn to call for dispersal.

Kevion Lyman, 22, said many people froze in confusion, unable to understand the instructions from above. As the militant strains of rap group N.W.A’s “F--- the Police” blared over someone’s sound system, witnesses said, the helmeted officers rushed the crowd, brandishing batons and shields.

“There wasn’t no fighting until the police arrived,” Lyman said. “They were ready to fight. People didn’t like getting hit, so they fought back.”

“All I saw was shields and helmets and billy clubs,” said a resident who identified himself only as Ray-Ray, a 24-year-old who wore a white baseball cap emblazoned with the word TRUCE.

“They just came running in like they were on TV or something,” he said. “If I was out killing or robbing last night I would have got away with it cause all the police were checking out the barbecue.”

He and others insisted that more civilians were injured than police, but no witnesses could identify civilians who were hurt in the confrontation.

Keith said 35 of the 75 officers who responded were hurt, at least five of them seriously enough to be taken to hospitals for treatment. Two officers, he said, suffered injuries to their arms. One was treated for a badly bruised foot after he was hit with a large chunk of concrete. Another required 16 stitches in her leg after she was slashed by a flying piece of glass. A fifth officer suffered undetermined injuries, the sergeant said.

Keith said three people were taken into custody. Two were booked for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon and one for evading arrest, he said. None of the suspects were identified.

Times staff writers Jesse Katz and Howard Blume contributed to this story.