Merchants Get Meeting With Mayor on Riot Aid

After three hours of beating drums, chanting and, finally, holding a sit-in outside Mayor Tom Bradley’s City Hall office Wednesday, a group of 300 Korean-American and Chinese-American merchants won an agreement from Bradley to meet with their representatives today.

The demonstrators, all victims of the recent riots, wanted the mayor to address them himself, even though members of his staff have met several times with some of the merchants.

“We want him to acknowledge our concerns,” said Joseph Kung, a Chinese-American whose small Los Angeles shopping center was destroyed.

The mayor was in his office, but would not appear on the steps of City Hall, according to Bradley spokeswoman Val Bunting, because of pre-scheduled “private appointments.”

The demonstrators, who banged on drums, chanted and threatened to storm the mayor’s office, were appeased by four mediators from the U.S. Justice Department’s community relations service, who moved back and forth between them and the mayor’s office.

“It’s shuttle diplomacy today,” one mediator, Vermont R. McKinney said. “We’re trying to defuse tensions.”

Standing in the hot midday sun, the merchants shouted, “Mayor Bradley, where are you?” and “Sleeping Bradley, wake up now. We lost everything. . . . We want reparations.”

The demonstrators brought a Chinese “appeal drum.” Such drums once sat outside the emperor’s palace, Kung noted, and were used by the poor and powerless to appeal for a hearing from their monarch. “The king would hear the drum and come out and listen,” Kung said.

Bradley did not come out, but Deputy Mayor Linda Griego and Bradley’s Korean liaison, Yoon He Kim, told Kung and other leaders that they had been working hard to help the victims obtain federal loans and grants.

But Jin Lee, administrator of the Korean-American victims’ group, which has marched on City Hall for 12 days, said they wanted Bradley: “He is the leader of the city.”

After the group began its sit-in in a hallway outside the mayor’s office, Bradley agreed to meet with protest leaders today.