Officials See No Proof of Gang Plot to Ignite Riots : Inquiry: But task force finds they played a major role as violence progressed. Billboards are being erected to urge witnesses to crimes during the unrest to come forward.

A task force investigating crimes committed during the Los Angeles riots has uncovered evidence of widespread involvement by street gangs and some organized efforts to attack people and burn stores, but has not found that gangs planned the violence, FBI Special Agent in Charge Charlie J. Parsons said Friday.

“I’m not ruling out the possibility that there was pre-riot planning, but we don’t have any hard evidence of that,” said Parsons, who heads the FBI’s Los Angeles office. He added, however, that “there was a tremendous amount of street gang involvement in the riots, particularly the more serious violent crimes.”

The extent of gang involvement is the subject of intense scrutiny by a riot crimes task force that includes more than 100 investigators from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and an array of state and local agencies. Rumors of stores being targeted by gangs are commonplace, and several investigators with the task force confirmed that they have uncovered evidence--through interviews with suspects and witnesses--that gang members conspired to spread the violence.

“Some of the arsons, some of the thefts, were not just something casual where someone walking down the street decided to go after it,” Parsons said. “They sat down and collaborated and decided what the target was going to be and they went after it.”

Of the suspects whom the task force has helped arrest so far, several have been identified by prosecutors as members of the Eight-Tray Gangster Crips, a notorious South Los Angeles gang. Although members of the gang are alleged to have been heavily involved in the attacks on motorists at Florence and Normandie avenues, police say they now believe that was because the intersection is in the heart of their neighborhood, not because of any pre-riot planning.

Shortly after he was arrested on May 12, Damian Monroe (Football) Williams, 19, allegedly looked out the window of the police car and said: “This was just an Eight-Tray Gangster Crip thing.”

In a tape-recorded interview conducted with police later that morning, Williams--who prosecutors say is a member of the Eight-Tray Crips and who is accused of beating motorists at Florence and Normandie--said there had been no pre-riot planning for any attacks by the gang.

In an effort to find more witnesses and victims of riot crimes, Parsons and other law enforcement leaders on Friday unveiled billboards that are being erected throughout South Los Angeles, Compton and Koreatown.

The red-and-blue billboards urge people to “Make L.A. Safer” by calling 1-800-854-TIPS, a hot line number for the riot crimes task force. The billboards, donated by Patrick Media Group Inc. and Gannett Outdoor, are valued at $25,000.

About 10 billboards already are in place, and about 30 will be up within a few weeks, said Eric W. Rose, a spokesman for Patrick Media. They will be printed in English, Spanish and Korean, and operators at the 24-hour hot line speak all three languages.

The hot line has been in service for almost two months, Parsons said, and the initial wave of calls has dropped off. While officials hope the billboards will generate new leads, including anonymous tips, on any riot crimes, Parsons and acting Compton Police Chief Hourie Taylor said they are especially anxious to get leads on the murder of a shopkeeper in Compton on the second day of the rioting.

According to police, the Peach Street market, owned by Thanh Lam and his family, was broken into about 9 p.m. April 29, the day rioting erupted in Los Angeles. A group of looters in an older, dark-colored American car allegedly drove up to the store and began rampaging through it.

As they were looting, a second car arrived and one of the occupants set the store on fire, apparently lighting his pants leg accidentally in the blaze. None of those looters or arsonists have been caught.

The next afternoon, Lam and several members of his family went to the store to salvage what they could from its charred remains, Parsons said. They left in five vehicles, but Lam did not arrive home.

His truck was rammed from behind a few blocks away, police said, and the suspects then pulled around to the driver’s side. They opened fire and Lam was hit four times, Parsons said, displaying photographs of the shopkeeper’s bullet-riddled truck.

Police suspect gang involvement in the shooting, and note that another store owned by Lam’s family was looted and burned at almost the same time--suggesting the possibility that the incidents were coordinated, Parsons said.

If Lam’s attackers can be found, they could be charged with murder and with violating Lam’s civil rights, Parsons said.

In addition to Lam’s case, the task force, which was formed in the days after the outbreak of rioting, is pursuing hundreds of leads in various crimes, Parsons said. Many have been generated by the mountain of videotape delivered to the group: 329 tapes have been turned over and 287 of those have been reviewed by investigators, he said.

Many of those tapes were shot by local television stations, but amateurs also have handed over material to investigators, he added.