77th Division Officers Back Study : Riot aftermath: Members of unit singled out for criticism agree that blame for abandoning key flash point should be placed on superiors.

The officers of the Los Angeles Police Department’s 77th Street Division caught the most heated criticism for retreating from Florence and Normandie avenues at the onset of violence and not returning for hours.

Despite being vindicated by the Webster report, which concluded that “the 77th was made blind” by command-level ineffectiveness, reaction was mixed Wednesday from the division’s street officers.

One officer suggested that the vindication was meaningless.

“People don’t differentiate between the line officers and the top brass,” said Officer Charles Howard, a 25-year veteran who has worked more than a decade at the 77th. “They look at us all together and say we shouldn’t have messed up.”

Nevertheless, he said he agreed with the conclusion that the blame should land solidly on the commanders.

“We didn’t know what the command staff wanted to do,” he said. “We got all our information from citizens.”

Other officers who talked to reporters agreed with most of the findings, with one calling it the best review of the LAPD since last year’s Christopher Commission report, which found widespread brutality and racism in the LAPD.

Some officers were critical of several of the recommended changes, including disbanding specialized units such as CRASH, the gang suppression unit, and the Metro squad, which investigates high-profile crimes, to free up more officers for patrol duties.

“I’m all for putting more officers on the street,” said Officer Edgar Palmer, an eight-year veteran. “But the specialized units are where we get all our intelligence.”

Officer Don Watkins, a 14-year veteran who is a community liaison officer at the division, said he was more impressed with what the people who live in the 77th Street Division thought of the officers’ performance than with what the Webster report concluded.

“Citizens always understood that we did the best we could,” he said. “They brought us food, they wrote letters of commendation and they prayed for us.”

But Watkins, like former Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, took issue with the contention by the Webster report that the LAPD had no plan for a major civil disturbance after the not guilty verdicts were returned in the Rodney G. King beating case.

“We had a plan,” he said. “The ‘Tactical Manual’ covers every unusual occurrence.”

The manual was described in the Webster report as a standard disaster preparedness manual, not a specific riot plan.

Watkins also said officers were not all hamstrung by supervisors.

Howard said he and his partner, as community liaison officers, took to the streets in residential areas, assuring frightened citizens and helping them to remain calm.

But even he agreed with the report that there was no specific advance notice given to the line officers that there might be a verdict that would anger many residents of the 77th.

“We should have been alerted a week or two before,” he said.

The Webster report notes that within hours of the verdicts, television cameras were showing aerial views of attacks on motorists at Florence and Normandie.

Officers of the 77th had been at the intersection earlier but retreated when they became outnumbered and were threatened by angry demonstrators. Lt. Michael Moulin, the highest-ranking 77th officer at the scene, ordered them to a command post 30 blocks away.

Some officers were so frustrated by not being allowed to return that they made individual runs into the area to try to help trapped or injured motorists. Gates later publicly castigated Moulin for not returning officers to the intersection.

The Webster report leaves the issue of Moulin’s responsibility unresolved, concluding that whether Moulin’s commander, Capt. Paul Jefferson, ordered him to return with officers remains in dispute. Neither Moulin, who is currently on stress leave, nor Jefferson, now police chief in Modesto, could be reached for comment.

The 77th Street Division officers interviewed Wednesday were reluctant to criticize Moulin.

“Maybe he saw something that I did not,” said Palmer, who was among the officers ordered to retreat from Florence and Normandie.

“It’s over,” Palmer continued. “If it happens again, maybe things will be handled differently.”