LAPD Show of Force Halts Violence at Riot Flash Point : Disturbance: Protest scene flares at Florence and Normandie, but police response is swift. Sixty arrested.

A demonstration at the flash point of last spring’s riots flared briefly into violence Monday and police responded with a swift and massive show of force, sealing off the area for several hours and arresting at least 60 people.

The situation remained volatile after nightfall, with scattered reports of rock and bottle throwing. At least a dozen people were injured, but no major damage was reported.

Los Angeles police called a citywide tactical alert, flooding the area with more than 350 officers and maintaining a high visibility into the night.

Other law enforcement agencies were placed on alert but were not immediately called in to assist.

Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams said the quick LAPD response “indicates that things are working better.”

The immediate and massive show of force presented a sharp contrast to last spring, when police reaction was heavily criticized as slow and ineffective.

Monday’s incident began shortly before 3 p.m., when between 50 and 150 onlookers at the peaceful demonstration blocked traffic at Florence and Normandie avenues and pelted police and passersby with rocks and bottles. A passenger in a pickup truck was injured when an object crashed through the vehicle’s rear window, striking him in the head.

The noisy crowd dispersed, then regrouped, battering a service station at the intersection. The windows in the station’s office were broken, and the crowd looted the place before withdrawing in front of approaching police.

Officers said Monday’s rally was in support of the four men originally arrested in the beating of truck driver Reginald O. Denny during last spring’s civil disturbances.

The crowd turned violent about 3 p.m. when onlookers began throwing objects at passing vehicles and stopping traffic.

Some of the demonstrators blamed youths getting out of school for starting the trouble. Others said police were pushing people around, which caused things to get out of hand.

Georgiana Williams, the mother of Damian Williams, one of the defendants in the Denny case, said the disturbances began when police, who were monitoring the rally, ordered demonstrators from the “Free the L.A. 4” group to stop playing music and distributing literature.

A woman from the group, who identified herself only as Naomi, said that when a man objected to the police orders, he was arrested.

“When they arrested him, everyone went berserk,” Naomi said. “People started screaming, ‘Leave him alone; he didn’t do anything.’ ”

Georgiana Williams said it was then that some of the onlookers, angered by what the police were doing, started throwing rocks and bottles.

“It’s an event in which organized groups apparently chose . . . to try to aggravate or cause contact with the Police Department,” said Chief Williams. “I think the quick and measured response of the Police Department regained control, if in fact control was ever lost.”

Deputy Chief Matthew V. Hunt, however, said the violence was started by gang members.

“We know they were gang members,” he said. “We have people who deal with these people on a day-to-day basis.”

As the situation deteriorated, senior officers in the LAPD’s 77th Street Division called a tactical alert in the South Bureau. Between 100 and 130 officers in riot gear from the bureau’s four divisions began converging on the area.

More officers, including heavily armed members of the department’s Special Weapons and Tactics Team, were added at 4 p.m. when police at the scene said the potential for major trouble appeared to be increasing. The city’s downtown emergency command center was activated.

By 4:40 p.m., the crowd had melted away and the officers began pulling back. By 5:30 p.m., the intersection was largely back to normal, but a city Fire Department ambulance was pelted with rocks and stones about a mile and a half from Florence and Normandie.

The ambulance, which was not severely damaged, was heading for a patient near Florence and San Pedro Street when the attack occurred, according to city Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells. He said that the ambulance crew was unhurt and was able to take care of the patient.

Police said small groups continued to roam through the South-Central area. At 6 p.m., after more rocks and bottles were thrown and the service station was looted, Hunt called a citywide tactical alert.

Assistant Chief Bernard Parks said that by nightfall 150 officers, most of them from the South Bureau and the department’s elite Metro division, were on the scene, and 150 more were en route from around the city.

“There appears to be enough agitation in the community to warrant a real police presence,” Parks said.

Shortly after 6 p.m., about a dozen police in riot gear rousted four customers from Art’s Chili Dogs, a blue-and-white stucco stand just west of Florence and Normandie, and arrested one man.

“Take anybody in there. Screw them. They’ve been asked to leave a million times,” an unidentified officer was heard telling a colleague.

Moments later, an unmarked police utility vehicle with 10 helmeted officers inside and one standing through a hole in the roof, assault rifle in hand, began slowly cruising the area near the intersection.

An officer with a cartridge belt slung across his chest stood in an intersection, directing traffic as several police helicopters hovered overhead and several motorcycles officers surveyed the scene from a block away.

“They overreacted,” said an onlooker, who gave his name as Roy Al. “I think they are testing in case the riots start. But there was no riot.”

During a news conference at a police command center Monday night, Chief Williams said the outbreak of violence came as a surprise.

“We didn’t have any indication there’d be trouble,” Williams said. “It was just one of many demonstrations throughout the city.”

Asked if he was disappointed at the violence, Williams said:

“I’m not sure there’s anything we should be disappointed about. We’re a big city, so we’re going to have problems like this under anybody’s leadership.”

Williams refused to comment on allegations that the police response inflamed the incident, saying that he wanted to wait until he had an opportunity to “analyze” the incident.

Hundreds of officers continued to patrol South-Central Los Angeles Monday night as commanders completed their deployments under the tactical alert.

Under a citywide alert, all police on duty are required to remain on duty until they receive further word. Officers arriving for later shifts are placed in a pool and are deployed as needed throughout the city.

Asked how the police response differed from the response to bottle and rock throwing at Florence and Normandie at the start of last spring’s riots, Lt. John Dunkin said:

“The response (this time) was more timely and it involved more people. It worked the way it was supposed to. That is, we go in with a sufficient number of officers to control the situation and we de-escalate from there.”

Last spring, officers retreated from the intersection rather than make a show of force. A tactical alert was not declared at the first sign of trouble, and was delayed for hours. Because of the delay in calling a tactical alert, hundreds of officers on the day shift were sent home.

In the spring incident, drivers heading into the intersection were not warned by police to stay away, and many, including truck driver Denny, were attacked. As television cameras from helicopters hovering overhead filmed the violence and transmitted the images live, police were nowhere to be seen.

While Monday’s disturbance did not present an immediate threat to jetliner traffic heading into Los Angeles International Airport, the flock of news helicopters hovering over the site did.

John Hicks, superintendent of operations at LAX, reported that at least eight helicopters were at the scene by late afternoon, causing the airport control tower to assign one traffic controller to monitor their movements.

The intersection is directly below a primary landing approach to the airport, Hicks said. Television news officials said the coverage of Monday’s disturbance was much more restrained than during the riots.

“It is absolutely different,” said CBS-TV news director John Lippman. “You’ll find it absolutely more restrained, and you’ll find that the police response is different. What led to the massive media response in April was the invisible police response to the problems at Florence and Normandie. What you had today was a strong police response, which was a contrast to how things were handled on the eve of the riots. And frankly, that’s the thing we’ve covered.”

He said that this time, the station did not rush to air the story.

“There was an effort to wait and see,” he said.

Asked if the criticism of TV coverage of last spring’s riots played a role in Monday’s coverage, he said it was not.

Regina Miyamoto, a spokeswoman for KNBC-TV, said her station did not break into its regular coverage to air news of the disturbance.

“The first time we came on with the story was during the 5 o’clock news,” she said.

At KTTV Channel 11, the Florence-Normandie story was not scheduled to be aired until the regular 10 p.m. news.

“The feeling with a lot of the stations in the area was that if they gave it too much attention, it might help escalate the violence,” said Drake Johnson, a station staffer.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Laurie Becklund, Rich Connell, Ashley Dunn, Nieson Himmel, Shawn Hubler, Don Lee, Penelope McMillan, Victor Merina, Frederick M. Muir, Dean E. Murphy, James Rainey, Kenneth Reich, Ted Rohrlich, Ron Russell, Richard Simon, Hector Tobar, Tracy Wood and Nora Zamichow.