In the Real L.A., a Calm Approach to Big Problems

I wonder if we’re getting too hysterical about the impending verdict in the Rodney King beating case.

The thought crossed my mind at a City Hall news conference Tuesday when Mayor Tom Bradley and Police Chief Willie L. Williams explained the Police Department’s plans for the verdict.

They weren’t hysterical. In fact, as someone who lives and works in L.A., I admired their calm.

The chief promised he would fill the streets with cops armed with new riot control weapons, such as rubber bullets and disabling gas. There’ll be help available from the National Guard, the Sheriff’s Department and many smaller city police departments. “We’re here,” said Chief Williams. “We’re not going to fail you this time.”

It was my side of the room--the press side--that was overwrought.

As usual, reporters were operating from a disaster script, their questions anticipating the worst possible outcome. Television reporters, for example, battled for permission to fly their helicopters close to ground zero to shoot the bloodshed. They objected to the possibility that the Police Department might force TV helicopters to maintain a minimum altitude of 2,000 feet in the event of violence.

I understand their zeal. As Laurel Erickson of KNBC reminded me, if helicopter television cameras hadn’t covered truck driver Reginald Denny’s beating at Florence and Normandie last April 29, rescuers wouldn’t have saved him.

But think what that zeal is capable of producing. Two weeks ago, while vacationing in Arizona, I watched CNN’s series on nervous L.A.

Grainy, grim shots of young South Central gang members alternated with pictures of frightened white people in Beverly Hills. This was a war zone, evoking images of Beirut, Sarajevo and other disaster spots. It was not the city I had left the day before.

As the King verdict nears, the image of L.A. as a combat zone is becoming ingrained in the national media and in our own minds. But this is not the real L.A., certainly not the L.A. I encounter on my job.

Last Saturday, for example, I visited the Men’s Breakfast Club at the Second Baptist Church, near Washington and Central avenues, south of downtown Los Angeles, to listen to a speech by mayoral candidate Stan Sanders.

I could feel the warmth the African-American audience had for this man. Sanders, who is black, grew up in South-Central Los Angeles, graduated from Jordan High School, and then from Whittier College, Oxford University and Yale Law School. Although Sanders attended another church, Second Baptist gave him a supplementary scholarship and spending money when he went away to Oxford on his Rhodes scholarship.

As Sanders talked about his gratitude for that long-ago gift, I sensed the networks of old friends and family that link South-Central L.A.

During the question period, the audience covered all the area’s problems.

One questioner wondered who would pay for programs to increase jobs, improve education and reduce crime.

“Mr. Sanders,” said another man, “you mentioned that small business creates 80% of the jobs. My question is, do you have an opinion as to why the mayor’s small business administration has not been working in that regard?”

Another question concerned crime and drugs. A man said, “We constantly hear we need more police on the street. I’m concerned that the police on the street are part of the problem. You do not need, every time you open your door, to have a policeman there. I would like to see drugs stopped before they get to Los Angeles. The Police Department is supposed to be pretty sharp. You’d think they’d know how to get them. Sometimes I think they’re bringing them in.”

“What is the excuse the city has for not fixing the streets?” asked one man. Another, an apartment owner, complained that “rent control takes part of your money and the DWP (Department of Water and Power) takes the rest of it.”

What struck me most about the meeting was the calm atmosphere, and the absence of the riot obsession that grips the media and many politicians. But if there’s trouble, the church and its congregants will be stuck in the middle of it.

The Second Baptist members were interested in big, complex issues, such as drugs, jobs, violent crime, the city bureaucracy.

These have taken a back seat recently as the press and politicians begin the countdown to the verdict. But such civic afflictions, which contributed to last year’s riot, will remain, no matter what happens after the trial. They’re an old story, much older than Watts.

Unfortunately, a restless press will move on to newer and hotter stories. So will politicians. It will be up to people like the members of the Second Baptist Men’s Club, cool in the face of a storm, to make sure this story isn’t forgotten.