Chief Will Deploy Officers at Start of Jury Deliberations : King case: Williams, Bradley seek to ease fears of renewed unrest. LAPD will put 6,500 police on street duty. Deputies, National Guard and others are set to help.

Pledging that the Los Angeles Police Department will not fail the city again, Police Chief Willie L. Williams on Tuesday provided a highly unusual public briefing on his plan for quelling any civil disturbances that might break out at the close of the Rodney G. King civil rights trial.

Williams revealed that he will begin a massive deployment of officers across the city as soon as jury deliberations begin, instead of waiting for the verdicts to be announced. The federal civil rights trial of the four LAPD officers accused in the King beating could go to the jury by this weekend.

The chief said repeatedly that he does not expect a repeat of last year’s rioting, which broke out after the officers were acquitted in state court of all but one count. Nevertheless, Williams said he will put up to 6,500 officers on street duty in the city as soon as jury deliberations begin. He also is outfitting his officers with additional equipment, such as special gas spray cans and rubber bullets to disperse unruly crowds in situations where, Williams said, “you don’t want to use guns or send a wave of officers in with batons.”

And he emphasized that he has helped line up assistance from other law enforcement agencies that would move in if there were more violence than the LAPD could handle.

His remarks, at a City Hall news conference organized by Mayor Tom Bradley, seemed to have a dual purpose: to calm rising tensions in the community and to deter anyone contemplating violence.

“Take it easy, we’re here, we’re not going to fail you this time,” Williams said. “That is the message that this chief of police and this Los Angeles Police Department is delivering to the men and women of this community.

“You will have all of your officers on the streets between the time the jury begins deliberations and the time the jury comes in. The coordination is in place. The training is in place. The preparation is in place.”

Police last year were criticized for inadequate planning to cope with what turned out to be the worst urban riots in the United States this century. Responses to the outbreak of violence were tardy and confused, and it was later revealed that Bradley and then-Chief Daryl F. Gates had not been on speaking terms during the period leading up to the state court verdicts.

In a separate interview Tuesday, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block also discussed plans for coping with any violence in the aftermath of the verdicts.

Although he said he believes there will not be another riot, Block warned of “a very, very dangerous potential” for trouble if fear takes over and armed homeowners and business owners take to the streets.

“This community does not want a repeat of last April,” the sheriff said, “because everybody lost. Everybody lost.”

To avert that, Block, who oversees the area’s mutual assistance system, said that 600 California National Guard troops will be in local armories at the time of the King verdicts, ready for immediate deployment, and that 800 California Highway Patrol officers will be ready within two hours to guard freeway ramps and escort firefighters.

In addition, the sheriff said he has arranged for other law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties to send in platoons if needed. Block added that his department’s Emergency Operations Center will open when the jury retires to begin deliberating--”not when we get the word that the jury is coming back.”

“By the time the verdicts are rendered,” the sheriff vowed, “everyone will be in place.”

However, all may not run as smoothly as Williams and Block hope. For instance, Lt. Col. Bruce Roy, a spokesman for the National Guard, cautioned that his organization can be activated only by the governor, and only if “local law enforcement can’t handle things.”

He said that while the guard has been conducting special exercises on civil unrest in recent months and has gone into a “heightened sense of awareness about the situation,” no troops from outside the area are being automatically dispatched to Los Angeles. However, he did say that 5,000 troops are normally available on weekends in Southern California, a figure he said was “more than enough” to assist local police.

Amid the announcements of police readiness, Bradley appealed for calm once the verdicts are read in U.S. District Court.

“We come to you to plead with you again, whatever the verdicts may be, to respond . . . not in a violent fashion,” the mayor said. “I have confidence in this city that we will not repeat the violence of last year.

“Let us tone down the hysteria and calm ourselves and not create self-fulfilling prophesies.”

Williams, in announcing his readiness plans, said he believes city government is well prepared this time.

Instead of the management gridlock that paralyzed the LAPD during last year’s riots, Williams said, there is now a new “unified management team that takes its charge very, very seriously.”

Police management, he said, has “once and for all been able to sit down and work with one another and support one another with the idea that we have to lead the LAPD.”

He said that up to two-thirds of the force has taken mandatory 16-hour sessions in “unusual occurrence” training. Everyone on the force will have gone through the training by this summer, Williams added.

He said that mutual aid alliances are continuing to solidify, and that his senior staff is still meeting regularly with top officials from other agencies, such as the Sheriff’s Department and the district attorney’s office.

“We have mutual aid in place,” the chief said. “We have had tabletop exercises. We have had live exercises.

“We are prepared to the best of our abilities to respond to any event large or small that should occur, and it’s not just over this trial. This trial is the big mountain in front of us today. But there are other events that are certainly going to occur in the future and this department and this city government has to be prepared to respond to those events.”

Times staff writers Marc Lacey and John L. Mitchell contributed to this story.

Police Preparations

L.A. Police Chief Willie L. Williams unveiled plans Tuesday to quickly defuse any civil disturbances that might break out after verdicts are announced in the Rodney G. King civil rights trial. The steps include:

OFFICERS: Having up to 6,500 uniformed police officers assigned to street duty as soon as jury deliberations begin, perhaps as early as this weekend.

EQUIPMENT: Outfitting officers with tools and equipment, including special gas spray cans and rubber bullets, to disperse unruly crowds in situations where, Williams said, “you don’t want to use guns or send a wave of officers in with batons.”

TRAINING: Ordering all officers to undergo 16 hours of “unusual occurrence” training in which they will learn special tactics for dealing with mobs, looting, fires and other riot-related problems.

MANAGEMENT TEAMS: Assembling the top supervisors of the LAPD into a unified management team to maintain control of any situation.

OUTSIDE AID: Arranging for mutual aid from other law enforcement agencies, including the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the California Highway Patrol, the National Guard, and federal agencies based in Southern California in hopes of averting some of the time-consuming logistics that resulted in slow response times last year.