Police, Citizens Brace for End of King Case : Planning: Authorities may be trying to reassure the public that they can control any unrest, but some residents have opted to protect themselves.

With a verdict apparently imminent in the Rodney G. King federal civil rights trial, police from Malibu to Mar Vista this week predicted calm but prepared for potential chaos as a quiet Angst took hold on the Westside.

The impulse of residents and business people is to carry on as usual and hope for the best. But beneath the bravado lurk still-fresh memories of last spring’s upheaval following the acquittals on all but one charge handed down in the state trial of the four Los Angeles police officers involved in the King beating.

“I’m terrified--I don’t know what to expect,” said Raleigh Pedveen of Brentwood.

Law enforcement officials have repeatedly reassured the public that they are ready for any trouble the announcement of the verdicts--which might come as early as this weekend--could bring.

“Our goal is to stop it before it gets started,” said Lt. Frank Salcido of the Beverly Hills Police Department.

Police were quick to discount persistent rumors that upscale Westside communities have been targeted by gangs.

“It’s talk on the street. . . . It could be on the bathroom wall, for all I know,” said Sgt. Jeff Hanson of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Los Angeles Division. “All I can say is we can’t be any more prepared than we are right now.”

Authorities said they plan to watch potential trouble spots closely, including Westwood Village, Venice Beach, Venice’s Oakwood neighborhood, the Mar Vista Gardens housing project, La Cienega Boulevard and major shopping malls.

“History’s telling us what to look at this time,” said Capt. Russ Leach of the LAPD’s Pacific Division.

In Venice, one of the few Westside neighborhoods where rioting occurred last year, police and gang workers plan to rely on informal telephone networks through which residents may talk to authorities about rumors. Workers in the city’s Neighbor to Neighbor program have been on the streets in Oakwood over the last two weeks, talking to gang members, squelching rumors and making plans to use a neighborhood church and nearby park as sanctuaries in case of rioting.

Although police repeated that they are ready to respond, officials added that they expect no trouble in the neighborhood, where a bicyclist was severely beaten at the beginning of the riots. “More than anything, I’m hearing that there won’t be any problems in Oakwood,” said LAPD Officer Donna Cox, the neighborhood specialist.

Playing a big part in the regional strategy to keep the peace on the Westside are the law enforcement agencies of the smaller cities, which enjoyed a fair degree of success against rioters last spring.

In West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, looters carried their mayhem right to the borders of the cities but no farther. Culver City and Santa Monica police also managed to avert most of the trouble.

A mutual aid network that will include the Pacific and West Los Angeles divisions of the LAPD as well as the Culver City and Santa Monica police departments will operate from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s West Hollywood station.

The station will funnel requests for reinforcements to a regional command post and staging area.

Police officials noted that their tactics were put to the test last month when 3,000 rock fans flooded a Sunset Boulevard club on the same day a West Hollywood riot drill was held. An estimated 100 sheriff’s deputies and Beverly Hills police officers equipped with rubber bullets and gas masks rolled to the scene, closing the Sunset Strip for hours and giving authorities an unexpected chance to practice their crowd-control plans.

“You couldn’t have asked for anything more real life,” said Capt. Clarence Chapman of the West Hollywood station.

In Beverly Hills, the 127-member Police Department is prepared to saturate the six-square-mile community with officers. If necessary, officials added, they will fall back on mutual aid agreements with Culver City and Santa Monica police. (Concerned with liability issues, Beverly Hills has yet to join the countywide mutual aid program sponsored by the Los Angeles County Police Chief’s Assn. and the county Sheriff’s Department.)

Culver City Police Chief Ted Cooke said he has no riot strategy per se but will rely on a basic emergency plan that he said affords a quick, flexible response to any number of events.

“What we do is react to whatever we have to deal with,” Cooke said. “For example, if you plan for an airplane crash and you have a tidal wave, you’re in trouble. We have to plan for all emergencies. That’s what we do for a living.”

Key elements of the Culver City plan include beefing up shifts and putting some paperwork on hold to free office staff for field work. A command center will be set up at the main fire station downtown, and city staff will be on hand to set curfews, arrange room and board for National Guard troops and take other emergency measures.

Santa Monica is taking a more aggressive approach. “We had a tactical plan in place for civil unrest last year and have refined and updated it,” Police Chief James T. Butts said. “We think we’re very prepared to maintain order.”

Officers have undergone riot training at Santa Monica Airport, the Civic Center and at beach parking lots and will receive more instruction during the next few days. Training includes practicing “extractions”--removing someone from a crowd--and refining techniques to disperse crowds. As it did last year, the department plans to station large numbers of officers at the town’s major points of entry.

But for many residents, police precautions and promises aren’t enough. After people saw parts of Los Angeles go up in flames a year ago, gun store owners say they are selling out their stocks, and firing ranges are filled to capacity.

At the Beverly Hills Gun Club in West Los Angeles, instructor Stewart Jones said the last three weeks have been intense, with waiting times of an hour or more to get onto one of the club’s 17 firing lanes common. A typical wait is 15 minutes or less, he said.

He added that many of the people have never handled a firearm before. “Citizens don’t feel like being whipping posts anymore, and they’re ready to fend for themselves,” he said.

One such patron, who only gave her name as Lisa and said she lives in Pacific Palisades, emerged from the firing range holding a paper target punctured by rounds from her semiautomatic pistol. “I think I can kill a man now,” she said.

In explaining what had made her learn to use a gun, she said: “The way things are going in the city, I feel threatened. I have a family and want to know how to protect my family.”

At Sherwoods, a Beverly Hills gun store, acting manager Julie Miller said the shop is getting five to seven customers a day who have never owned a gun. “A lot of people want to know if they can get it by the end of the week,” she said. (There is a 15-day waiting period in California.)

The Beverly Hills Police Department, Lt. Salcido said, has been inundated with calls recently from people asking, “ ‘Should I buy a gun?’ ”

Authorities say the answer depends on several factors, including one’s familiarity with firearms and whether one feels capable of killing another person. In general, though, officials voiced concern about the prospect of so many guns falling into untrained hands. Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block has warned of “a very, very dangerous potential” for trouble if armed homeowners and business owners take to the streets.

Meanwhile, some businesses owners are weighing more restrained precautionary measures, including boarding up windows, closing for the day as soon as the verdicts are announced and moving stock out of display windows.

On Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Rachael Castaneda, a cashier at a boutique, said she already had her personal strategy.

“I plan on being out of town myself--San Luis Obispo,” she said.

Most business people, however, seemed prepared to stick it out, with many Westsiders expressing cautious faith in the police. UCLA law student Henry Lien said he was confident that his Brentwood neighborhood would remain safe, even if problems occur elsewhere. “I guess it’s a cynical trust in the disparity of police forces,” he said.

In Santa Monica, organizers were planning to address any issues arising from the verdicts through a “Speak Out for Justice Forum,” scheduled for 4 p.m. to sunset at the Santa Monica County Courthouse on the day the verdicts are announced.

“We need to take the lead of responsible actions that vent frustrations no matter the outcome,” said Norm Curry, president of the Santa Monica/Venice branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

The group is sponsoring the forum with the Westside Chapter of the Mexican-American Political Assn. and a coalition of Santa Monica College student organizations.

Times staff writers Ken Ellingwood, Nancy Hill-Holtzman and Bernice Hirabayashi and correspondent G. Jeanette Avent contributed to this report.