Police Officials in Valley Forums Urge Unity, Calm After Verdicts : LAPD: Chief Williams assures a Chatsworth group of protection. The Foothill commander tells Pacoima parents to restrain children.

As a jittery city awaited a verdict in the Rodney G. King civil rights case, top Los Angeles police officials took different tacks Tuesday as they urged unity and calm at different ends of the San Fernando Valley.

From the pulpit of a Chatsworth church, Police Chief Willie L. Williams preached a message of preparedness to more than 2,000 anxious residents of the northwest Valley, telling them he had a plan to keep them and the rest of the city protected.

He said the department would protect “the safety of every man, woman, child, grandparent, visitor and law enforcement officer in the city,” by putting every available officer on the streets.

“Whenever the decision is made, all Los Angeles officers except the sick and injured will be called into duty,” Williams said. But, he explained, “that doesn’t mean we are going to hold the city hostage.”

As Williams spoke to the mostly Anglo crowd, Foothill Station Capt. Tim McBride advised a group of mostly black community representatives across the Valley in Pacoima to “get the kids off the street” following the announcement of a verdict in the trial.

“Call everybody with kids, those 15 to 25, and tell them to keep them close,” McBride told the group, which included representatives of northeast Valley chambers of commerce, churches and the NAACP.

“Keep them in the car if you need to, but keep your hands on them.”

McBride said he does not anticipate a repeat of last year’s riots. But he said parents can do much to help avert unrest by simply keeping children home until at least 24 hours after a verdict is announced.

“I don’t sense we are going to have trouble, frankly--but if we do, it will be young gang members,” McBride said.

McBride, who commands the Foothill Division, advised the group against arming themselves to combat rioters.

Lake View Terrace resident Linda Harris told McBride that young people in her neighborhood worried that police might harass them should the jury find the police officers guilty.

“The big question out on the street is, if the jury comes back the other way this time, will the officers be more hostile?” asked Harris.

McBride said he doubted that would happen, saying the majority of his officers will respond appropriately to any unrest. But he conceded that if youths provoke them, he does worry that a small number of officers might be “ready to avenge Florence and Normandie,” the south Los Angeles intersection where much of the trouble erupted last year after police retreated from the area.

“Police are angry, and if they start getting attacked they will respond and blood will flow on both sides,” he said.

That was hardly the message Williams tried to send, but he was speaking to an audience more worried about being attacked by rioters themselves than they were about police attacking their children. Many of those in the crowd Williams addressed are involved in Neighborhood Watch groups or local community policing advisory committees.

These were potential victims who wanted more police on the street, not fewer; tighter restrictions, not looser.

One Porter Ranch woman said she did not feel safe because her upscale neighborhood has recently been scarred by graffiti.

The police “are really invisible,” the woman complained to Williams. “If I have to go buy a shotgun and learn how to use it, it means I no longer trust you . . . I am losing my confidence in you.”

McBride urged chamber of commerce representatives to ask members who own stores to voluntarily stop selling liquor and ammunition on the evening that verdicts are announced. He also called on adults to form groups of three or more to walk major commercial streets in the area, such as Van Nuys Boulevard, and urge calm.

But should trouble erupt, he told the group, “Get out of the way, get inside.”

KING TRIAL EVIDENCE: A1