Harmony Disappears After Laker Win

In a large brick building across Figueroa from Staples Center, Dan Pack stood where a 10-foot plate-glass window had been only an hour earlier.

A gang of young men, he said, threw a metal trash can through it. Then they shattered the next window. And the next. Until all eight windows were gone, and the glass shards were three inches deep on the sidewalk.

Formerly a Ford dealership, the vacant building at 1248 Figueroa St. is used for event parking. Five minutes after the final cars were driven away by their owners, the first window was broken, Pack said.

“We tried to chase them off,” said Pack, surrounded by three employees. “It was too late. There was no stopping them.”

Thirty yards from the storefront, a bus bench burned in the street. Another fire burned down the block. Across the street, a bandaged man was helped into an ambulance.

Pack said the crowds that passed his building had been orderly. He blamed the damage--a police car and several other vehicles were burned--on people who did not attend the game. He said a group of youths arrived on a Metrolink train, and shortly thereafter the damage was done.

Placid beginning: As the Lakers played inside Staples Center early Monday evening, Janina Mercado sat with her mother, Blanca, in the middle of 11th Street.

Not exactly in the middle, actually. Janina was on the right side of the double yellow line. Blanca was on the left. At least 3,000 other fans milled about them, all with an eye on the giant video screen mounted on the side of the new building.

Staples officials broke from their previous policy and showed Game 6 on the screen, a decision that turned the plaza, sidewalks and street in front of the arena into one gigantic family room.

Janina arrived at Staples not to purchase a ticket, but hoping to watch the game from the sports bar built into the complex. She was in line by 3:30 p.m. and said she wasn’t within 200 people of the door at game time, some three hours later.

As she considered finding another downtown bar with a spare seat and a view of a television, the game came on above her. Hundreds of fans who brought beach chairs and camped in the plaza cheered.

“I heard they never do this,” Janina said. “I was walking away. Everybody’s pretty pumped.”

Less than two hours later, not 50 feet from where the Mercados sat, a sport utility vehicle lay, burned. What appeared to be sticks from a nearby tree were stuffed into the windows. Apparently, the vandals had hoped to further stoke the fire.

As the game ended, Eddie Vasquez, his wife and three children watched from near the box office. Excited about the Laker victory, Vasquez still pulled his children close.

Forty police officers, in twos, marched past. He nodded toward them.

“There are always two or three fools out there,” he said.

A front-curb seat: During the game the crowd was peaceful and not the least bit cynical, although one wise guy walked through the crowd, considered the waving signs and shook his fists, saying: “This is the year 2000. Everybody’s got to have a TV, dammit.”

Once the game appeared on the screen outside Staples, police had one early fear:

That arena officials would change their minds.

“Now that they have it on,” Commander Sharon Papa said, “it would be a good idea to leave it on.”

And, so, out of the great disappointment of the many who did not obtain tickets or could not find an indoor TV set, grew a rare moment for sprawling Los Angeles. The fans stood together and fought the Indiana Pacers, common foes. There was no alcohol and no ugly incident during the game.

There was just basketball, Laker basketball, viewed by thousands who appeared to be looking up at fireworks.

“I don’t care if I have to sit here on this asphalt,” Janina Mercado said, “in the middle of this street. This is awesome. I like it here. I like how everyone’s out here.”

Helicopter circle: The scene changed dramatically after the game.

As late as 10:30 p.m., inside Staples Center, the buzzing of police helicopters overhead could be heard.

Those who had hung around Staples to celebrate inside were out of luck for a while. Security allowed no one out for a time. From the upper concourse level, facing parking lot 2--where spectators are expected to congregate for Wednesday’s victory celebration--the view was of a long line of police with nightsticks drawn, their backs to Staples and facing down the milling crowd.

An hour and a half after the game ended, the fires that burned out a police car on 11th Street--preceded by a group of teenage boys running at it and kicking out its windows--and a Reuters van were out. All that was left flickering were a few newspaper piles near some Times racks at the southwest corner of lot 2. Four hours before, it had been a hot spot for people buying souvenir papers and T-shirts.

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Times Sports Editor Bill Dwyre contributed to this story.