Lessons of Los Angeles

Sufficient manpower is a prerequisite for controlling potentially dangerous crowds; the speed with which it arrives may well determine whether the situation can be controlled. -- Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1968

FOUR HOURS -- 240 UGLY, frightening Hobbesian minutes -- was all it took for South Central Los Angeles to lapse into a violent state of anarchy. Four hours -- half a normal patrol shift -- was all the time needed for the Los Angeles Police Department to cede temporary control of the streets to looters and arsonists. Even as the faint traces of smoke still linger in the air, the L.A. riots have begun their transformation from grisly reality to political cliches. Beginning with White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater, Republicans blamed the rioting on everything from Lyndon Johnson's Great Society to liberal permissiveness. The Democratic response, from putative presidential nominee Bill Clinton on down, was equally predictable: this time the villains were a decade of Republican neglect of urban problems and the laissez-faire moral climate of the Reagan years.

But each of these characterizations misses the point. Despite their rage at the acquittal of the four policemen charged with beating Rodney King, the vast majority of the people in South Central L.A. did not degenerate into a mob putting the torch to their own neighborhood -- or turn themselves into a revolutionary army. Rather, they watched helplessly as their troubled inner- city area, whose law-abiding residents had been pleading for better police protection for years, was pillaged and set aflame by hordes of looters. By all indications, the rioting could have been contained with proper planning, commitment of resources, leadership and an early and prudent show of force by the Los Angeles police. All these ingredients were tragically lacking in Los Angeles. The performance of the L.A.P.D. during the crucial early moments of the uprising is an object lesson in how not to deal with civil disorders. Key mistakes:

DERELICTION AT THE TOP: In many other cities, police chief Daryl Gates would have been removed from office after the Rodney King beating. Instead, the city's civil service laws give Mayor Tom Bradley no authority over the city's top cop, who can be fired only for corruption or criminal behavior. During his 14 years as chief, the controversial Gates had set the tenor of a macho, take- no-nonsense police force. Despite cries for his resignation, Gates clung to his job -- and only reluctantly agreed to retire at the end of June. It was too late. On April 29, 3 1/2 hours after the verdict in the King case was announced, Gates left his office at about 6:30 p.m. to drive 11 miles to attend a small political fund raiser in affluent Brentwood. The cause was dear to his heart: opposition to a Los Angeles ballot measure that would, at last, make the police chief more accountable to elected officials. Even though Gates claimed he was at the fund raiser for just five minutes (it was closer to 20) and was in communication with commanders via radio and cellular phone, he was at the fund raiser or on the road for roughly 90 minutes when the police were losing control of the situation in South Central L.A.