The City of Worried Angels

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JUDGE JOHN DAVIES, AT LEAST, SEEMED RELIEVED. "That's it, ladies and gentlemen," he exulted. "You've heard all the evidence." With that, his case's terrible weight shifted from him to two juries: one of 12 citizens, the other of 9 million.

The final week of Rodney King II, the civil rights trial, favored the prosecution. The government showed videotape of previous testimony by Officer Theodore Briseno suggesting that King was indeed beaten on the head, unnecessarily and intentionally; this undermined the "unified defense" Briseno had since joined. The prosecution's summation, too, was more compelling than the defendants'. Observers predicted conviction for Officer Laurence Powell and possibly Sergeant Stacey Koon. But Judge Davies feared that the jury would find itself deadlocked.

The jurors had promised to ignore the possibility that their decision might cause riots. Other Angelenos were not so sworn. Los Angeles police chief Willie Williams said 6,500 officers would be at ready when deliberations began. A second flammable trial, of Reginald Denny's alleged attackers, was postponed, to widespread relief. A hotline was installed to handle rumors, like that of black gangs' targeting white suburbs. Youths with carbines and "Korean Watch Team" jackets prepared to patrol Koreatown's perimeter. All knew the stakes: if things went really wrong, L.A. risked becoming America-as- Yugoslavia, a collection of warring enclaves. (See cover stories beginning on page 26.)