Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 12, 1993 TAG: 9310120099
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAMELA KRAMER KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
It's a Saturday night in one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods, where cops regularly serve as target practice for high-powered shooters.
Just a few days ago, Police Chief Willie Williams and two City Council members issued a plea for an end to the shootings and for people to come forward with information on those with guns who have taken aim on cops three times in little more than a week. One of those targets, an officer who deals with gangs in this Newton Division neighborhood, died.
And now, as a jury deliberates the racially charged Reginald Denny riot beating case, some worry the attacks will only worsen. Williams has ordered an end to one-officer patrol cars and has ended the option of compensatory time off for officers while the sequestered jury meets.
"Things are just totally out of control," said Officer Byron Barnes, an eight-year veteran of the department. "This is the most dangerous time to be an LAPD officer. A lot of the ammunition and weapons they took during the riots are still out there."
Others in the battered department scoff at concerns about the Denny trial outcome and scorn the publicity over the attacks on officers. "I'm just wondering why it's taking that jury so long," one officer said with a sneer as he stood on the street checking out two youths he had just caught in a stolen car.
One reason, perhaps, is that the racially mixed jury of 10 women and two men apparently is beset by bickering in the case of the two men charged with attacking Denny and seven others at the flashpoint of last year's devastating riots.
Officer Robert Hill blames media coverage of the assaults on officers: "Now you're just motivating the gangs to get together. If they find out one gang shot at police, the others figure they've got to get on the bandwagon."
"Random attacks against cops are on the increase," said Lt. John Dunkin, a spokesman for the department. "We're not just talking about armed confrontations, but the unprovoked, random attacks."
Department statistics show there were 789 attacks through Aug. 31 this year. That number surpasses the pace set in 1992, when the yearlong total hit a three-year high of 1,162.
The stories behind the numbers are chilling. Sgt. Jim Smalling slowly tools down a narrow, litter-laden alley in his patrol car. There, at the mouth of it, he says, a gunman recently fired off a volley at gang-unit officers pursuing him. The officers fired back and were continuing down the alley when they came under fire from bystanders in a parking lot.
"We think it was an ambush," Smalling said grimly.
These days, the sound of gunfire in the neighborhood is so common, despite attempted gang truces, that it barely registers with the residents.
Smalling turns his patrol car onto 53rd Street, recalling that when he started with the department nearly 20 years ago, no officers wore bulletproof vests. Virtually all do now.
This block is where Officer Ray Mendoza and his partner in the gang unit were driving two weeks ago, carrying a suspect in an unmarked car, when they came across groups of gang members on either side of the street.
"The crowd opened up on them," Smalling said. Mendoza was hit several times, and the suspect in the car also was injured. One of the alleged gang members was killed.
A few days later, a 15-year-old opened fire on police officers in the Venice area with a 9mm handgun. The officers were not hurt.
The Mendoza shooting came a day after the LAPD had received an anonymous fax warning that a white police officer would be killed for every day that the two officers convicted of violating Rodney King's civil rights remained free on bail. It was reminiscent of the graffiti warning that cops would be targets after the riots.
Officials said they believe the shootings are rooted in vendettas and that tensions with police that have worsened since the King police beating.
The acquittals of the officers in that case in state court last year sparked last year's riots. Some residents fear a similar eruption if the defendants in the Denny beating receive life sentences - compared with the 30 months received by the two officers convicted this year in federal court for the King beating.
But this time around, there are no reports of the frenzied gun and plywood purchases that preceded the verdicts in the King federal trial. And this time, there are concrete plans for containing any violence that might erupt. Many officers say they don't expect major trouble, although some would not be surprised by an increase in attacks on them.
Randy Garcia, an LAPD gang expert, said that is possible, "but most people, they don't want a riot like they had before." Even as it is, he said, the streets are a day-in, day-out minefield.
"I never thought it'd be like this," he said, standing beside his unmarked car on a dimly lighted street, his eyes forever moving, his body armor in place.
by CNB