(7 of 9)
rolled into the riot zone in convoys led
by Jeeps with mounted machine guns. Officers set up a command post at
Riis High School, while infantrymen, advancing with bayonets at the
ready, fanned out through the littered streets and assembled .50-cal.
machine guns on tripods at intersections. Their first challenge came
from an unlighted car that barreled down on a line of troops, hitting
and seriously injuring one man. Nearby county marshals halted the
vehicle with crackling rifle fire and the Negro driver was killed.
After being fired on by pistols and a rifle, one Guard unit opened up
for ten minutes with a machine gun on a band of rioters, sent them
fleeing.
SATURDAY
By midday, the number of Guardsmen patrolling the area had swelled to
4,000 and 700 more were being flown in from Fresno. They set about
"sweeping" three separate zones totaling 40 blocks; the largest was a
section of Watts bounded by Century Boulevard, Central Avenue, Compton
Avenue, and 103rd and 104th Streets. Forming a skirmish line that
extended across a street from sidewalk to sidewalk, and carrying M-l
and M-14 rifles with drawn bayonets, the Guardsmen stalked abreast down
the street while police and deputy sheriffs followed them, arresting
anyone on the street.
Guardsmen killed a second Negro whom they found looting a store. Another
of the Negro victims killed had incredibly taken up a post on a rooftop
overlooking Watts's 77th Street precinct station. As he directed sniper
fire at police and soldiers below, a Guardsman wheeled, drilled him
cleanly through the head with a rifle bullet.
But the war-weary police were still doing most of the yeomen work. They
shot four looters dead in stores they were sacking, fought a pitched
gun battle with several others holed up in a garage; the rioters
emerged carrying a wounded woman and waving a white flag. Gradually
hemmed in, the rioters attempted to regroup elsewhere, started
appearing in widely separated areas of Los Angeles County as far as 10
miles from the original battleground.
Threatening bands of Negroes roamed as far west as La Brea Avenue,
little more than a mile from hallowed Beverly Hills. Panic seeped
through the whole vast city. From Van Nuys to Long Beach, nervous
housewives traded rumors of new eruptions. Most citizens stayed home,
and the thrumming, garish metropolis seemed unnervingly still. In
neighborhoods surrounding the riot center, frightened whites—and some
Negroes—were queuing up at sporting-goods stores to buy guns. At an
Inglewood store, Owner Bob Ketcham reported selling 75 shotguns and
rifles in one day, added: "They're buying every kind of weapon—guns,
knives, bows and arrows, even slingshots."
Though they now risked being shot, gangs of looters were still burning
stores and houses. The Fire Department announced that 1,000 fires had
been set, 300 of them major. At least 200 stores had been burned to the
ground; along one four-block stretch not a shop remained standing.
From his Texas ranch, the President branded the disorders "tragic and
shocking." Said Lyndon Johnson: "I urge every person in a position of
leadership to make every effort to restore order in Los Angeles." As
Pat Brown hurried home, Johnson dispatched LeRoy Collins, former
director of the Federal Government's Community Relations Service, and
White House Assistant Lee White to confer with the Governor on his
