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In fact, the supposed silver lining in the smoky cloud that covered Los Angeles last spring was the promise that the entire city would pull together to rebuild the burned and looted landscape. People looked forward to healing the strife between warring black, white, Hispanic and Asian groups, and between the community and the police. Hope soared all the higher when former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth, who had run the dazzlingly successful 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, took the helm of Rebuild L.A., the city's formal rebuilding effort. Angelenos also warmly greeted new police chief Willie Williams, who arrived from Philadelphia in July after the forced resignation of the combative Daryl Gates. The era of good feeling even produced a truce between street gangs and a summer-long drop in black-gang-related homicides.
But much of the hype and hope that surrounded Rebuild L.A. has seemed to vanish into the air. Instead of moving quickly forward with its plans to generate $5 billion worth of investment in the city over the next five years, the group bogged down in squabbles between community organizations over adequate representation on Rebuild L.A.'s 80-member board of directors. "Rebuild L.A. has left a lot to be desired," says Kaffie Powell, a retired postal worker and president of a South Central neighborhood advisory board. "There's not been as much effort as there should be."
Corporate giants ranging from Atlantic Richfield to Xerox have pledged $300 million to Rebuild L.A. Yet residents of burned-out neighborhoods have kept asking themselves when the organization would really do something tangible with the money. While much of the money was earmarked for job training, few people in the most devastated parts of town could actually see any prospect of landing a job.
Many Angelenos now pin their hopes for improved community and race relations on police chief Williams, a hulking six-footer who is the first black to lead the L.A. force. Williams speaks softly, venturing into black, Hispanic and Korean-American neighborhoods with words of conciliation in an effort to dispel the notion that his 7,600-member department is an army of occupation. And he carries a big stick. Even though the city is strapped for cash, Williams recently got about $1 million for new riot gear that includes rubber bullets, tear-gas bombs, face shields and 10 crisis vans. "I don't think we are going to have widespread violence," Williams says. But he notes that all police officers have received 16 hours of riot training since he arrived.
+ "The mood of the city is one of anxiousness, for both the federal trial and the trial of the men charged in beating Reginald Denny," Williams said. "There is anxiousness in terms of what the outcomes will be, and what that will mean in the community. These are the two big pillars we have to get beyond, and we can't get around them."
Williams staged what amounted to a dress rehearsal for full-scale riot control in December when 300 officers quelled a random looting and rock- throwing melee at the corner of Florence and Normandie, where last spring's violence broke out. Moving swiftly, the cops cordoned off the area and made 60 arrests. To assert control without using clubs, some officers carried newly acquired 37-mm gas guns that shoot foam-rubber bullets.