Los Angeles Police Officer Steve Smith, a 25-year-old son of the South-Central neighborhoods he now patrols, remembers the news flashing over the police radio a little after 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, April 29. It was a verdict that, if not for a famous videotape and the volatility of the times, might have been interpreted as a vindication of the proud Los Angeles Police Department.
Not this time. At a red light, a woman motorist cussed out Smith. At a different intersection, another woman sat sobbing behind her steering wheel. And two hours later, Smith would be among the officers ordered to retreat from the vicinity of Florence and Normandie as a taunting, bottle-throwing mob, all but daring police to open fire, unleashed the nation's largest, most lethal riot in more than 100 years. Long before the flames were out, the LAPD would feel its reputation and morale sink to once unthinkable depths.
Today, the LAPD has a new chief and a fledgling community-oriented policing philosophy. But it is even more true that much remains the same. Every day, far removed from the politics of City Hall and Parker Center, the troops battle against a crime rate that seems overwhelming. On Oct. 29, six months to the day after rage ignited Los Angeles, The Times followed Smith and several fellow officers to observe the interaction between the LAPD and the public they are sworn to protect and serve.
Over their day, these officers dealt with incidents ranging from fistfights and false alarms to alleged child molesting and drive-by shootings. It was, unlike April 29, a fairly typical day.
ON PATROL / 'I give it my best'
For Officer Margaret Casey, the workday started early and lasted long. At 6:45 a.m., the 34-year-old Los Angeles resident reported to duty in Southeast Division, an area riddled with poverty and crime long before the riots. Casey usually works juvenile cases on turf that includes Watts and five housing projects. On this day, after roll call, the talkative Casey teamed with Officer Deanna Soriano, a quiet, reserved 28-year-old with four years on the force.
Casey piloted the black-and-white past walls covered with graffiti and windows adorned with bars. Casey said she still feels the community's anger toward the police. The police force, she said, is "tired and frustrated. We need more people, more resources." As for her own morale: "Well, I come to work and I do it a day at a time. I give it my best."
At midmorning Casey turned up a dirt alley and spotted two truant teen-age boys tearing bars from a broken crib. The officers wondered aloud about why the boys wanted the bars. To break windows? To serve as weapons? Casey and Soriano handcuffed the boys. Both were 16 and one, especially, acted tough. He's a gangster, he said, and plans to be "a high roller." Casey gave him the telephone number of a counselor as she drove the boy home. "I want to see you at my age driving a police car, OK, not in handcuffs," Casey told him as she left him with his mother.
But, as the officers started to drive off, the boy suddenly bolted out of his house, furious at his mother. And the mother shouted, "Take his ass, I don't care." Instead, the two officers stopped to perform as family counselors once again. This time, the young gangster started to cry and stayed home.
Before noon, Casey and Soriano responded to an anonymous tip phoned into the Southeast Division. They found a 14-year-old girl home alone in a tiny apartment. Her father, she told Casey, had been molesting her. It started, she said, when she was 8 years old--and her mother knew.
After searching for the girl's father, Casey and Soriano delivered her to a San Pedro clinic for medical tests as other officers retrieved her two younger brothers and a younger sister from school. Later the four children jammed into the back seat of Casey's unit, clutching pumpkin-shaped box lunches Casey had bought them at a McDonald's en route to a county social worker and foster care.
The case, with all its paperwork, kept Casey busy past 7 p.m.--a 12 1/2-hour shift.
It's worth it, she said. "I spent time as a kid in Juvenile Hall, a habitual runaway. Fortunately I had somebody who motivated me to do something positive. So I try to tell whoever I come in contact with, no matter what's going on in your life, you can turn it around."
DETECTIVE BUREAU / 'This is my home'
Several miles to the northwest, Lt. Paul Kim's climb up the career ladder had landed him behind a desk in a large, windowless room at Wilshire Division. A Korean-American, Kim already is the highest-ranking officer of Asian ancestry--a distinction that inspires mixed feelings. "That's nothing to be proud of, really," said Kim, who was born in Seoul and immigrated to the United States at age 15. "There aren't enough of us."
