Riots Los Angeles

A state appeals court Tuesday unanimously upheld the 1993 mayhem and assault convictions of one of the primary assailants of truck driver Reginald O. Denny, whose televised beating came to symbolize the fury of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The three-judge panel rejected the claims of Damian Monroe Williams that the court prejudiced his case by, among other things, limiting his ability to cross-examine some witnesses and dismissing an African American juror.

In and around Los Angeles, the revolution is being filmed for broadcast at a later date: An Asian family stands by helplessly as a horde of black and Latino looters flood their small neighborhood market. The mother and father plead with the looters to take what they want, but not to damage their personal belongings. The invaders respond with obscenities, racial slurs and a severe blow to the mother's head.

Every morning after Korean American grocer Sung-Ho Joo opens his market, he reaches for the white telephone by the cash register to talk with fellow Korean American riot victims. "It is as if I have to call them to confirm that I am still alive--and they are, too," said Joo, past president of the Korean American Grocers' Victims Assn., an organization of 170 market owners hardest hit by the civil unrest.

Noah Gentile likes to hear his mother tell the story of what happened the night he was born, how it was a night unlike any other. Noah came into the world four years ago Monday as Los Angeles convulsed in violence after the not guilty verdicts for the white policemen accused of beating a black man named Rodney G. King. The little boy doesn't understand what a riot is.

A satellite City Hall office, complete with computer lab and a community meeting center, opened Monday at Vermont Avenue and 85th Street in South Los Angeles. The Constituent Service Center, which cost $3 million, houses the district office of City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas and representatives of 15 city departments, including police, building and safety, aging, and housing.

Think the boxing riot at Madison Square Garden Thursday night was a biggie? You should have been in Los Angeles' Olympic Auditorium, on the night of April 30, 1964, the night Mexican hero Alacran Torres fought Japan's Hiroyuke Ebihara. Now that was a riot. The building almost came down. When it comes to boxing riots, the Olympic wrote the book.

Four officers received minor injuries and two Inglewood men were arrested during a confrontation between police and about 150 patrons who had been ordered out of an overcrowded Crenshaw district rap music club, investigators said Friday. Los Angeles Police Department vice officers closed the Kaos Network in the 4300 block of Leimert Boulevard about 11:30 p.m. Thursday for operating without permits and being "grossly overcrowded," said Officer Lorie Taylor, a department spokeswoman.

Marking what city officials hope is the beginning of a revitalization for Los Angeles' most infamous intersection--Florence and Normandie avenues, one of the flash points of the 1992 riots--a shiny new auto parts store celebrated its grand opening Wednesday morning. The new PARTS USA shop, which City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas called "a blessing to the community," was built on a vacant lot. "The people in the community love it.

A judge dismissed lawsuits filed by truck driver Reginald O. Denny and other victims of the 1992 riots who charged that police abandoned South-Central Los Angeles at the height of the violence. The victims failed to show "discriminatory intent" by the city and the Los Angeles Police Department when officers withdrew from the area of Florence and Normandy avenues, according to the decision released Monday. U.S. District Judge W. Matthew Byrne Jr.

As the Los Angeles City Council opened its inquiry into the fatal wounding of a Lincoln Heights teen-ager, police on Wednesday identified the anti-gang officer who fired the shots as Michael A. Falvo, one of the 44 "problem officers" cited in the Christopher Commission report on Police Department operations. The disclosure that Falvo was the shooter stunned the council members, who were briefed in closed session by LAPD brass about the Saturday night incident, Councilman Mike Hernandez said.