The Flawed Emergency Response to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots PART C

Riots are complex civil disturbances that have a beginning (riot assembling processes), middle (riot area activities) and an end (riot dispersal processes). SEMP Biot #142 at: http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_142.html and Biot #143 at: http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_143.html focused on the beginning and middle components of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In this essay, we focus on the end component (riot dispersal processes), as described in Part C of the John F. Kennedy School of Government case titled “The Flawed Emergency Response to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.”*

Summoning the California Guard to quell the South Central LA riots was not the solution that Governor Pete Wilson and Mayor Tom Bradley envisioned. The Guard had played a prominent role in responding to civil disturbances during the 1960s, with more than 13,000 troops deployed during the LA Watts riots alone. However, according to the OES Law Enforcement Mutual Aid Plan, dated October 1991, the role of military support during civil unrest was scaled back as a result of the state’s improved mutual aid system. “Guard forces slated to receive civil disturbance training were cut from 10,000 to only 5,000, and scant attention was paid to whether even that number of troops were trained.” (C, p. 2)

Firefighters in downtown Los Angeles battled flames in a coffee shop
next to the Los Angeles Times building.
Source: http://html.nbc4.tv/sh/slideshow/_auto/sh1904s13.html

At about 9:00 pm on April 29, 1992, Wilson’s office, at Bradley’s request, contacted the Adjutant General of the California National Guard, Major General Robert Thrasher, who at 9:15 pm ordered troop mobilization, which meant the troops would be “in their armories” in about six hours. LAPD Chief Gates and the LA County Sheriff Block felt the National Guard was needed even though the riot had spread to an area of about 45 to 50 square miles and there were 400 to 500 police in the area. Nevertheless, both law enforcement officials endorsed the call-up, but especially looked forward to the arrival of 1,500 California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers to perform tasks such as securing the perimeters of riotous areas.

One of the missions of the CHP was to assist local law enforcement. Chief Edward Gomez, commander of the CHP’s Southern Division overseeing LA County, had early on taken seriously the growing disturbance. In fact, more than a month before the trial verdict, he had drafted a contingency plan (Red Plan), which committed as many as 400 CHP of the Southern Division’s officers to a potential disturbance. Gomez activated the Red Plan as soon as the judge in the in the Rodney King trial gave notice that the verdicts would be announced in two hours.

Sheriff Block initially had offered “Chief Gates 500 deputies, but, reminiscent of the Watts riots experience—Gates refused the offer, preferring not to rely on his rival, and still believing that the LAPD would regain control on its own. After Gates’ negative response, Block, as regional coordinator of the mutual aid plan, turned down several offers of help from other area law enforcement agencies during the tumultuous first night of rioting, assuming that Gates would not be interested. The only local police forces tapped by the LAPD were the Rapid Transit District Police and the University of California-Los Angeles Police Department, both forces with which the LAPD had had substantial interactions in the past.” (C, pp. 3-4)

By 4 am on April 30, 1992, 2,000 Guard troops had reported to about ten armories in the city area. The goal of getting the troops on the streets by 4 pm, April 30, was hindered by failure to assign which agency would coordinate the Guard’s involvement, deciding what its missions would be, and estimating how many more troops ultimately might be called up. Unknown to Thrasher and Wilson, most of the troops weren’t really trained to respond to a riot. As a result, commanders at the armories trained the troops on the spot. Troops had to read and sign a copy of the Rules of Engagement, which emphasized the importance of restraint, so that soldiers “wouldn’t leave themselves open to charges, such as those that arose after the Watts riots, of having fired on rioters without adequate cause.” (C, p. 5)

A constraint quickly became apparent: there were insufficient ammunition and basic equipment, such as flak vests, face shields, and riot batons, available in the armories. The assembled troops could not be deployed until the supplies arrived. Multiple glitches caused a delay in supply delivery. Meanwhile, Governor Wilson had declared a state of emergency for all of LA County at 12:05 am (April 30) and Mayor Bradley had declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew for South Central area at 12:15 am (April 30). A half hour later, Chief Gates “stated in a television interview…that not only was it unlikely that additional National Guard forces would be called, he was not even convinced that the first 2,000 were needed. And although by morning, there had been nine riot-related deaths and more than 150 injuries, the Metropolitan Division (Metro)—the LAPD unit with the most crisis training and experience—had been given a 4:00 [pm] report time the second day, in order to give officers a chance to rest before reporting back for duty, and under the assumption that they wouldn’t be needed until dark.” (C, p. 6)

Meanwhile, approximately 50,000 young men in South Central flooded the streets, many with new weapons looted from gun stores and pawn shops, which had remained unguarded by police officers. The riot demographics changed after the first night, which was dominated by enraged members of the African-American community, e.g., the attacks by young black males on Reginald Denny. But by the second day, people of all races, ages, gender, and income levels were looting and other illegal behavior.

The media coverage seemed to exacerbate the looting. One African-American woman, for example, told a media person that “watching television convinced her to go steal diaper, cans of food, and produce because she…’didn’t know if there were going to be any stores standing.’” (C, p. 7) A fire department battalion commander noted, “You could almost get a game plan off television, because they would gather concerns from the local officials about where it was happening and what was happening. I think that gave a lot of direction to the rioters.” (C, p. 7)

More than 3,000 arrests were made during the first three nights of rioting.
Source: http://html.nbc4.tv/sh/slideshow/_auto/sh1904s14.html

By early afternoon on April 30, still no Guard troops were on the streets. Compounding this problem, many police officers were viewing “escort duty as less important than direct engagement with rioters, and in some cases, deserted the firefighters they were supposed to be protecting when they received a call for help from another officer.” (C, p. 10) Finally CHP Commander Gomez stepped up, deploying 300 officers to escort firefighters, fuel trucks, utility vehicles, county firefighters, and other city and county vehicles. In addition, the CHP officers established perimeter control.

At 4 pm, Governor Wilson announced that he was flying to LA to make sure that the Guard deployment moved forward quickly (some Guard troops finally hit the streets at 2 pm on April 30). Although the sheriff was supposed to be the top law enforcement official overseeing the organization response, he was ignored by a furious Bradley who continued to go straight to Governor Wilson with his complaints and requests. LAPD officers were giving orders directly to Guard troops, rather than processing them through the county EOC. No less than one battalion of Guard troops was standing around because the sheriff and police chief didn’t know where to put them. Some newscasters mistakenly announced to the public that Guard troops were unarmed on the streets, which resulted in exacerbating looter and gang member behaviors.

At 8 pm (April 30), only 1,000 Guard troops had been deployed to the streets. By midnight, the three hospitals closest to the rioting, Martin Luther King, Jr., General Hospital, Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, and the St. Francis Medical Center—were inundated with 1,000 injured victims and 31 riot-related deaths, resulting in diversion of patients to less crowded, farther distant hospitals. At approximately 1 am (May 1), Governor Wilson phoned up then President George Bush to request federal troop deployment! Approximately 3,500 federal troops stationed at Fort Ord, California, left for LA at 3:30 am. “Wilson was so fed up with the information that he was getting, and the information that he wasn’t getting, and the mixed signals, that he had basically lost confidence in the command structure of the Guard.” (C, p. 15)

Unfortunately, federal troops did not appear on the streets of LA that quickly either. “There was a reluctance on the part of the military to come in,” Wilson recalled. “They don’t like the idea of being called into be a substitute for the police department in a domestic setting. At least that is clearly the impression that I got at the time.” (C, p. 16) Major General Covault, who was commander of the 2,023 Army and 1,508 US Marine troops assembling at staging areas south of LA on May 1, 1992, declared that “federal forces wouldn’t be ready to deploy until the following day [May 2] after all the soldiers had arrived and had had a chance to train. There was no need for federal troops to rush in without adequate preparation, Covault told Wilson, particularly since the crisis was no longer as acute, and there were still Guard troops who had not been given specific missions.” (C, p.17).

By May 2, the tide had begun to turn. Troops and Humvees were on the streets and volunteers in parts of the community had begun to clear up the mess. Against this backdrop, the first federal troops finally deployed. Local law enforcement personnel declared: “The more structured command and control inherent in a federal military response, in particular, the rules governing mission tasking and troop strength, eliminated most of the flexibility and responsiveness….[reducing] the usefulness of military troops to local law enforcement.” (C, p. 18) Indeed, local law enforcement declared further that they were “having trouble accommodating the large and varied contingent of federal officers, numbering more than 1,700, that had been sent in as part of the federal response, many without vehicles. Police offers and sheriff’s deputies who had been riding four to a car found themselves having to eject their own experienced personnel in order to include some of these federal officers.” (C, p. 20)

The 1992 LA riots were officially over when Mayor Bradley lifted the curfew on May 4. But city officials and residents were reluctant to see federal and Guard troops leave. General Covault wanted his troops to leave as soon as possible. For example, one incident in particular alarmed him. “Police and Marines were responding to a disturbance, which turned out to be a domestic dispute, when two shotgun rounds were fired through the door. One of the police officers shouted, ‘Cover me,’ meaning that the Marines should have their weapons ready to respond if necessary. But the Marines, understanding ‘cover me’ to mean providing cover by using firepower, shot off what was later estimate to have been more than 200 rounds.” (C, p. 21) Remarkably, no one in the apartment was injured. Finally, on May 9, federal troops began to depart. Five days later, the Guard also began to disengage. On May 27, the last solders headed home.

In the aftermath of the riots, Chief Gates stepped down, General Thrasher left the Guard, and Mayor Wilson announced he would not seek a sixth term. He died in 1995 of a heart attack. Meanwhile local law enforcement and state Guard troops vowed “not to be caught unawares again.” (C, p. 22)

Editor’s Note: It is easy to be appalled at the flawed organization response to the 1992 LA riots. If one views the situation through the lens of emergent collective behaviors during disasters, it is easier to comprehend. Command and control models of organization response do not work well during times of severe civilian social stress. From the original leadership vacuum created in particular by the personality and flawed leadership of Chief Gates, the events escalated beyond anyone’s control until finally the rioters were tired and spent and there was not much else left to destroy. That is when the riots stopped, even though we may wish to believe that the massive organizational response finally brought about this desired result.

Comments? Please feel free to send them to moleary@semp.us .

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* “The Flawed Emergency Response to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots” A, B, and C parts were written in 2000 by Susan Rosegrant for Richard Falkenrath, Assistant Professor in Public Policy, and Arnold Howitt, Executive Director, Taubman Center for State and Local Government, for use at the Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (2000). Each part is available for purchase for $5 at: http://www.ksgcase.harvard.edu/.