MEMORIES FADE, SCARS STILL LINGER LAPD STILL STRUGGLES TO RECLAIM PUBLIC'S TRUST, CONFIDENCE.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

Ten years ago Monday, LAPD Lt. J.J. May rolled up to the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues as the first cops who responded to reports of violence were speeding away.

Little did May know then that he was standing at the flash point of three days of murder, looting and arson that would become the L.A. riots - one of the worst instances of urban violence in American history.

In all, 54 people would die, 15,000 homes and businesses would be damaged or destroyed, the losses would exceed $1 billion - and the reputation of the Los Angeles Police Department would be further tarnished.

With the riots' 10th anniversary approaching, May visited that same corner - now bustling with two gas stations, an auto parts store and the same liquor store that was being looted in 1992 - and contemplated the past.

``We were ordered out to the command post; I wanted to stay,'' he recalled. ``I went two blocks and said: To hell with it, I'm coming back. We were coming back and there were some looters at the liquor store; they threw some rocks at us and we were ordered again to the command post.

``I can't be 100 percent sure, but I believe a big catalyst (of the riots) was Florence and Normandie. People saw that for hours on TV. If we'd taken the corner over, the helicopters wouldn't have focused on it.

``It's weighed on me.''

By the time May got back to the hastily assembled command post at Arlington Avenue and 54th Street, an unsuspecting Reginald Denny had driven his truck into the intersection, where thugs yanked him out of the cab and savagely beat him as a hovering TV helicopter broadcast the scene.

``I saw it on TV from the command post, I saw Reginald Denny being beaten,'' May said.

So did the rest of the world.

Coming just over a year after the March 3, 1991, videotape of Foothill Division Sgt. Stacey Koon and Officers Larry Powell, Ted Briseno and Timothy Wind striking motorist Rodney King with their batons in Lake View Terrace was repeatedly played around the globe, the pictures of Denny being viciously attacked without a cop in sight shattered what remained of the LAPD's credibility and much-vaunted international reputation.

Already rocked by the Christopher Commission report that in July 2001 reported a pattern of brutality and racism concealed, if not tolerated, by the department, the riots and the departure of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates left the LAPD in a crisis from which it has yet to fully recover.

The aftermath

The major players at the heart of the riots have faded from the public stage.

King, 37, is in a drug-treatment facility after being caught under the influence of PCP.

Denny, 46 and living in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., recently told ``Inside Edition'': ``My way of dealing with people is - if they're not here, I don't have to deal with them.''

Damian Williams, the man captured on camera hurling a brick into Denny's head, served a little over four years before being paroled for the crime after a jury rejected attempted murder charges. He now is awaiting trial on murder and robbery charges.

Henry Keith Watson and Antoine Eugene Miller, also charged with the attempted murder of Denny, got off without going to prison. Watson was convicted of felony assault, placed on three years' probation and ordered to perform 320 hours of community service. Miller pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor charges, and also was placed on probation.

Then-Mayor Tom Bradley has died, and Gates was forced to resign.

But the past still weighs heavily on the LAPD.

Gates' successors, Willie L. Williams and Bernard C. Parks, both struggled against low morale among the rank and file, challenges of reforming the department, and meeting goals for recruiting and retaining officers.

After the ineffectual Williams, Parks was a throwback to the LAPD's old paramilitary culture. But the Rampart Division misconduct scandal rocked his administration and gave new impetus to reforming the department in a way that left Parks out of step with City Hall.

``Ten years ago was the last major convulsion we were going to have in the 50-year struggle to have civilian control of the department,'' civil rights attorney Connie Rice said. ``What happened last week (with Parks' resignation) was the end of LAPD as an empire and the end of the chief as the emperor.''

``In a democracy, civilians have to control law enforcement and the military. (The LAPD) can't be above the charter, the Police Commission, the City Council.''

But Mayor James Hahn's heavy-handed role in forcing Parks out has revived concerns that the department will fall so far under control of politicians, its integrity as a law enforcement agency will be called into question.

Hahn, who was instrumental in pushing through a federal court consent decree putting a monitor over the LAPD and who worked with the Police Protective League to get a shorter workweek approved, said more emphasis on community policing and a revised disciplinary system are key issues.

``We need to do triage,'' Hahn said recently.

Changing views

Leading advocates of civilian reform like University of Southern California law professor Erwin Chemerinsky believe that picking a chief with the right mix of personality and administrative skills is critical.

``A lot of it is hoping the city gets lucky this time.''

Violent crime is up, especially among street gangs, but arrests have dropped dramatically.

The LAPD, with 8,856 officers, has fallen 1,100 officers below its authorized strength, with a shortage of experienced officers.

``Our work force is so young. If someone has five to 10 years, that's tenure,'' May said during a recent interview and ride-along throughout the Southeast Division.

In 1992, the LAPD was nearly 60 percent white, and about 86 percent male. Now, it's nearly 55 percent African-American, Latino, Asian-American, American Indian or Filipino, and nearly one in five officers is a woman.

``You look in a black-and-white and see two women, or a black and a Hispanic officer,'' said Steve Lerman, King's attorney.

``More than ever the LAPD mirrors the culture it has to enforce laws for. You didn't see that 10 years ago. It lets the community feel it's represented. There's nothing worse than an all-white, male police department enforcing laws in the inner city. I'm not saying they're any better just because they're minority, but it looks better; it makes people feel better.''

Walter McMahon, 33, a second-generation cop with about seven years on the force, said the community has changed along with the police.

The new generation of teen-agers, and the new generation of gang members, barely remembers the riots and the turbulence surrounding Rodney King that fueled them. There are the barest of explicit reminders in the community: The words ``Right to rebel, Los Angeles 92,'' for instance, scrawled on a power box.

``They were little kids then.''

The Rampart Division scandal, in which a group of rogue anti-gang cops were found to have planted guns and drugs on gang members and others leading to the release of more than 100 people from prison and payouts of $38 million to settle lawsuits, may have changed the LAPD even more than the riots.

But the scandal also exposed that the code of silence still kept officers from reporting wrongdoing by other officers as well as management failings in the department.

The Christopher Commission report after the King beating pushed the LAPD to soften its militaristic posture, and officers to a great extent became noticeably friendlier and more open in their contact with the community.

In South Central, in particular, many residents responded to the change and became more involved in police activities and more supportive of officers, said Southeast Division Sgt. Val Valenti. For gang members and others, he said, stricter complaint procedures and heightened sensitivities had the opposite effect.

``That's the divide,'' said Valenti, 43. ``The people who were hostile before are more hostile. The conservatives have remained conservatives. The middle of the road have leaned toward understanding.''

Gang members - who in some neighborhoods lounge openly on corners marketing drugs - know officers are on a tight leash, so gang members are more likely to try to provoke them, knowing a complaint can always be filed and will be investigated.

``People are a lot more aggressive with the police. They fight, run, scuffle,'' McMahon said. ``Since the Rampart scandal broke, you see a lot more challenging of the police.''

In the past decade, the number of complaints has increased more than 60 percent, from 3,517 in 1991 to 5,683 in 2001, with nearly 11 percent alleging unauthorized force, LAPD records show. Under Parks, all complaints required thorough investigation.

``It's a different world, they're really handcuffing us,'' May said. ``There's more leeway for the bad guys. We're the villain, they're not. Who suffers? The good people who live here suffer.''

Community policing has remained popular among law-abiding citizens, many of whom were incensed when Parks ended the senior lead officer program, temporarily depriving them of a familiar point of contact with the department.

Senior Lead Officer Joshua Chong, 33, said he has seen tangible signs of South Central communities coming together in the years after the riots.

``There's been a big-time change,'' Chong said. ``Schools, churches, the business community and the local community act together.''

The reformers

The end of the chief-for-life system, as a result of a new City Charter that limits chiefs to two five-year terms, has gone a long way toward putting elected officials and the public in charge of the department.

``With life tenure, the chief was accountable to no one,'' USC's Chemerinsky said.

But many say the department hasn't come far enough in solving its most serious problem as identified in the Christopher Commission report: the code of silence.

Until officers believe they can report misconduct they observe without facing retaliation, the LAPD will continue to ``reward Dirty Harrys and shun Serpicos,'' said Rice, the civil rights attorney.

Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor, said the LAPD has moved to a place where excessive force is neither as ``frequent nor as flagrant,'' but is still a force with other problems, particularly the code of silence and resistance to civilian oversight.

``When you have an insular police culture, it just doesn't change and the last decade is proof of that.''

What's needed, she added, is ``a new culture.''

Ten years ago, televised images of looting and arson riveted the city for three days and affected the lives of people far removed from rioting.

In a Century City law office, a young entertainment attorney named Rocky Delgadillo felt compelled after seeing those images to enter public life to help make a difference.

``I was devastated to watch the plumes of smoke dot the landscape of the city that I loved,'' Delgadillo said. ``It was a life-changing event for me.'' When Richard Riordan was elected mayor in 1994, Delgadillo took a job in heading the mayor's business development team, and he was elected city attorney last year.

Deputy Chief David Kalish, head of the LAPD's West Bureau, was in San Luis Obispo at a training seminar when the riots erupted, and said he immediately returned to the city's emergency operations center to help coordinate the response.

``After the riots, there was obviously a great effort to rebuild Los Angeles. For the Police Department it wasn't rebuilding structures, but rebuilding relationships with the entire community.''

``In many ways we let the people of this city down, we could have done a better job. We've learned, and come a long way. I don't think we'll repeat the mistakes of the past.''

Cmdr. James McDonnell said he was home and watched the beginning of the riots unfold before reporting later in the day.

``I kept waiting for the police to respond, and for a number of reasons it didn't happen. No one was more frustrated than the officers who were watching it. There was an organizational and city paralysis.''

McDonnell said the LAPD has come a long way since the riots, but hasn't fully responded to new realities in the city, and the changing makeup of the force.

He said, for example, that young ``Generation X'' employees are less responsive to a strict paramilitary style of management.

``These officers will put their lives on the line if you explain why and ask for their input, and build a team.''

LAPD Lt. May works as he has for most of his 35-year career, on the streets of South Central. Assigned to Southeast, he no longer oversees Florence and Normandie as he did a decade ago working out of the 77th Street Division

But the April 29, 1992, riot flashpoint is never far from his thoughts.

``I think about disobeying that order all the time. If we'd had a couple of squads, we could have controlled that intersection.''

CAPTION(S):

18 photos, box, chart

Photo:

(1) The beating of Rodney King by LAPD officers in Lake View Terrace, caught on videotape and broadcast to the world, was the beginning of a chain of events that would ultimately claim 54 lives and alter the city's law enforcement culture.

KTLA 

(2 -- color) Rage over the April 29, 1992, acquittal of the Foothill Division officers who beat Rodney King sent crowds into the streets of Los Angeles, where protest was mixed with acts of violence and looting.

(3 -- color) On the second day of the riots, South Central resident Carlos Pena hoses down the building in front of his home as a fire rages across Vermont Avenue in this April 30, 1992 photo.

(4) With a crowd of protesters watching, a luggage-toting rioter hurls a police barricade into a security post outside the LAPD's Parker Center headquarters in this April 29, 1992, photo.

(5 -- color) Rodney King's constant run-ins with law enforcement have frustrated African-Americans who hoped he could have become something else, a hero in the struggle against police brutality. Instead, King seems to have reinforced the image many non-African-Americans held of him, as an incorrigible hoodlum.

Daily News file photo

(6 -- color) LAPD Lt. J.J. May stands Thursday at the corner of Florence and Normandie avenues, where he was among the first officers to arrive at the epicenter of the riots in South Central in 1992.

Phil McCarten/Staff Photographer

(7 -- color) BRISENO

(8 -- color) KOON

(9 -- color) POWELL

(10 -- color) WIND

(11 -- 18 -- color) no caption (Riot photos)

Box:

L.A. RIOTS: THE FLASH POINTS

Jon Gerung/Staff Artist

Chart:

LAPD: A DECADE AFTER RIOTS

SOURCE: Internal Affairs Administrative Division, LAPD

Warren Huskey/Staff Artist