TRAFFIC STOP SPARKED PENT-UP HOSTILITY.

Byline: Daily News

On a hot evening on Aug. 11, 1965, a Los Angeles motorcycle cop pulled over Marquette Frye after getting a report that Frye was driving while drunk.

As white officers questioned Frye, an African-American, and his brother, Ronald, at 116th Street and Avalon Boulevard, their mother, Rena, arrived and a crowd began to gather.

What happened next touched off a wave of violence and rioting that would last for nearly a week, cover 46.5 square miles of what was then known as South Central Los Angeles and rock the city and much of the nation.

A struggle between police and the Fryes ensued. Police arrested Marquette on suspicion of drunk driving, his mother and a stepbrother for interfering with an officer, and a bystander for spitting on an officer.

Shortly after the officers left, the crowd's tensions boiled over. Rocks and bottles were thrown. Businesses owned by nonblacks were looted and burned. White motorists were pulled out of their vehicles and beaten.

On the second night, the rioting, looting, burning and killing reached Watts. Molotov cocktails were thrown into commercial buildings, vehicles were bombed and set on fire.

``I saw warfare. I saw an absolute collapse of the civil system,'' City Councilman Robert Farrell - who represented 116th and Avalon and was field deputy to Councilman Billy Mills during the riots - recalled 20 years later.

The city imposed an 8 p.m.-to-dawn curfew. More than 13,000 National Guard troops were called. The turmoil was finally quelled Aug. 17.

The toll: 34 dead, 1,100 injured, 4,000 arrested, more than 600 commercial buildings destroyed or damaged by fire, more than $40 million in property damage.

In the aftermath, dozens of public and private inquiries were launched. Gov. Edmund G. ``Pat'' Brown appointed John T. McCone, former CIA director and head of the Atomic Energy Commission, to head an eight-member Los Angeles Commission on the Riots to investigate.

The panel began its investigation in September, hearing from 80 witnesses, reviewing 15 depositions and interviewing nearly 400 people including Brown, Police Chief William Parker, Congressman Augustus Hawkins, Sheriff Peter J. Pitchess and Mayor Sam Yorty.

The commission released its report in December, saying major problem areas included lack of education and job training, a high dropout rate, rampant unemployment, a perceived pattern of police brutality, inadequate health care, substandard housing, and too many on welfare.

``So serious and so explosive is the situation that, unless it is checked, the August riots may seem by comparison to be only a curtain-raiser for what could blow up one day in the future.''

The panel offered recommendations including increased employment programs, an emergency education program to raise school achievement, a greater emphasis by law enforcement on responsibility for crime prevention and handling citizen complaints and relations.

Six months later, some progress had been made. Most of the more than 230 buildings that had been badly damaged were demolished.

Some new buildings had risen, and public and private job training and placement programs had started. Los Angeles police had initiated a community relations program.

``I don't see more riots here within the next couple of years,'' City Councilman Billy Mills was quoted as saying. ``But the further away we get in time, the greater the chances are - unless there are some basic changes.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1) National Guard troops man barricades in Los Angeles' Watts area Aug. 16, 1965. As the rioting began to calm on the sixth day, outbursts of violence still shattered the quiet in other areas of the city and suburbs.

(2) Three stores burn to the ground on Avalon Boulevard in the Watts area Aug. 13, 1965. Firefighters were unable to reach the scene to douse the flames.

(3) Steel-helmeted National Guardsmen take up positions at a street intersection in Watts on Aug. 14, 1965, trying to stop waves of looting, arson and rioting.

File photo