City sorts through relief, betrayal // `Time to move on,' many residents say

  Judy Keen

  08/05/1993

  USA Today

  FINAL

  Page 03A

  (Copyright 1993)

  When William Faulkner heard the words "30 months" on his radio Wednesday,

  he did some quick arithmetic.

  "My mind just refused to acknowledge . . . it was only two years and change,"

  Faulkner says of the sentences for officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell.

  For Faulkner and many other south-central Los Angeles residents, the sentence

  was another betrayal - one of many in the saga that has haunted them since

  Rodney King's March 3, 1991, beating by police.

  Faulkner, a black dentist whose clinic was looted in the April 1992 riots after

  acquittals in the state trial, felt just as violated Wednesday as he did when he

  fended off rioters who wanted to burn his office.

  "It makes it hard for the average citizen, knowing a policeman has more rights

  than he does," Faulkner says. "Things are still the way they were before the riots.

  Nothing has changed."

  Los Angeles was tense and watchful Wednesday, but few expected violence.

  Among many, there is rueful acceptance of justice's inequities; among others,

  relief the long King nightmare may be ending.

  Driving to a meeting Wednesday, Harrison Kim of the Korean American

  Chamber of Commerce wondered why there were six squad cars in one block.

  He'd forgotten it was sentencing day.

  "Our community is pretty much tired of this whole issue," Kim says. "The justice

  came when the verdict came down. It's time to move on."

  After sentencing, police made a point of visibility, churches held hushed vigils

  and people gathered to again debate fairness and bigotry.

  "Everybody's saying the punishment is too short," says Naghris Zamora, a

  secretary at the Union of Latino Merchants. "People are disappointed."

  Ashtonell Smith, 60, a nurse who awaited the sentence at First AME Church,

  was disappointed: "I'm not after skin, I'm asking for the time to fit the crime."

  Away from the city's grim and racially strained center, there was more sympathy

  for Koon and Powell.

  "I think 30 months is far too much," says Mike Geragos, a Studio City architect.

  "It sends an unfortunate message to law enforcement: They'll be more reluctant

  to step in, and that may put me in peril."

  Joe Saltzman, a University of Southern California professor, says, "Just as a

  citizen, I'm very anxious. . . . All it has to do with is poor people angry at an

  unjust system and they use this as a symbol. It's very hot in L.A. There are no

  jobs. I just think anything could happen."

  Still, although many called the sentences too lenient, there is an awareness

  another fiery detonation of anger would only delay economic and social

  recovery.

  "The next time, if something does blow, we're all involved," says Celes King,

  state chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality. "We've got to figure out a way

  to survive here, and we cannot survive by leaving ourselves at the will of the

  public to judge us."

  Yet for many, the fact that Koon and Powell will do time - however minimal - is

  enough of a victory for now.

  "I don't think the years are the issue at this point," says south-central resident

  Billy Wallace. "It was partially Rodney King's fault, partially the cops' fault.

  "The most important thing is to get over the whole thing." Contributing: Gary

  Fields and Jonathan T. Lovitt

  PHOTOS,b/w,Bob Riha Jr.,Gamma-Liaison