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KS1029

Case Number 1588.0

This case was written 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. Funding was provided by the Office of Justice

Programs, US Department of Justice. (0800)

Copyright © 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce

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The Flawed Emergency Response to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots (C)

In many respects, it was not surprising that Governor Pete Wilson would offer the services of the

California National Guard to help quell the riots that had engulfed South Central Los Angeles. The Guard had

played a prominent role in responding to civil disturbances during the 1960s, with more than 13,000 troops

deployed during the Watts riots alone. As in other parts of the country, Guard troops had also been mobilized to

respond to anti-Vietnam protests and other student demonstrations in the 1960s and early 1970s.

But over the following two decades, federal and state support to fund National Guard preparedness for

civil disturbance responses had tailed off as law enforcement agencies’ need for military support seemed to lessen.

Beginning in 1989, staff officers from the Guard had attended a series of meetings with the state Office of

Emergency Services (OES) and other law enforcement groups, in part to discuss the National Guard role in mutual

aid. Based on the meetings, some officials at the National Guard headquarters concluded that the state’s improved

mutual aid system had largely negated the need for Guard troops to respond to civil unrest. As stated in the OES

Law Enforcement Mutual Aid Plan, dated October 1991, “Normally, military support will be provided to local

jurisdictions only after a request is made by the chief executive of a city or county or sheriff of a county, and only

after the disturbance has been determined to be, or to likely become, beyond the capabilities of local law

enforcement forces, as supplemented by forces made available under the existing mutual aid agreements.” Under

the mutual aid plan, therefore, a police department such as the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) would first

call on the Sheriff’s Department and other local agencies before considering state or federal resources.

Based on these funding and priority changes, Guard forces slated to receive civil disturbance training were

cut from 10,000 to only 5,000, and, according to some observers, scant attention was paid to whether even that

number of troops were trained. As in the city of Los Angeles, most civil emergency preparedness focused on

natural disasters, and, in particular, earthquakes. Moreover, other activities took priority, such as military

preparedness for overseas operations—including the Gulf War in 1991—and the war on drugs. Nevertheless, notes

Richard Andrews, former OES director, although Guard officials may have believed that their future role in civil

disturbances would be limited to administrative or logistical support, Guard mission statements still clearly stated

the need to maintain readiness for a riot response (see Exhibit A for a list of key players involved in the civil

This document is authorized for use only by Julie Cavanaugh in CJ-510-Q4489 Ethical Leadership-CJ 20TW4 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2020.

HKS Case Program 2 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

disturbance response). “Nobody would ever have told them there is no chance that this will ever happen again,”

Andrews declares.1

During the trial of the police officers accused of beating Rodney King, the Guard had received signals that

there could be serious trouble in Los Angeles. LAPD Commander Bayan Lewis had passed along his unofficial

warning of a possible disturbance, for example, and had borrowed more than 300 sets of helmets and flak vests. In

addition, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) had called about using the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center

south of Los Angeles as a possible staging area in case of an outbreak. Still, because of the revised understanding of

its role, and the fact that there had been no official request from Los Angeles law enforcement agencies or OES to

be on alert, the state National Guard made no special preparations during the trial.

At about 8:30 p.m. on April 29, however, Wilson’s office called the Adjutant General of the California

National Guard, Major General Robert Thrasher, to let him know that the governor was considering calling up the

Guard (see Exhibit B for a chronology of events during the riots). A half hour later, at Mayor Bradley’s request, the

governor authorized the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to help restore order in Los Angeles. “As the

seriousness of the situation started to become evident, everybody recognized that putting the National Guard on

the street would send a very strong message,” says Richard Andrews. Thrasher quickly called Andrews, hoping to

learn more details about the Guard’s mission, but Andrews could only promise to check with the LAPD and the

Sheriff’s Department for more information.2 At 9:15, Thrasher ordered the troop mobilization. No specific time had

been set for soldiers to be on the streets, but Thrasher told the governor’s staff that troops would be “in their

armories” in about six hours.

At 10:13, Richard Andrews of OES arranged the first in what would be a series of conference calls, usually

including the same individuals: Governor Wilson, General Thrasher, Mayor Bradley, Sheriff Sherman Block, Police

Chief Daryl Gates, and CHP Commissioner Maurice Hannigan. The riots, according to Gates, had spread to an area

of about 45 to 50 square miles, and there were 400 to 500 police in the area. Sheriff Block also reported spreading

unrest, and what he described as a “Mardi Gras” like atmosphere in the streets in some areas of the county. 3

Nevertheless, neither Gates nor Block felt the National Guard was needed, although when pressed by the

governor, they endorsed the call-up. Both officials, however, welcomed the CHP’s offer of 1,500 officers, whom

they planned to use for tasks such as securing the perimeters of riot-torn areas. “The Highway Patrol was a very

highly professional, very disciplined organization,” says Andrews, “and not a territorial threat.”4

1 Richard Andrews interview with writer, March 27, 2000. Subsequent comments by Andrews are from the same interview. 2 Under the mutual aid system, when a local government requested assistance from the Guard, OES provided the mission

assignment. 3 Lt. Gen. William H. Harrison (US Army Ret.), Assessment of the Performance of the California National Guard During the

Civil Disturbances in Los Angeles, April & May 1992, Report to the Honorable Pete Wilson, Governor, State of California (Sacramento, CA: October 2, 1992), p. A-7.

4 The Sheriff’s Department earlier that evening had already asked for 50 CHP officers to help return prisoners who had escaped from an honor farm north of Los Angeles.

This document is authorized for use only by Julie Cavanaugh in CJ-510-Q4489 Ethical Leadership-CJ 20TW4 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2020.

HKS Case Program 3 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

As it turned out, the CHP—one of whose missions was to assist local law enforcement—was well prepared

to take action. According to then Chief Edward Gomez, commander of the CHP’s Southern Division overseeing Los

Angeles County, the agency had taken the possibility of a disturbance seriously, and more than a month before the

trial ended had drafted a contingency plan, dubbed the Red Plan, that mandated different levels of response

depending on the extent of any unrest. A Level One response, for example, would commit as many as 400 of the

approximately 1,000 officers in the Southern Division to a disturbance; Level Two would draw in additional officers

from neighboring divisions; and Level Three would deploy officers from around the state.

Gomez initiated the Red Plan as soon as the judge in the Rodney King beating trial gave notice that the

verdicts would be announced in two hours. Along with his top officers, Gomez watched the verdicts being read,

then immediately called a tactical alert, which put officers on 12-hour shifts and alerted them to wear riot gear.

“You can’t get in trouble by having too many people ready and available,” Gomez asserts. “You can always de-

escalate and send them home if after six hours nothing happens.”5 Even before Gates and Block accepted the

officers, the Red Plan had moved to Level Three, and the CHP was ready to support local law enforcement in large

numbers as needed.

Other than accepting the CHP officers, though, Gates made almost no use of outside law enforcement

agencies in the first hours of the riot. During the conference call, Sheriff Block offered 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’s 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.

Nor did the LAPD make good use of the CHP that first night. Although some officers were sent to escort

firefighters, about 120 CHP officers who had been available in Los Angeles since 9 p.m. watched television at their

headquarters all night because they were given nothing to do, and in the midst of the chaos, neither the sheriff’s

office nor the LAPD could immediately find tasks for the 1,500 officers CHP Commissioner Hannigan had offered.

Gates, meanwhile, spent much of the first night touring the streets of Los Angeles with a driver and aide, finally

reporting to the city’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at 6:00 a.m. “Daryl was a very dedicated police officer,

but if he had two shortcomings, one was what many people would call arrogance, and the other was his absolute

unbridled belief that the LAPD could and would handle anything,” says former Los Angeles City Fire Chief Donald

Manning. “He couldn’t come to grips with the fact that his people couldn’t and weren’t handling the whole thing.”

5 Edward Gomez interview with writer, March 28, 2000. Subsequent comments by Gomez are from the same interview.

This document is authorized for use only by Julie Cavanaugh in CJ-510-Q4489 Ethical Leadership-CJ 20TW4 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2020.

HKS Case Program 4 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

A Flawed Mobilization

The National Guard deployment began with many questions unanswered. Although the conference call

participants had agreed on a target time of 4:00 p.m. the next day for getting troops on the streets, no one had

declared which agency would coordinate the Guard’s involvement, decided what its missions would be, or

estimated how many more troops ultimately might be called. In addition, some of the officials involved, including

Sheriff Block and Police Chief Gates, felt the Guard had been called up prematurely. After all, says Sheriff’s

Lieutenant Dennis Beene, a team leader at the county Emergency Operations Center, “there were about 20,000

police officers and deputies in this county, looking at the LAPD, the deputies, and the other 46 city agencies. Had

we managed those resources properly, we would not have needed anybody from outside to deal with what we

had.”6 Nevertheless, with the riot spreading, and no evidence that the LAPD had the situation under control,

Mayor Bradley and Governor Wilson pushed forward on the Guard deployment.

The initial mobilization went well. The troops chosen for deployment—members of the 40th Infantry

Division (Mechanized) based near Los Angeles—responded quickly, and almost the entire contingent of 2,000

soldiers had reported to about ten armories in the city area by 4:00 a.m. Although the state Guard headquarters

apparently had not anticipated the mobilization, many individual soldiers who had been watching television felt it

likely that they would be deployed, and one colonel had even placed his brigade on alert.7

Once the troops reported, however, the Guard’s lack of focus on civil disturbance preparedness became

evident. Unknown to General Thrasher and the governor’s office, for example, most of the troops hadn’t had

adequate training to respond to a riot. The contingent with the most civil disturbance training—the 49th Military

Police Brigade, based in the San Francisco Bay Area—was judged too far away to deploy. As a result, commanders

at the armories hastily conducted basic riot training as troops assembled. In addition, all soldiers had to read and

sign a copy of the Rules of Engagement that Guard headquarters had hastily prepared (for a copy of the Rules of

Engagement, see Exhibit C). The rules were intended to emphasize 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.

But the real holdup was the fact that there was not enough ammunition or basic equipment, such as flak

vests, face shields, and riot batons, for the troops to deploy. Until recently, ammunition had been stored at the

local armories—enough to supply the soldiers, at least initially. But earlier that year, as part of a Guard re-

evaluation of storage practices, ammunition at scattered sites had been consolidated at Camp Roberts, a National

Guard base about 230 miles north of Los Angeles. Alerted to the shortfall, headquarters ordered a helicopter to

pick up adequate ammunition from the base and deliver it to the staging area at the Los Alamitos Reserve Center,

about 30 miles south of Los Angeles, by 8:00 a.m., April 30. A second helicopter would bring the necessary

equipment from Camp San Luis Obispo, located about 50 miles south of Camp Roberts.

6 Dennis Beene interview with writer, March 29, 2000. Subsequent comments by Beene are from the same interview. 7 James D. Delk, Fires & Furies: The Los Angeles Riots of 1992 (Palm Springs, CA: ETC Publications, 1995), pp. 40-41.

This document is authorized for use only by Julie Cavanaugh in CJ-510-Q4489 Ethical Leadership-CJ 20TW4 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2020.

HKS Case Program 5 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

A combination of poor communication, inexperience, and bad judgment, however, badly delayed the

delivery. To begin with, staff members at Guard headquarters responsible for getting the ammunition to the troops

continued to operate under the assumption that having soldiers ready by 4:00 p.m. the second day of the riots—a

response time of 19 hours from first alert to mobilization—would be adequate. As a result, instead of having one

helicopter take ammunition directly from Camp Roberts to Los Alamitos— allowing those soldiers with adequate

equipment to deploy—while a second helicopter traveled to Camp San Luis Obispo, the staff decided to save on

aircraft and flight crews and redirected the first helicopter to make the equipment pickup as well.

Other glitches further slowed the drop-off. Because crew members were transporting tear gas grenades,

they had to bring gas masks, which took extra time to locate. At Camp Roberts, they had to refuel the helicopter at

a point distant from the ammunition. By the time the supplies were trucked to the aircraft, it was already 7:15, just

45 minutes before the helicopter was originally to have delivered its load to Los Alamitos. The crew, which had no

experience in loading pallets of ammunition, didn’t bring rollers to help transfer the loads, nor did the helicopter

winch system work properly, so crew members ultimately loaded the pallets by hand. To make matters worse, the

crew learned that some of the tear gas grenades on board were out of date. By the time they had unloaded part of

the ammunition, located the bad grenades, found new ones, rebanded the pallets, and reloaded the supplies, the

helicopter didn’t take off until 9:45 a.m., with the equipment pickup still to come.

At Camp San Luis Obispo, the setbacks continued. The equipment wouldn’t fit with what was already

loaded, so the crew once again had to remove some of the heavy ammunition in order to fit flak vests, riot batons,

and face shields on board. Then they had to wait for the arrival of lock plates, devices required by the federal

government in any civil disturbance response to keep the soldiers’ M16 rifles from firing on automatic. As a result,

the helicopter did not arrive at Los Alamitos until 1:50 p.m., almost six hours later than originally expected.

Remarkably, those responsible for delivering the ammunition and equipment also had apparently made no effort

to inform officials at Los Alamitos, the adjutant general’s office, or the governor’s office of the delay.

The Dawning of the Second Day

Had the riots subsided as daylight broke April 30, as most observers still predicted, the slower than

expected deployment of the National Guard might not have been an issue. Although Governor Wilson had

declared a state of emergency for all of Los Angeles County at 12:05 a.m. on April 30, and Mayor Bradley had

declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew for the South Central area at 12:15 a.m., Daryl Gates stated in a television

interview about a half hour later 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 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.8

8 Ultimately, Metro was called back two hours earlier, at 2:00.

This document is authorized for use only by Julie Cavanaugh in CJ-510-Q4489 Ethical Leadership-CJ 20TW4 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2020.

HKS Case Program 6 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

But the riots, which had already spread north and west during the night into downtown Los Angeles and

Koreatown, continued unabated—particularly in South Central. Rioters, looters, and arsonists didn’t follow the

pattern of previous incidents of unrest, and seemed to feel no compunction to wait until dark. According to a later

study, the uprising was fueled by an estimated 50,000 men in South Central between the ages of 16 and 34 who

were out of school, jobless, and had no father at home, and who were therefore free to join in the rioting with few

constraints.9 In addition, new weapons were flooding the streets. Despite Commander Bayan Lewis’s earlier

department advisory to guard gun stores, looters took 1,150 firearms from one unprotected store—including more

than 600 automatics or semi-automatics—and another 970 firearms from a pawn shop in the first night of the riots

alone. “There was nobody to cover them,” Lewis declares.10

The demographics of those involved in the rioting had also changed by the second day. While the first

night was in part a spontaneous expression of the African-American community’s rage at the Rodney King verdict—

manifested in the attacks of young black males on whites, Latinos, and Asians caught in the middle of the

outbreak—by the second day, looting had become an end in itself, and people of all races, ages, and gender were

taking part. Indeed, according to later records of those arrested during the disturbance, Latinos— in particular,

recent immigrants—outnumbered blacks. Furthermore, law enforcement officials reported seeing a number of

wealthy residents coming into the riot area to fill their cars with loot. “We witnessed people who drove down from

very affluent neighborhoods in this county with their Mercedes,” notes Sheriff’s Lieutenant Dennis Beene.

Amidst the spreading disturbance, the city’s seven major commercial television stations, which were

providing near 24-hour live coverage of the riots, continued to play a surprisingly powerful role. As in the first

hours of the unrest, television reports showing a lackluster or passive police presence emboldened potential

looters. One African-American woman later told a Washington Post correspondent that watching television

convinced her to go steal diapers, cans of food, and produce because she “…didn’t know if there were going to be

any stores standing.”11 Adds Terrance Manning, Los Angeles City Fire Department battalion commander, “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.”12

In addition, as bad as the rioting was, many observers felt that the media—and particularly television—

were exaggerating the extent of the rioting. The constant images of burning buildings and looting gave many

viewers the impression that all of South Central was going up in flames, and that vast areas of the city were

endangered. “People seeing that around the country and around the world thought that in every intersection in

Los Angeles you had people beating other people, you had them looting stores, you had them setting fire to

things,” says former Chief Gomez of the CHP. “I don’t think that’s good.”

9 Lou Cannon, Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD (Boulder, CO:

Westview Press, 1999), p. 350. 10 Bayan Lewis interview with writer, March 27, 2000. Subsequent comments by Lewis are from the same interview. 11 Ibid., p. 338.

This document is authorized for use only by Julie Cavanaugh in CJ-510-Q4489 Ethical Leadership-CJ 20TW4 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2020.

HKS Case Program 7 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

Deploying the Guard

By mid-morning April 30, there was still confusion over the exact role of the National Guard, including

wildly different expectations about when they could and should deploy. At 10:00 a.m., for example, Mayor Bradley

told the City Council that Guard troops would be on the streets by noon. Minutes later, however, a state OES

liaison officer, who was unaware of the growing panic within the ciy, reconfirmed with the Guard Emergency

Operations Center the original mobilization target of 4:00 p.m. Around the same time, alarmed Sheriff’s

Department officials called out for a stronger law enforcement presence on the streets, and General Thrasher—

who hadn’t been told about the equipment and ammunition delay—phoned Sheriff Sherman Block and told him

that 2,000 National Guard troops were already in their armories and waiting to deploy.13 Shortly after 11:00,

meanwhile, Governor Wilson approved a Los Angeles County request that 2,000 more Guard troops be mobilized,

bringing the total to 4,000. Finally, during a noon conference call, Wilson pressed the LAPD and the Sheriff’s

Department to put Guard troops on the street as soon as possible, and Mayor Bradley called Wilson at 12:30 to

complain that soldiers still hadn’t been deployed.

As this was occurring, officials at Los Alamitos were still trying to sort out when to mobilize. An OES official

stationed at Los Alamitos had pointed out to Brigadier General James Delk, the Guard’s military field commander

who had arrived at Los Alamitos at 10:30 that morning, that there were still unused local law enforcement

resources that could be deployed at once, and Delk had passed that comment on to Guard headquarters in

Sacramento, with the implication that such regional mutual aid should be exhausted before calling out the Guard.

But when Undersheriff Bob Edmonds heard about Delk’s call, he angrily phoned the field commander and said the

Sheriff’s Department expected the Guard to be on the streets as soon as possible regardless of mutual aid

stipulations.14 Delk agreed to send the 40th Military Police Company out to meet sheriff’s escorts, but then

discovered the equipment had not yet arrived. After a scramble, ammunition was rounded up from the Guard’s

nearby drug interdiction force to fill in for the delayed delivery.

Faced with conflicting directions and information, frustrated Guard personnel at Los Alamitos called

Thrasher at 1:15 to find out who was in charge—the LAPD or the Sheriff’s Department. When Thrasher called

Undersheriff Edmonds at about 1:20 to clarify the chain of command, the general learned for the first time that his

troops were still waiting for equipment. “Everything that could go wrong did go wrong with the National Guard

deployment,” says Richard Andrews of OES. “For whatever reason, there was not accurate, consistent information

12 Terrance Manning interview with writer, March 28, 2000. Subsequent comments by Manning are from the same

interview. 13 At around 10:00 a.m., Chief Gates finally accepted two platoons of about 112 deputies from the Sheriff’s Department, and

put them to work making arrests in South Central. 14 Delk later noted that the question about when to deploy did not slow down the actual mobilization.

This document is authorized for use only by Julie Cavanaugh in CJ-510-Q4489 Ethical Leadership-CJ 20TW4 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2020.

HKS Case Program 8 of 26 Case Number 1588.0

being provided up the chain of command within the National Guard as to what was going on. There were a lot of

people, Thrasher in particular, who were blindsided at almost every turn.”15

Delk, meanwhile, got two platoons ready to go by 1:30 p.m., but they didn’t leave Los Alamitos until

2:35—mainly because the Sheriff’s Department changed their mission. “We had never done anything with the

Guard, so the question was, ‘What are we going to do with them?’” recalls Sheriff’s Lieutenant Dennis Beene, who

was helping coordinate operations out of the county EOC. “Our platoon commanders out there had no idea how to

make use of these resources coming in. We’d never really trained together, never really talked together. What can

they do? It became a problem.”

The awkward and delayed deployment of the National Guard exacerbated mounting tensions over how

well the mutual aid system was working. During the early afternoon, Governor Wilson and other officials began to

call Thrasher, demanding to know why the Guard troops were not yet on the streets. “There was really no excuse

for their not moving faster in a time of what appeared to be genuine crisis, particularly in light of what it was that

held them up,” the former governor asserts. “I mean, the ammunition snafu—to me—was stupidity.”16 During a

conference call shortly after 2:00, officials finally agreed that the sheriff’s Emergency Operations Center would

coordinate National Guard missions, as dictated by the mutual aid plan. The group also agreed that troops should

be sent out even if they hadn’t installed lock plates on their M16s.17 The risk of misusing the guns appeared small

compared to the danger posed by the growing chaos in South …

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