One of the worst places to be during the
height of the rioting here in Los Angeles
was inside a commercial building, any building,
but particularly inside a liquor store,
and that's exactly where we are, in a liquor store,
and Charles Jones is in his liquor store,
and that's where he says he will stay
until the rioting is completely over.
Remember, we're not gonna be here later, so
make sure you've got what you need.
Charles Jones opened his
Compton area liquor store, located deep inside the riot zone
knowing full well the danger.
It was inescapable.
It's been a long day.
And it could get longer.
Jones says his business was spared
because he has respect and a good relationship
with the very people in the area who are rioting.
I was happy to see my place stand.
But all around Jones' store,
other businesses, large and small, weren't so lucky.
(horns honking, sirens)
We watched a stunned shop owner standing by helplessly,
visibly shaken, and unable to protect his clothing store.
What can we do? Hey, hey, hey!
We thought being a black business...
Hey, put that back! We would survive it, but
like I say, what can we do?
How does it make you feel
to be here seeing this happening to you?
Well, it makes you mad, naturally,
'cause you work hard to build something up,
and you know, your own people destroy it, so--
What do you think they're after?
What is it that they're after?
At this point I don't think anyone
knows what they're after.
I think that they're just caught up in the moment.
Well, I understand the frustration
I'm sure, like everybody else, but you know, this hurts.
This really hurts.
They vandalized, they took everything.
They really trashed the store.
That was about 4:00 this morning, I came down.
All the merchandise was taken, the bars were broken,
windows were broken,
so they took things that--
Everything out. How do you feel about that?
Right now, I'm numb.
Put the fire out.
Put the fire out, put the fire out.
Business after business after business
was helpless to stop the onslaught.
If it wasn't looters, it was fire that shut them down.
(sirens)
Fire after fire after fire kept breaking out
all over the city, primarily in businesses,
and businesses which probably will not
be able to reestablish themselves
once the riot is over.
This is an extended edition of The Morning Show
and Front Page, we feel the community needs this.
A local radio station owned by Stevie Wonder
fielded a full day of calls,
as people tried vainly to make sense of what was going on.
Come on, what are we doing to our community?
Outside, now brazen looters
attacked commerce at will,
bank teller machines included.
Excuse me, what are you taking out of there?
(laughter)
What do you got, what are you taking?
Is this your store?
(laughter)
Sir, just behind you there are a dozen people
looting a shop, what's going on?
No, those are all the owners over there.
They're repairing all that stuff.
You're talking about right back here?
Yeah. Yeah, they're all
owners there. They are owners?
Yeah, we were already over there.
But in a sea of chaos, smoke and looting,
Charles Jones' store is an island.
Oh, there's tension and violence here too.
Outside in fact, a man was shot to death in his car.
Was that related to the riot, do you think?
Yeah, definitely, 'cause it was a
Korean man driving down the street,
and they shot him.
But inside, Charles and his son Michael
try to do business, if not as usual,
as close as they can get.
See, 'cause you burn me down,
I've got six other families that are depending upon me,
people that work for me.
You burn down
Harriet's Beauty Shop, she's got some operators in there,
they out of work, see?
And the residual effect
isn't gonna be felt until it's payday.
(sirens)
We're standing in midtown Los Angeles now,
several miles from South Central L.A.,
the core of this whole problem and where things started.
And as you can see behind me,
the building is engulfed in flames.
There are no firefighters around anywhere.
It's a situation that's on almost every block.
The firefighters can't even begin to answer all the needs.
(sirens)
The fire department received more than
3000 emergency calls by early this morning,
but with hundreds of blazes,
firefighters were a bit overwhelmed.
Number one, it's ridiculous what's going on.
Number two, it's tough for us to do the job
the way we're trained to do it,
'cause we're spread so thin.
Captain Kephart has been on the job
since the riots began.
He says there were very few victories
as arsonists blackened the city.
Well, a lot of guys here are gonna see more fires
today and tonight than they've seen in 10 years.
We've fought four fires already
in 4 1/2, five hours.
Oh my gosh.
It's crazy.
But that's not all that's crazy.
Firefighters usually seen as the Red Cross of flames
have become the target of violence,
even though they obviously had nothing to do
with the Rodney King verdict.
Still they've been besieged by rocks and bottles,
and in some cases, gunshots.
It's the first time in 14 1/2 years
that I've never felt like--
We've always been the good guys.
People always want--
It's the first time in my career that I've ever felt like
a lot of these people aren't happy to see us here
and it's unfortunate.
As many as 1000 fires
ravaged areas of Los Angeles,
and dark plumes of smoke striped the sky a whiskey brown.
Travelers flying into the city could see smoke
as far as 70 miles away.
Battalion Chief, Duncan Baird,
shook his head in disbelief
as he surveyed some of the damage.
Targets included furniture stores and corner delis,
markets and video shops.
The fires quickly spread to homes.
I'm guessing there's probably
30 or 40 apartments in there,
and those people are gonna be out of a home,
and it's really sad.
And as one of the structures collapsed,
Baird seemed resigned to the partial futility of it all.
This building's probably gonna burn to the ground.
If and when it does, or we're able to put the fire out,
then we'll just have to move on.
We'll be reassigned to another fire somewhere else.
Many of those fighting the flames
are longtime veterans of the department,
men like Battalion Chief John Gamaret,
who fought fires during the Watts Riot in 1965.
Well, I was here during the original Watts Riots,
and it's much worse now.
I think more structures are burned,
it's more widespread, there's more looting,
and there's more hostility.
And how is Gamaret dealing with the
overwhelming situation?
Well, it's just part of the job.
It's just something you have to do
and you try to isolate yourself.
What's going on right now isn't right.
(sirens, horn blowing)
36 teams of firefighters
from cities around California
were en route to help the county's 1700 firefighters,
but that news didn't seem to bolster the exhausted troops.
It's a holocaust, that's all you can say.
Hopefully it won't last long.