By Andrew Edwards
Daily Bruin Contributor
Ten years ago, Los Angeles burned.
Bricks were thrown through windows. Businesses were looted. The
National Guard was deployed to protect the city from some of its
own citizens.
Millions watched Los Angeles tear itself apart on television.
Others had a closer view.
Jorja Prover, professor of social welfare at UCLA and a Los
Angeles native, was then a member of the faculty at USC.
During a course on violence in Los Angeles, a student rushed in
to announce that the police charged in the Rodney King beating had
been acquitted. Prover remembered her reaction.
“I was basically fighting back the tears,” she
said.
Later, at 7 p.m., an LAPD officer informed her that the campus
was being evacuated. Instead of leaving, she continued grading
exams before heading over to Martin Luther King Hospital.
She will never forget what she saw when she left campus.
“I walked into a warzone,” she said.
She did not see fires or violence, but the scene was one of
total disorder.
“People were running around like crazy … they were in a
state of panic,” she said.
She spent the entire night volunteering as a counselor at the
hospital’s emergency room. She would continue working there
for five days.
According to Prover, the hospital, like several South Central
churches, became a place of safety amid the violence. Many at the
hospital were not physically injured, though there were emotional
issues to address.
They needed someone to “hear their rage,” Prover
said.
Prover, who also volunteered in New York after the Sept. 11
attacks noted that the trauma in the two events was completely
different.
While New Yorkers were able to unite, in Los Angeles the source
of conflict was internal, she said.
Prover remembers that while many felt betrayed by the verdict,
people were also shocked by the scarcity of police during the
riots. They did not feel protected, she said.
Law enforcement officers on the streets had their hands more
than full.
Lieutenant Mike Kennedy, of USC’s Department of Public
Safety recalled that though the USC campus itself remained fairly
safe, the surrounding area was not.
Kennedy was the supervising officer at the scene of a drive-by
shooting just outside the campus. A man took a bullet to the groin
after the shooter missed his intended target, he said.
On Vermont Avenue, fires destroyed businesses frequented by the
Trojan community.
Some of the students, he said, “were outright
scared.”
Dennis Arguelles, assistant director of the Asian American
Studies Center, then a graduate student in urban planning and an
intern with the Los Angeles County Community Development
Commission, was one of the first at the scene of the rebuilding
effort.
It was a “devastating sight, it looked like a warzone with
the National Guard. And there was still smoke.”
Ten years later, the future of Los Angeles depends on learning
from the lessons of the past, Prover and Arguelles agreed.
Prover stressed the importance of improving the LAPD. But both
Prover and Arguelles agree that police reform alone is not enough
to prevent future unrest.
Though conditions have improved, Arguelles warned that a future
economic downturn or police scandal could trigger future
problems.
Major issues, like unemployment, still persist in South Central,
he said.
Prover emphasized UCLA students need to do more to become
involved in the community.
She suggested that simply taking a drive through South Central
would bring someone who has never been to the area closer to the
city.
For Prover, it is critical for Los Angeles to become a more
united city.
“I think it was a tragedy, but also an opportunity to put
us on notice that things have to get better, and I think they have
gotten better,” she said. “And I think they will
continue to get better.”