Police Response to Fan Riot

* Re “Probe of Staples Melee Ordered,” June 21: How comforting it must be to know that if you wish to loot, vandalize, run riot, commit arson, terrorize passersby and destroy public and private property, you will not be challenged by the police. God forbid, though, if you should own a business in these precincts or are trying to flee with body and soul intact; then you’re on your own, pal.

A city hierarchy that condones these activities and inhibits police officers from performing their duty to protect life and property deserves to be swept from office. The image of Chief Bernard Parks standing by, unable or unwilling to take decisive action, is very unsettling.

ARNOLD M. HERR

Los Angeles

* The police acted properly. They were to be criticized regardless.

There are enough videos and photos to locate the perpetrators of the riots. Apprehend them, and make an example for those hooligans in the future. Make them pay for the damages.

NICK NELL

Los Angeles

* When is everyone going to stop trying to be so politically correct and put the blame for the LAPD problems where they belong. Chief Parks ran the internal affairs division and was the head of operations for LAPD during the time that the Rampart Division’s criminal behavior (it is more than a scandal) was taking place.

Now, Parks is being commended by, among others, Mayor Richard Riordan, for showing restraint while police cars and television vans were being burned, players and fans were being forced to remain in Staples Center for over two hours due the situation outside and innocent people in cars were being threatened as they attempted to drive down the streets of Los Angeles. The issue isn’t whether the actions of the police were reasonable, but whether police were properly prepared for an incident that everyone (except the chief and the mayor) knew was going to occur. It is clear they were not.

JOHN STILLMAN

Newport Beach

* Parks and Riordan stated that the LAPD’s plan worked. How long after the chaos ended did they concoct this “plan”? It was obvious that the LAPD screwed up, but neither Parks nor Riordan will ever admit this. Was this a preview of the Democratic convention?

DAVID REYNOLDS

Los Angeles

* I was fortunate enough to attend the game on Monday night. For those who did not have tickets, the outdoor TV was a great idea and not the cause of the problem. The problem was lack of preparation.

One block east of Staples Center, there was absolutely no police presence, no traffic direction, nothing. People were rocking and hitting cars, drinking on top of cars, blocking the streets and leaving their cars abandoned, and exiting fans and everyone else were in total gridlock.

It could have been so easily avoided, by planning and establishing traffic details in advance. While there is no excuse for vandalism, avoiding the situations that get people angry--and being stuck in a crowd for a long time is one of those situations--is a good start.

CAROL CHANDLER

Westwood

* Thank you to the thousands upon thousands of fans who celebrated the Lakers’ tremendous win responsibly and with integrity. For those who view the destruction of any kind of property--be it commercial, public or otherwise--as some form of “revelry,” your behavior is egregious.

But the destruction of the glass doors at Bethesda House, the Salvation Army’s homeless shelter for families suffering with HIV and AIDS, is beyond the pale. Shame on you.

LT. COL. ALFRED VAN CLEEF

Southern California Divisional

Commander, Salvation Army

Los Angeles

* I would like to say a word in defense of the Los Angeles police officers who were in the Staples Center area during the rioting. They were faced with a hateful, large and ultraviolent mob. They are just young men and women with little more than a uniform and a badge. You can’t blame them for being frightened and attempting to avoid becoming targets. Those of us who live in the area (yes, people do live around Staples Center) were very frightened for them. We could hide in our homes, but they had to stand in the open. Even those huddling on our darkened side streets were pelted viciously with rocks and bottles. My heart went out to them. What happened Monday night sickened and disgusted all of us, but it doesn’t help to criticize these officers, who so often struggle against impossible odds to do the right thing.

RICHARD DAVIDON

Los Angeles

* Your June 21 editorial hits the mark with its message that “there has to be a reasonable middle ground between police overreaction . . . and police paralysis.” We need a few more middle-ground proposals:

The TV and press need to reach a reasonable middle ground with respect to nonstop, sensationalized hyper-coverage when the news is bad or violent and under-coverage when the news is good.

Society needs to stop coddling and making excuses for outrageous and criminal behavior. Political correctness should not condone “boys will be boys” and “mob mentality” excuses.

Our majority and minority leaders should not speak out only when their own group or property is harmed but when anyone or his or her property is harmed.

MICHAEL ARNOLD GLUECK

Newport Beach

* You ask, “But is the ‘how will it play in the press’ question interfering with police officers doing their job properly?” Perhaps, at the management level. But what is most certainly interfering with street cops doing their jobs properly is how it does play in the press, daily, led by The Times, and how it plays in the courts, daily, led by the Stephen Yagmans of the world.

What’s amazing is the fact that police officers function at all, considering the hostile environment provided by the one-two punch of the media and the legal profession.

STEVE SWITZER

Redondo Beach

* LAPD supporters, do not blame the media for the ineptitude of the Police Department after game six of the championships. LAPD’s hands are tied because of the actions of the street officers. Management is merely trying to make sure that the city is not dragged any further down the legal path it has begun to travel.

If the Police Department were the organization it thinks it can be, there would be no stories in the media and the public would not care if force had been used against the thugs on the street Monday night.

RICHARD MENA

Pacoima

* I live downtown and I am plenty mad at those twittleheads who trashed my neighborhood. Since when does celebrating include uprooting and burning trees, smashing the windows of Kaiser Bros. Oldsmobile, vandalizing all those cars and scaring so many exiting Laker fans, not to mention the stars themselves? Who wants to live in a place where this kind of jubilation erupts and the police are hogtied by fear?

I defend downtown all the time as a fun and safe place to live, but after Monday it looks like a Mad Max movie, thanks to a competitive bunch of angry, show-off yahoos.

MICKEY BYRNES

Los Angeles

* Many in the crowd outside Staples Center felt left out because they could not get in or afford tickets to the game. The postgame celebration quickly became a mini-riot and the crowd’s anger was clearly directed toward symbols of power or prestige. The limos leaving the parking lot represented prestige, the news vans and trucks represented both power and prestige, and the police vehicles clearly represented power.

The moral? Don’t go to a Lakers game in a limo, don’t draw a crowd of people who feel that they have been left out by broadcasting the game on a giant screen, don’t have news reporters making idiotic field reports in front of screaming and out-of-control fans in local sports bars or in front of Staples Center, and put the police in a more visible and active role to quell the first incident, before many incidents become a riot. By the way, congratulations, Lakers!

BLAKE P. BOYLE

Desert Hot Springs

* For those who hold a relativist worldview (“For Some a Melee, for Others Just a Party,” June 21), it seems that one man’s riot is simply another man’s party. If we’re to be honest with ourselves and the world around us, however, then what is needed is not a rationalization of the post-Laker-victory violence but an honest admission of guilt.

Those who participated in the violence simply revealed themselves as cowardly thugs without the intelligence to resist a mob mentality. What is worse, though, is that the police lacked the willingness or ability to quell the violence before it got out of hand. To prevent this from happening in the future, let’s admit the mistakes and shortcomings of all involved and work to prevent such violence from occurring again.

DARRIN MARIOTT

Santa Monica

* Dennis Prager (Commentary, June 21) “proves” his point that “black and Latino mobs” are treated deferentially by big city police by choosing the two big cities where that could arguably be true. But, dishonestly, he avoided mentioning Seattle. In that city, the police backed off from confronting a “white mob.”

I venture to say that if Prager were ever to concern himself with large assemblages of unruly people as found from London to Seattle to Vancouver to the beach cities of Florida and Southern California, his vocabulary would not include the term “white mob” to describe them. He appears to see only the darker tones. “White” is a color, too, Dennis. Incidentally, I deplore mobs of whatever color.

MANUEL H. RODRIGUEZ

Burbank

* State Sen. Tom Hayden’s statement (Commentary, June 21), “The city has more to fear from basketball fans than from environmentalists or WTO foes,” is at best simplistic. If he was trying to say that the rioters outside Staples Center were less virtuous because they had no cause, yet those rioters in Seattle (environmentalists and WTO foes) were somehow righteous because of their cause, I guess I missed something in his reasoning. People who behave in a destructive and violent manner, whatever their cause, need to suffer the consequences of their choice to act unlawfully. No excuses, no intellectual double talk, zero tolerance!

DENISE ROCKWELL (WOODS)

Venice