Jackson Visits Valley to Boost Support for Police Reform : Politics: The minister stops at the King beating site to pray for ending injustice. He condemns officers for leaving riot areas.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, in Los Angeles on Saturday to campaign for Charter Amendment F, the police reform measure on Tuesday’s ballot, took a side trip to Lake View Terrace, where he prayed for an end to injustice at the spot of the Rodney G. King beating.

“Keep hope alive,” Jackson urged about 100 people who gathered to see him. “Vote for F. Vote for freedom.”

Elsewhere in the San Fernando Valley, candidates for state and federal offices walked precincts and attended rallies in last-minute campaign efforts.

Jackson started his day at the First AME Church in Los Angeles, which has been a rallying point of relief efforts for people harmed by the riots that followed the April 29 not-guilty verdicts in the trial of four police officers charged in the King beating.

He stopped at supermarkets and shopping centers in South Los Angeles and other areas on his way to the Valley to stump for Charter Amendment F.

Jackson’s Lake View Terrace appearance at a “Get Out the Vote” rally, sponsored by the Valley Branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the Coalition for Police Accountability, was low-key.

“I only found out yesterday that he was coming here,” said the Rev. Dudley Chatman, past president of the Ministers’ Fellowship of the Greater San Fernando Valley, who appeared on the stage with Jackson and other northeast Valley community leaders.

“If I’d known Sunday and announced it at my church, this whole area would be filled,” added Chatman, pastor of the Community Baptist Church of Pacoima.

A Jackson spokesman said the Valley stop was added to Jackson’s agenda only two days ago at the behest of Jose DeSosa, president of both the Valley branch and state NAACP.

“I feel very safe among you because I see five cameras,” joked Jackson, who received a standing ovation from the crowd, most of whom were seated on the grass.

He said the beating of truck driver Reginald O. Denny by four black men during the riot should not be equated with that of King.

“Neither should have happened,” he said. But, Jackson said, “the police should have been protecting Denny from the mob.” In King’s case, he added, “the police were the mob.”

He condemned Los Angeles police for retreating from the area when the riot first began. “Those who left their post should be sued and Daryl Gates should be fired,” Jackson said.

He urged the crowd to vote for the police reform measure, which would limit the powers of Los Angeles’ chief of police, “to make the chief more accountable to the people.”

After his talk, Jackson led the crowd in several cheers, including “Down with dope, up with hope,” “Stop the violence, save the children” and “Turn pain to power, seize the power.”

“I thought he was on target,” Chatman said. “People of all races have to get together. We need to turn pain into gain.”