A Weekend to Remember--For Events and Non-Events : A round of applause to a whole community--then back to work

Perhaps it’s not wholly inappropriate to suggest that Los Angeles take at least a bit of a rest from the now well-established routine of self-deprecation, self-criticism, self-doubt and sometimes even psychological self-destruction to pause for a moment (however fleeting) of self-appreciation and perhaps even self-congratulation.

Well, perhaps just for a moment? In fact, how about a quick round of applause for everybody, before everybody goes back to work?

A round of applause to all who helped preserve the peace this weekend, to the eminently sensible verdict of a hard-working jury that took seriously its responsibility to achieve, on behalf of the larger community, a measure of true justice in the Rodney King beating case.

To all the officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, who reminded a citizenry that perhaps had forgotten how well police work can be done.

To Police Chief Willie L. Williams, for reminding citizens of what it is like to have someone in charge who knows what he has to do, knows how to do it, goes about it professionally and with a minimum of fuss, and leaves everyone involved with the sense of an almost serene but visibly determined purposefulness. What a change from his predecessor’s irresolute performance of a year ago.

To the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and Sheriff Sherman Block, for an admirable spirit of cooperation and an impressive contribution to the maintenance of public order.

To Gov. Pete Wilson and, yes, Mayor Tom Bradley, and to the California Highway Patrol and the state National Guard, for the preparation, planning and readying that added to the general sense that no matter what might happen, the public would be protected.

THE NEW COMMUNITY POWER: And a standing ovation, too, for the terrific work of so many neighborhood and community organizations, which (some for the first time) worked productively and closely with the authorities to ensure order. May we all dare to hope that this level of cooperation is the first sunny symptom that the philosophy of community policing is starting to take hold?

Applause as well to the talented community leadership that emerged to regional visibility from many of our sometimes troubled neighborhoods, whether in South-Central Los Angeles, Pico-Union or Koreatown. Need some names? How about the ebullient The Rev. Cecil Murray, pastor of the First AME Church in Central L.A.? Or Carlos Vaquerano of the Central American Refugee Center, the assistance group known as CARECEN. Or lawyer/activist T.S. Chung, one of the many leaders in Koreatown to surface to prominence since last year’s disaster.

Have we left anyone out? You bet--hundreds, maybe thousands. Since last spring’s riots, new, community-based leadership has bloomed in this region.

Perhaps drawn into the vacuum created by the failure of government to bring the city together, it now bodes to become the new unofficial political framework of the city--a community-to-community network of relationships, potentially aided and abetted by a police force that now perhaps can begin to view the community as an ally instead of an enemy.

A NEW POLICE RESPECT: Let it also be said, firmly, that the guilty verdict on Saturday was not a verdict on all police officers but only on two of them. That our police, faced with mounting crime and ever more heavily armed criminals, are confronted with a tense and testing assignment day in and night out. That if there is anything we the people of Los Angeles can do for our police now, after this weekend’s exceptional work and the general sense of recovery engineered by Chief Williams and his high command, it might be this:

* Let’s treat our officers, men and women, with the respect they deserve for the difficult job they do;

* Let’s trust Chief Williams and his team to deal firmly, promptly and fairly with the few bad apples that always threaten to poison any police-department barrel.

* And let’s pass Proposition 1 on Tuesday to give the department 1,000 more officers for the paltry price of $73 extra property-tax dollars per property-owner per year. The measure needs two-thirds approval to pass--an almost impossible standard. It will need every single possible vote. Even if you are prepared to vote for absolutely no one or nothing else on Tuesday, go to the polls and vote for Proposition 1. You just know by now that Chief Williams will use your $73 well.