By Sean Malloy
Outgoing Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates has turned the arrest of Damian Williams into a media show, symbolising that Los Angeles is back under police control.
Williams is one of three people accused of attacking Reginald Denny, the truck driver being beaten in the video that was shown repeatedly on news services.
"I wanted very much to personally arrest him, I did it all by myself with the aid of about 200 police officers and the FBI", said Gates.
It is certain that Williams and his co-accused will not receive the same treatment for their trial as the Los Angeles Police Department officers who assaulted Rodney King.
The trial of the LAPD officers was moved from Los Angeles, where the atrocity took place, to Simi Valley, an 80% white suburb and home to at least 2000 Los Angeles County police.
The jury was composed of 10 whites, one Latino and one Asian. At least two jurors were relatives of police. The defence lawyers portrayed King as a dangerous aggressor and the police as the threatened victims.
In the aftermath of the riots, the LAPD, the courts and the California state government are stepping up their harassment of peoples of colour and the poor.
The California legislature, in emergency session during the uprising, passed a bill extending the time limit for arraignments from 48 hours to seven days. If the bill had not been passed, about 6000 of the 11,000 people arrested would have been set free.
Monica Moorehead of the US newspaper Workers World writes that in the case of African American and poor detainees, the courts have set bail for most at the exorbitant figure of US$5000 for felony burglary charges. Some bails are as high as US$25,000 for attempted murder.
Michael Demby, head deputy public defender, said of the arrests, "They're calling them burglaries but in some cases it's people who came out of a grocery store with food, or parents in the area looking for their children".
The police arrested many people for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to Moorehead. The pending cases are expected to take months and probably years of trials, jail and probation, costing millions of dollars.
In the African American community, police have been going door to door, often demanding receipts for any items that look new.
Joe Maizlish, through the Pegasus network, reports from Los Angeles for May 9 to oppose cuts in Aid to Families with Dependent Children was stopped by police at the last moment.
"The street was sealed off by hundreds of officers", writes Maizlish. "Few people other than the organisers had arrived, some of the public left, others were arrested while in the process of leaving, a few while trying to move their cars away, some while being interviewed by TV or speaking with other police.
"A total of 14 were arrested and taken to the nearby Parker Center; the women in the group were then transferred to the women's city jail facility 20 miles away.
"Among the arrested were two women who had nothing to do with the rally — they were on the street buying flowers for mother's day from a vendor."
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has blamed the existence of social welfare programs for the rebellion, and the Wall Street Journal said it was caused by the existence of a minimum wage.
Bush's latest proposal to "solve" inner city decay includes a "weed and seed" program, to "weed" out the drug dealers and "seed" poor neighbourhoods with business investment. He also proposes "hope" as a solution.