There should be no mystery as to why Richard Riordan was elected Los Angeles mayor. There was no difference between his and Michael Woo’s programs; the only proposal of both candidates to remedy the causes of the 1992 uprising was to hire more police officers. (In two referenda since then, voters have refused to raise money for more police.)
In spite of the dire warnings of 1991, nothing has been done in Washington to heal the wounded cities. More police is not the answer-that means more arrests, more trials, more prisons, more strife.
The large black and Hispanic voting blocs-52 percent of those arrested in the confrontation were Hispanic-saw no reason to vote for either candidate, and Woo’s being Asian also contributed. A sure sign of this was the fact that U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, a Democrat, who is the most powerful voice among blacks in Los Angeles, remained neutral.
The powers that be are heedlessly drifting to chaos in the cities. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Domestic fury and fierce civil strife shall cumber all the parts of America.” And time is short.
