f:
3A
NEWS/ The Charlotte Post
Thursday, May 1, 1997
Los Angeles is still in reovery
Continued from page 1A
that late afternoon of April 29,
1992.
When it ended three days
later, 55 people were dead and
more than 2,300 injured. Some
1,100 buildings had been dam
aged or destroyed by fire, with
property damage estimated at
$1 bfflion.
And, perhaps worst of aU, the
racial ^f dividing Los Angeles
and America as a whole - was
wider than ever.
Cutting across the city’s racial
and ethnic mix, Vermont
Avenue became a key corridor
for rioters. From impoverished
South Central, they spread
north for 80 blocks to within a
stone’s throw of the fashionable
Hancock Park and Los Feliz
neighborhoods on the edge of
Hollywood.
Five years later, empty lots
and fire-damaged buildings
along that 80-block stretch are
reminders of the violence and
outrage vented on the city.
Less obvious, but no less real,
is the impact it had on the fives
of those who live and work
there.
Anger rages
Since the riots, property man
ager Jewell Anderson has had
little trouble renting commercial
space in her building at
Vermont and 83rd Street. It was
one of the few on the block left
standing after the riots.
The building was spared large
ly because of its primaiy tenant,
the Vermont Knolls Retirement
Center, where Anderson and the
elderly residents stood alone
against vandals and looters.
Their ordeal began soon after
the verdicts, when an angry
crowd smashed the glass doors
of a pet store housed in the same
building.
Mimi Adams, now 68, feared
looters would torch the store,
and the retirement center along
with it. Running into the shop,
she cfimbed atop a coimter.
“I said, ‘Please don’t set us on
fire,’” she recalls. ‘We’ve got old
folks in there, we’ve got blind
folks in there.’ One of them said
to me, ‘Lady, we’re not going to
set you on fire.”’
The rioters kept their word,
but the problems weren’t over.
Other looters burst into the
retirement center lobby, looking
for a place to stash stolen mer
chandise while they went back
for more. But residents pitched
the loot into the street. Then,
they stationed themselves at
entrances to keep the mobs out.
And with a combination of
pleading and defiance, they pre
vailed.
Though she does not approve,
Anderson at least can grasp why
things got so out of control.
“There is a need in the commu
nity for jobs,” she says. “T didn’t
appreciate what was going on,
but I understand the fhistration
that was felt. The verdicts, it
was just the straw that breaks
the camel’s back.”
Now, she notes, the economic
conditions that fueled the vio
lence are just as bad as before.
Up from the rubble
Some 30 blocks to the north
near Vernon Avenue, in a dis
trict knovm as Vermont Square,
Helen Johnson is turning empty
lots into blooming gardens.
Dining the riots, Johnson, 66,
watched with horror as her
neighborhood disintegrated. Her
local market was looted and set
ablaze. A furniture store down
the street was torched. People
were going crazy.
“It was like a nightmare, you
know, how you're seeing things
but you don’t want to believe
what you see? There was noth
ing you could do,” she says.
Since then, Johnson, a retired
school custodian, decided there
was, after all, something she
could do.
Partly in response to the riots,
she got involved in a city
improvements program, leading
a successful campaign to estab
lish a series of parks and gar
dens on vacant lots.
And commerce, along with her
plants, is beginning to blossom.
A local merchants’ association
has been formed. Where the fur
niture store once stood, a new
building houses a bank and
shops.
“I’m trying to bring fife back
into the area. It’s slow, but I
guess we’ve made a lot of
progress,” she says, as she
waters some roses. “I’m doing
this for my grandchildren and
my great-grandchildren.”
Still heading north - just past
the 10-lane concrete swath
known as the Santa Monica
Freeway, the nation’s busiest —
neighborhoods change from
mostly black to Hispanic.
Latin music blares from open
storefronts and mothers hurry
from shop to shop, their children
in tow.
Cuban immigrant Mike
Aramas sits in Botanica La Luz,
a small, spare store redolent of
herbs and scented candles. The
botanica was spared while other
shops were looted.
“God protects,” says Aramas,
smiling toward a shelf full of
religious articles.
Aramas, 62, who is black, says
he’s never personally experi
enced discrimination, but he
understands the rioters’ anger.
“The monster in the United
States was asleep,” he says. “It
woke up.”
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Continued from page 1A
The murders occurred with
in 12 miles of each other in
western York County in and
about Clover. All three victims
were strangled and sexually
assaulted.
Spann was already in jail on
charges in the Neill murder
when the third murder
I occurred on Nov. 16, 1981.
'I The first victim, Mary Ring,
I was found is her bathtub on
July 18, 1981, two months
before Neill was found on
Sept. 14.
Hays will decide if Spann’s
attorneys have gathered
enough new evidence to war
rant another trial; Ainbng the
evidence is the videotaped
confession by William Johimy
Hullitt, who is serving a life
sentence for the third murder,
Bessie Alexander, 69.
Hullitt and his brother-in-
law had a produce sales route
in the area of the deaths.
Hullitt refused to answer
questions about the Neill
killing from either the defense
or state’s attorney during tes
timony at the November hear
ing. He refused to acknowl
edge confessing to the Neill
murder.
Spann, then 19, was sen
tenced to die for the slaying of
Neill and has been on death
row for 15 years.
Blume said some blood of the
same type as Spann had been
found in the garage of Neill’s
home, but it was a common
blood type.
“So we used the DNA test to
see if any of the blood was his.
None of it is his blood,” Blume
said.
He said both the prosecution
and defense conducted inde
pendent tests.
Hays, who held a hearing on
Spann’s new trial request in
November, had planned to
rule in January, but delayed a
decision pending the outcome
of the DNA testing.
If Hays orders a new trial, it
would be up to York County
prosecutor Tommy Pope to
decide whether to retry the
case or drop charges against
Spann.
“It is all pending in front of
(Hays),” Blume said.
He said the case is not mov
ing slow, despite the delays.
“In the scheme of things it is
not moving particularly slow.
I expect a ruling sometime
soon. The judge only had the
whole thing about two weeks.
He said he wasn’t going to
rule until he got the tests.”
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