King riot’s impact still questioned

Friday, April 26, 2002 | 10:59 a.m.

That night Tahisha James was a 15-year-old girl in love.

She talked to her boyfriend, who had said he wanted to marry her, then settled in to watch the final episode of NBC's "The Cosby Show." It was interrupted several times by news updates. A riot had broken out in West Las Vegas, and she watched as Nucleus Plaza burned.

The next morning James was grieving the death of her boyfriend, Isaiah Charles Jr., 18, who died in the fire she had watched on TV. Three days later she found out she was pregnant with his baby.

James, now a 25-year-old married mother of four, says the riot of April 30, 1992 has receded from much of the community's memory.

"I was surprised when a reporter called and wanted to talk to me," she said. "I haven't heard anything in 10 years about the riot. I don't think too many people give much thought today to what happened then."

James still questions what happened to Charles and whether the official report is really the truth. She, like many others in the community, has questions about what actually happened that night and what has happened since in West Las Vegas, a community that erupted in violence after four white Los Angeles police officers were acquitted in the case in which they were caught on tape beating Rodney King.

Despite lingering questions, 10 years after the riot the community has in some ways healed from the damage done.

In the past decade, West Las Vegas has rebuilt and has seen an influx of businesses and homeowners, and the predominantly black community has become more diverse.

The Metro Police Department, criticized in the black community for the way it handled the riot, has worked to reduce racial tension in the area and has become more integrated.

But civic leaders and critics say that although they've come a long way, there's still more to do to prevent anything like the riot from happening again.

April 30, 1992 was a night of unprecedented violence that led to untold millions of dollars of property damage in the city.

That night, police answered more than 9,700 calls and firefighters responded to more than 300. Police and fire crews were often pelted with rocks or fired upon by snipers.

Two people were killed -- Charles and 43-year-old Will Penegraph, who was shot -- and 111 people were arrested.

There are theories as to why it happened -- community activists say it was a response to years of police aggression; police say a handful of troublemakers took advantage of the situation; and some say it was a mix of economic and social pressures that boiled over.

In the aftermath, the community has been left with the difficult task of picking up the pieces.

Slow pace of change

From mid-1997 to mid-2000, the city spent $29.8 million to improve the area, including $22.2 million in housing development and $4.9 million in public buildings that included community centers, day care centers, a 45-000-square-foot vocational trade center and the Las Vegas Business Center.

Other new structures include the Andre Agassi Charter School and a new Department of Veterans Affairs clinic.

Nucleus Plaza, the site of Charles' death, burned down but was rebuilt, and some commercial firms and a bank moved in. Former pro basketball star Magic Johnson built a complex across the street, where a Vons grocery store serves the community. Other major businesses, including a McDonald's, have come to the area.

But Trish Geran, a West Las Vegas historian and award-winning filmmaker, said West Las Vegas, though rebuilt, is still struggling economically.

Despite good intentions, the community's commercial district has been dominated by social services, she noted, such as welfare offices, low-cost health offices and vocational training.

"I'm not saying the African-American community does not need the social service offices -- it does," Geran said. "But to rebuild it that way limits us more and more. Assistance service agencies do not promote independence, but rather dependency.

"Businesses like pharmacies, hardware stores and even nightclubs promote independence. Revenue-generating businesses are what we need most."

Geran, whose award-winning documentary "The Other Side of the Coin" about blacks in West Las Vegas featured 1992 riot footage, said planners at City Hall didn't get much input as they set about rebuilding West Las Vegas.

Take, for example, the area of Owens Avenue near Jimmy Gay Park, which serves as a gateway to West Las Vegas, she said. It was redone in desert landscaping.

"No one asked the city to spend $10,000 on a rock," Geran said. "The money would have been better spent putting lights in Jimmy Gay Park, so it can be used at night."

Sharon Segerblom, director of the city of Las Vegas Neighborhood Services Department, takes exception to the idea that development in West Las Vegas has been superficial.

"It is incomprehensible that anyone can say that the improvements are cosmetic when 1,000 residential units have been built and when major businesses have come to the area," Segerblom said. "There have been big Public Works projects, including $10 million spent along Washington Avenue, and job training services.

"Today, people live in West Las Vegas by choice. There is home ownership. We have built the roofs -- the businesses will come."

In fact, Census figures show that home ownership in the neighborhood that includes the Nucleus Plaza increased between 1990 and 2000 from 29 percent to 35 percent. More dramatically, the percentage of vacant structures sunk from 19.3 percent in 1990 to 7.4 percent in 2000.

The neighborhoods also have become more diverse. About 91 percent of the residents in 1990 were black, 7 percent white and 4 percent Hispanic. In 2000 black residents made up 72 percent of the population, whites 14 percent and Hispanics 16 percent, the census found.

The city of Las Vegas, working with a citizens committee, has put together the West Las Vegas Neighborhood Plan 2001-06 that calls for using community assets and resources to provide solutions to today's problems, something that was not possible in have-not West Las Vegas in past decades.

Things are moving in the right direction, if slowly, state Sen. Joe Neal said.

"Right now what the area needs most is jobs," Neal said. "In that area, development has been very slow. People need to be employed and they want good jobs close to their homes."

Neal points to the progress made in nearby North Las Vegas, which he also represents. In the past 10 years the city has seen a surge in economic development, especially with warehousing along Cheyenne Avenue and Losee Road.

"There is no reason we should not see that in West Las Vegas, too," he said.

Police relations

On a broader scale, there has been a larger change with the Metro Police Department, community leaders said.

Initially, community outrage focused on police who responded.

Longtime West Las Vegas advocate Elgin Simpson maintains that most of the demonstrators were peaceful and that only a handful of opportunists among them had intentions of causing trouble.

"It was a protest over an injustice involving police, and the local police would not allow that to happen," Simpson said, calling those who rioted "mean, stupid people."

Simpson said overreaction by police had gone on for decades in West Las Vegas, and that, he said, sparked the rioting and looting.

"When you have a pot simmering and you do nothing but cover it with a lid, it will boil over, and that's what happened that night," said Simpson, who after the riot founded Community Peace, an organization that has worked to improve relations between the community and police.

Police defended their response to the riot.

"I was outraged by what was said about police to the news media and felt some people were trying to use the incident to perpetuate an agenda of lies and rhetoric," said Metro Sgt. Rory Tuggle, who was named Parade Magazine Police Officer of the Year after the riots. "Did we overreact? Absolutely not."

Tuggle organized 40 officers armed with only helmets and nightsticks in an area east of the Charleston underpass to stop a hostile crowd headed toward downtown.

"These demonstrators set fires, beat up delivery drivers and attacked reporters," Tuggle said. "We did not turn them back to riot on their own community. We did not put lit Molotov cocktails in their hands or give them guns to fire on residents and police."

But people in the community said there was a larger issue -- the black community was enraged after years of what they say was poor treatment at the hands of the police and the city's power structure.

"When you have a situation where," Simpson said, "on a daily basis, police stopped black people for no reason in their own neighborhoods and made them kneel on hot pavement in the summer, an incident like the Rodney King verdict is something that makes people stand up and say 'I've had enough. It's time for change.' "

Patrol Commander Cliff Davis, the highest-ranking black on Metro and a classmate of Sheriff Jerry Keller at the police academy 34 years ago, was transferred from Internal Affairs after the riot to start making some of those changes. The late Sheriff John Moran appointed the then-lieutenant to establish community policing in West Las Vegas.

"Before the riot, police determined how we would police the public, but after the riot we listened to what the community wanted from its police," Davis said.

Keller, who at the time of the riot was a captain in charge of keeping the peace outside the rioting area, has in his seven years leading Metro set out to build on those changes. He has instituted what he called proactive programs, including setting aside the first Tuesday of every month for all five area command stations to hear citizen issues and concerns.

"Today our department reflects the community we serve, we teach diversity at the academy and we reach out to the community," Keller said, noting that as of 2001, Metro had 242 black officers, 203 Hispanics, 63 Asians and 20 American Indians. In 1993, there were 123 black officers, 74 Hispanics, 17 Asians and 15 American Indians.

"We've made great progress and things have changed for the better," Davis agreed. "When I was an officer I was led to believe I would never achieve a rank higher than captain. Today, there are two black captains on the force."

More important than the change in complexion is the change in attitude on the force, Keller said.

"Community policing has made a difference," he said, noting a drop in drive-by shootings from 537 in 1995 to 67 last year. "There is no question the riots were a wake-up call for police, not just here, but everywhere. Things aren't perfect today, but they are improving."

Neal has noticed the changes, but would like to see more.

"Metro has gone some distance to make improvements, but there are still some cowboys who want to be prosecutor, judge and jury, and they have to be weeded out," Neal said, noting that community policing "will work only if police are mindful of the constitutional rights of black folks."

Moving on

James, who became a medical assistant, has put that night behind her. She is happy now, and plans to start school in the fall to become a registered nurse.

"I put Isaiah in the back of my mind so I can get on with my life," she said.

But when she thinks about him, the questions linger.

She wonders why Isaiah was in the building. Police at the time called him a looter, but she doesn't believe that. He called her at 8:30, and she saw the building burning on TV about that time.

"Isaiah would have had to walk into a burning building. I just don't believe he would have done that," she said.

The investigation remains open, Charles' death ruled an arson-homicide.

But when James remembers Charles, she also thinks of their child, 10-year-old Nefertia. The girl sometimes at night talks to the high school photograph of her father, and says he inspires her to do well in school and enjoy life.

"Nefertia was a blessing -- a legacy -- part of Isaiah that is with us today," James says of the second grader. "She is the spitting image of Isaiah and is outgoing just like he was. She plays football and basketball and is a little sassy."

Who will remember?

In time the 1992 riot will be forgotten, those interviewed agreed.

James said she thought the incident already was gone from the collective memory.

Geran said the history of racial unrest in West Las Vegas is filled with a half-century of forgotten incidents.

"There have been incidents of threatened civil unrest, demonstrations or riots in 1939, 1943, 1960, 1968 and 1969 -- all pretty much forgotten," Geran said.

That's OK with Tuggle.

"The lessons need to be remembered, but the incident needs to be forgotten," he said.

Economic recovery is key to making the lessons stick, Geran said.

"What probably will play a role in preventing future large riots is a sense of economic stability," she said. "The buildings are new and things are better than they were before the last riots, so people who become upset may not go so far as they did in 1992."

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