The riots shook up much of the police department and the city's leadership. But what changes have you observed within the South Central community? For instance, has the community organized itself to prevent another riot from happening? Have the tensions between the LAPD and South Central residents subsided?

Lou Cannon responds:

Many changes have occurred in South Central since the 1992 riots, some of which are described in the final chapters of my book, "Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD." The demographics of this vast area are changing, with a significant increase in the Latino population and a lesser increase of Asians. Meanwhile, the proportion (and actual numbers) of African Americans have declined, accelerating a trend that began before the riots. While the promised corporate investment in rebuilding South Central failed to materialize, small businesses have led an economic resurgence as Southern California has emerged from its worst economic downturn since the Depression.

My interviews with persons of all races and ethnic groups suggest that relationships between the LAPD and South Central residents have significantly improved, although they are far from ideal. African Americans have told me that police hassling of black males has declined. Police officers say they are receiving increased cooperation in minority communities. Because of community policing, an essential recommendation of the Christopher Commission that investigated the LAPD after the Rodney King beating, residents throughout the city have more routine contact with the LAPD, which is desirable. Community policing requires manpower (which means women, as well as men), and the LAPD was notoriously short-handed for years. At the urging of Mayor Richard Riordan and Police Chiefs Willie Williams and Bernard Parks, the LAPD has added 2,000 officers, making community policing possible. LAPD training has improved, both in martial arts training to subdue resistant suspects without harming them and in diversity training. The City Council has belatedly granted the department a variety of non-lethal weapons, and pepper-gas spray rather than the metal baton has become the preferred method of subduing resistant suspects. Chief Parks, a 30-year LAPD veteran and an African American, has provided strong leadership of the department.

I know of no way that the community can "organize itself to prevent another riot from occurring," to use the language of your question. The riots were not organized (except in a limited way by some gang members once the LAPD abandoned the riot epicenter), and the majority of people in South Central did not participate in them. Civil disorders occurred in a number of cities in protest to the verdicts in Simi Valley in which three officers accused of using excessive force against Mr. King were acquitted and another officer acquitted of all but one charge. In most cities, the disorders were promptly quelled. The principal reason they were not quelled in Los Angeles was that the LAPD did not act quickly to stop the riots at their inception, as their doctrine dictated.

But while the city's many and varied communities lack the means to prevent a riot, they can influence attitudes through dialogue and neighborhood action. Currently, Los Angeles is struggling to reform a complex and outmoded city charter with the goal of giving ordinary citizens a greater say. In another promising development, Mayor Riordan has named Joe Hicks, one of the city's ablest community activists and an African American, to head the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, an underfunded and neglected body that had become dormant.