RIOT AFTERMATH : Some Gang Members Agreeing to a Truce : Violence: Community leaders see chance to unite youths in rebuilding effort. But police fear rivalry will be put aside only to focus rage on law enforcement.

By LOUIS SAHAGUN and LESLIE BERGER

May 6, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

Some longtime rival gang members in the Bloods and the Crips have reached a purported truce that church and community activists hope will redeem disaffected youths but that police fear signals a possible organized retaliation effort against law enforcement.

As optimistic clergymen and youth counselors spoke Tuesday of the chance to involve gang members in rebuilding riot-torn Los Angeles, warnings of planned guerrilla attacks against officers were being circulated among Los Angeles police and sheriff’s deputies and the Los Angeles County Probation Department.

“We received intelligence well in advance of the (Rodney G. King) verdict that there would be certain informal truces among gangs,” said Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Ronald Banks. “There is a belief and perception now that . . . they are directing their efforts towards police.”

Banks and other police officials said their intelligence gathering had gleaned several indications that gangs were banding together to harm police, including fresh graffiti throughout the city stating, “LAPD 187”--with “187” being a reference to the state penal code for homicide.

But gang members maintained Tuesday that they were negotiating truces because they recognized the need to set aside differences and protect each other from the police--whom they feared would unfairly target them for criminal prosecution in the aftermath of last week’s looting and arson. So far the truce effort has involved only a handful of the estimated 90,000 active gang members in the county, community activists said.

“Instead of shooting each other we decided to fight together for black power,” said a 29-year-old 74 Hoover Crip called “Oz Dog,” who openly wore red and blue clothes in a symbolic marriage of the colors that traditionally have been enough to invite fatal fire if worn on the wrong turf.

“You’re going to see a lot of red and blue together. You see it on me now, don’t you?” said Oz Dog, standing on a busy street corner in South Los Angeles.

Clergy and community activists say such a truce could be the perfect opportunity to reach out to gang-bangers, steer them away from crime and include them in jobs and training programs. One minister, the Rev. Edgar E. Boyd of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church on South Western Avenue, said his congregation plans to meet with gang members Friday to discuss including them in the rebuilding of riot-torn neighborhoods.

“They have tremendous influence and extraordinary constituencies,” Boyd said. “They demand being involved, and I support their demand.”

Immam Aziz, a Muslim leader who hosted 30 Bloods and Crips in his storefront mosque in Inglewood on Tuesday, said that “to even work together they have to not shoot each other and that is a major step.”

“They really want to come into the mainstream of the community and provide leadership because they are leaders in our community whether we like it or not,” Aziz said.

One gang member who attended the mosque meeting expressed skepticism that a truce can hold with so many grudges on the street over fallen comrades.

“It’s hard to have peace with somebody who’s caused me so much grief,” said Spud, an Inglewood Center Park Blood. But he added: “If don’t happen now, it’ll never happen.”

There was also skepticism in the Crenshaw District, where an 18-year-old Crip said bluntly, “This ain’t gonna last.”

Law enforcement authorities said that if a truce has been struck it is the motive that most concerns them, especially in light of a handwritten flyer obtained by the Police Department.

It declares “open season on LAPD” and urges gang unity in the name of King and Latasha Harlins, the black teen-ager who was fatally shot by a Korean grocer who in turn was placed on probation.

“To all Crips and Bloods,” the flyer states, “Let’s unit (sic) and dont (sic) gangbang and let it be a black thing for the little black girl and the homie Rodney King. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If LAPD hurt a black we’ll kill two. Pow. Pow. Pow.”

“We’re taking it very seriously,” said Van Nuys Division Police Capt. John Mutz. “We’re concerned with the number of guns on the street and ammunition. We’re concerned about the availability of weapons to them and threats to police officers. So it’s very real.”

A police spokesman said the department was concerned about the flyer but did not feel unduly threatened, especially with a heavy military presence in the city.

“We won’t ignore it and we’ll accept it for what it is. Somebody has put it out,” said Lt. John Dunkin. He added, “There’s really not too awfully much you can do. You can’t just go out and indiscriminately round people up.”

At the county Probation Department on Tuesday, supervisors were shown copies of a memo written by the sheriff’s emergency operation center, which warned of possible attacks against agency offices by gangs hoping to destroy criminal records. The memo also warned of planned sniper attacks against police once federal troops and the National Guard leave the city, Probation Director Barry Nidorf said.

One probation supervisor who read the document said it alleged that gang members had looted pawnshops and gun stores during the riots to stock up on weapons and ammunition, including “armor-piercing bullets.”

Nidorf said he advised his staff to take the warnings seriously and to arrange for increased police patrol. Nidorf said he was unsure of the initial source of the information, and sheriff’s officials with knowledge of the memo could not be reached.