BACKGROUND: March, 1991 the nation saw, on film, five white LA police officers brutally beat a black gentleman, Rodney King.
While all of us had viewed the taped beating over and over in great close-up detail, a year later those five police officers were found not guilty by an all-white jury. That verdict was announced at 3:15 pm 29 April, 1992.
Three hours later, by 6 pm, riots were breaking out all over Los Angles, but primarily in South-Central LA. It escalated like a wild fire and the final tally was as follows: 55 killed, over 2000 injured, about $1 Billion dollars in damages ($2.2 billion in today’s value), over 10,000 rioters were directly involved in looting, burning and destruction, over 1000 buildings seriously damaged or destroyed, the fire department responded to more than 4000 fires. This was not taking place at 5th and Main, it covered an area of about 100 square miles of built-up urban terrain; by far the most difficult terrain in which to perform a military operation.
Largest riot in U.S. history.
President George H.W. Bush dispatched 1000 Federal riot-trained law enforcement officials, FBI SWAT teams, special riot control units of the US Marshals Service, Border Patrol, Bureau of Prisons personnel and other Federal law enforcement agencies. Governor Pete Wilson was on the scene full-time with a small staff. The California National Guard began rolling towards LA. On scene was the LA Chief of Police Daryl Gates and the LA County Sherriff, Sherman Block. Gathered in outlying areas was most of the California Highway Patrol. A brigade of Marines from Camp Pendleton had been alerted.
But, no ONE was in charge and there was no plan.
At about the 36-hour point, May the first at about 2 a.m. my command, 7th Infantry Division located at Fort Ord, CA about 300 miles north of LA, received a call from our military higher headquarters in Atlanta, and were told, “a military force may be needed in LA but don’t do anything yet.” Dumb order, we, by design the most rapidly deployable infantry Division in the world, immediately began to plan for a rapid deployment. Six hours later at about 0800 we received a second call, “there will be a military deployment but it will not be the 7th ID.” CNN was following everything related to the riots live and continuously. Thirty minutes later we watched President Bush, live on TV, walk into the White House Briefing Room and announce, “I have decided to deploy elements of the 7th ID to LA.” Game on.
We just happened to have two C-141 Air Force transport aircraft on the ground for deployment training at nearby Monterey airport. The “ready brigade” began immediately to move and the airlift to LAX began.
By noon I was on the ground in LA with a planning staff. All I could see and sense was chaos. And most concerning was that the California National Guard continued to stream into the city with no deployment plan in place.
No one in my chain of command up to and including General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, knew President Bush was going to make that deployment announcement. I had no guidance and never did get any. Old saying, “when in charge, take charge.”
GET CONTROL, the first essential element of planning. A dozen of the Division’s best majors (I called them my iron majors) were flown in immediately and I assigned them as my personal liaison to the Governor, Mayor, Chief Gates, Sherriff Block, Highway Patrol, all the Federal Agencies, the CA National Guard and the Marines. Before dispatching them, I looked them in the eye and told them exactly what they were to do. “You stay about 3 feet from your principal at all times and tell me everything they do, everything they say and who they communicate with. There can be only one boss of this mess and it’s me. You understand?” Their mission was to get their principal on a conference call with me at 8 a.m. every day wherein I would give them an overall assessment of the night’s activities and what was to be accomplished in the next 24 hours. Principals only on the conference call.
As if President Bush’s surprise deployment announcement at 0830 that morning wasn’t enough; he saved another one for later in the day. At 6 pm CA time, 9 pm at the White House, President Bush presented an update briefing to the nation. First topic of the speech was, “I have decided to Federalize the California National Guard.” At that moment, with those words, I became the Commander of the CA National Guard and they all became federal U.S. Army soldiers. That was actually a blessing because we immediately took charge of their rally points, established training stations (particularly to train rules of engagement) and integrated them into the overall deployment plan
The day we arrived on the scene the city was shut down, 24-hour curfew. There was no public transportation. All stores were closed. People were running out of food. I tried to make it as clear as possible that we were there to create a safe and secure environment so the city could systematically resume all operations. It worked. Community support was outstanding.
We trained hard every day and night at Ft Ord to be able to rapidly “close with and destroy the enemy.” No enemy in LA. My first task was to solve that problem. How do you tell each individual soldier what he/she can and cannot do? I wrote the Rules of Eengagement on the plane on the way down, called them back to my chief of staff who had printing people standing by. Thousands of 3×5 cards printed with the ROE were soon available; one for every soldier and marine to have in his or her breast pocket.
Soldiers flew into LAX, were loaded on the city buses and transported to an abandoned air strip in the middle of Central/South LA. Every squad leader and his or her soldiers began at the head of the strip and moved from station to station observing scenarios that were being briefed and played out to illustrate the rules of engagement. First rule, “everyone has the inherent right of self-defense”. At the end of the air strip they were issued ammunition, got back on a bus and were deployed. By the middle of the first night, we had all 12,000 trained and deployed.
KEYS TO SUCCESS:
- UNITY OF COMMAND: Decisions made often and continuously from one source. The Chief of Police, Daryl Gates was more of a celebraty than leader. I met with him the first night; his greeting, “General, we don’t need you and we don’t want you.” I won’t print my response. Sounds a little like the feelings of the Governor Newsome and Mayor Bass.
- RECOGNIZE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DELIBERATE PLANNING AND CRISIS PLANNING. In a crisis, time is the enemy. Think in terms of 24 hours ahead, constantly assess, change rapidly when required and execute in 6-hour cycles.
- DEFINE THE BATTLESPACE AND CREATE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS. From what we can see on TV, each day the agitators, looters and rioters gather in mass in designated areas then the military and first responders form up in the streets and it is one big group facing off with another. While the agitators fill the streets, they form a human barrier behind which the looters can break into and clean out the stores’ valuable merchandise.
The military is currently on defense. They need to be on the offense and take complete control of the entire battle space. In this type of situation, the only way to do that is to begin with a 24-hour curfew. Why? Two reasons.
First, a 24-hour curfew levels the playing field and provided the military with an opportunity to “organize for action.”
Put a trained and ready team of soldiers on every street corner in the area of operations. They will provide continuous near-100% situational awareness. Also, organize multiple rapid-reaction elements. They would consist of a small tactical force mounted in vehicles standing ready to react to a near-by incident in seconds.
When a group begins to gather, they will be told by the two street-corner soldiers to immediately disperse and depart the area respecting the curfew. Most will not comply. A ready reaction force will immediately engage the group and because they are in violation of a lawful curfew they should be taken down, loaded on buses and hauled off to a central processing point.
The” processing point” will need some special attention. For example, because, “most of the police are needed on the street” there will be bare-minimum manning for processing. In fact, it should take all night to do so. You get the picture. Make an example of those who disobey the law and keep them from forming up a large mass looting, destroying property, burning and attempting to harm those who oppose them.
The second advantage of the curfew is that it can be extended on a daily basis if necessary. Also, the curfew involves every person in the community. Everything is stood down. Everyone wanting/needing to get back to work will be creating pressure on the city leadership and by extension on the riot organizers to stand down.
- LEARN FROM THE PAST: Define what we are seeing on TV every day. Looks a lot like the “summer of love,” 2020, when across the nation rioters were battling law enforcement as Black Lives Matter, antifa leftist organizations and other agitator groups were gathering in the streets in cities across the nation night after night to loot, burn and attempt to harm first responders. 100 days.
BOTTOM LINE:
2025 is looking like deju vu all over again. We should do better. We can do better.
Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of two books, Vision to Execution and Fix the Systems, Transform America as well as the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.