UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, June 3, 1992
11
Before L.A. riot hearings begin, some theft charges are dismissed
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — More than a quarter of the riot-related looting cases to come up for preliminary hearings
|| who made multiple arrests were have-
trouble identifying suspects.
"The main problem seems to be identifying the body in the courtroom as the person who was arrested during the riots," John Lynch, head of the district attorney's Central Trial Division, said Monday.
Of 820 cases that had gone through preliminary hearings by Friday, 227 were dismissed. In the remaining cases, 547 defendants were held for trial, and 46 changed their pleas to guilty, he said
Lynch said that he had expected more dismissals and that he was surprised by how well officers had done
in murdering suspects arrested in the chaos. In some cases, 30 or 40 people were arrested together, he said.
Some officers tagged their suspects with wristbands that matched the numbers on their arrest reports, he said. Others took Polaroids of suspects and attached them to arrest reports.
About 4,000 defendants were arraigned on riot-related charges. In addition, the city attorney has been processing some 3,000 curfew violators and misdemeanor cases.
Also Monday, more than a dozen church leaders urged African Americans to keep money in their community and promised to invest more than $6 million a week in parish funds in three African-American-owned banks.
Fifteen churches plan to set up tables Sunday for opening new bank accounts. The changes are intended to
spur economic revival in neighborhoods devastated by brioting
"We're not trying to cripple anybody. We're trying to empower our own banks," said the Rev. Edgar Boyd, whose Bethel AME Church had banked at Bank of America.
"It seemed that most Black folk have been for so long duped to understand that the white man's ice was colder," Boyd said.
Separately, U.S. Energy Secretary James Watkins said that his department was accelerating expansion of a program that deposits in minority-owned banks penalties paid by oil companies for violating price controls in the 1970s.
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Previously, $22 million was to be released nationally. Watkins said $250 million would now be made available this year, including $22 million for minority owned Los Angeles banks.
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