See The Sideshow Chief

FLANKED BY 200 OTHER POLICE AND FBI AGENTS, INcluding a shotgun-toting swat team -- and TV camera crews, to be sure -- police chief Daryl Gates elatedly joined in the arrest of three suspects wanted for the beating of truck driver Reginald Denny at the outset of the Los Angeles riots. Leading the 2 a.m. raid into South Central with flak jacket and side arm, Gates personally collared one of the suspects, Damian Williams, whose nickname is "Football," and escorted him into a squad car. "Chief Gates, you're going!" Williams told the retiring police chief, according to what Gates recounted later. The chief must have thought he was in a made-for-TV movie. "Yes, Football," he snarled back, "but you're going first!"

In the showboating raid, police also captured two other alleged members of a black gang called the 8-Trey Crips: Henry Watson, 27, known as "Kiki"; and Antoine Miller, 20, known as "Twan." A fourth man, Gary Williams, 33, suspected of lifting Denny's wallet, turned himself in. The 8-Trey Crips are alleged to be the turf lords of the intersection where millions of TV viewers -- in a grim mirror image of the videotaped Rodney King beating -- saw truck driver Denny stomped into unconsciousness. "The department was very, very concerned about our inability to reach Mr. Denny," Gates said after the arrests. "We are hopeful that this will atone for some of that."

The four were among about 2,000 felony suspects detained since the riots, many of them identified by means of videotape evidence being amassed by the FBI. The federal agency is acting as a clearinghouse for an estimated 380 hours of videotape and preparing a "master" of the rioting for use by seven other law-enforcement agencies. Controversy over the videotapes erupted when most TV stations and the Los Angeles Times, among other papers, balked at handing over any subpoenaed outtakes or other film that had not been aired or published.

As local self-help groups struggled to clear the rubble in South Central and Peter Ueberroth, chairman of a newly formed Rebuild Los Angeles Committee, sought to persuade Japanese as well as U.S. companies to re-enter the sadly charred inner city, units of the 10,000 U.S. troops that had quelled the riots gradually withdrew. Army and Marine Corps regulars pulled out, on the proviso that the Marines would maintain a "rapid reaction" force capable of returning to the streets on three hours' notice. Some National Guard units also started to withdraw, leaving 6,000 Guardsmen still on patrol.

The sickened city, however, remained touched by submerged tension as a court ordered a retrial for L.A.P.D. officer Laurence Powell on the leftover charge of excessive force, the only count not dismissed by the Simi Valley jury in the Rodney King trial. The judge also invited the prosecution and defense to present their arguments this week on the possibility of returning the trial to Los Angeles.