The Injured and Their Injuries

The findings and recommendations listed below are policy and program related. Data on injuries or deaths, and their cause, is not summarized. Studies are being undertaken or are recommended to provide definitive data. Sections in this report on prehospital and hospital care contain additional recommendations that cover field medical care and patient transport. Finding 1: Civil disturbance data available for this study appears to confound non-civil disturbance related with disturbance hospital data. Recommendation 1: The CDC and LADHS hospital records study should be completed. The proposed methodology should fully address how many people came to hospitals with civil disturbance related injuries compared to those coming with typical emergency department complaints. Finding 2: community health care services. C There is little if any data on morbidity and mortality caused by the loss or serious reduction in community health care services. Recommendation 2: The CDC epidemiology study should include an element that investigates the level of morbidity and mortality, if any, associated with the JOSS of community health care 'services. Finding 3: There are strong parallels between this event, the 1965 Watts Riots, and other similar disturbances. It would seem that many of the underlying factors that cause them are known. What is not known is why the policies recommended to reduce the chances of their reoccurring failed to stop this one. Were the recommendations inappropriate, ignored, impossible to implement, too costly, or unrelated to their goal? Are there additional factors unique to this event and our times that need to be addressed? Recommendation 3: The CDC epidemiology study should thoroughly investigate the relevance of the earlier studies for understanding what happened in South Central Los Angeles, and update them with additional findings. The study should extend to a policy evaluation to determine what did or did not work in efforts to prevent such disturbances. It should also look into the possible contribution of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to raising community tensions after the civil disturbance due to the denial of disaster aid to 50% to 60% of the victims (Los Angeles Times, January 11, 1993). Finding 4: Police did not use chemical crowd control and other non-lethal violence to stop the civil disturbance. Recommendation 4: A review should be made of LAPD crowd control methods and strategies to determine if chemical crowd control and other non-lethal methods could have ended the event sooner, and reduced looting and violent acts. Police Chief Willie L. Williams has in fact begun such a review (Sacramento Bee, January 12, 1993a). Finding 5: When compared to the 1965 Watts Riots, there were significantly fewer deaths attributable to law enforcement. Recommendation 5: The CDC epidemiological study should determine the reason for this difference. Finding 6: Curfews are effective when law enforcement personnel are available to enforce them. The time that the curfew is imposed is also important. Waiting until sundown could result in additional injuries and deaths. Recommendation 6: Law enforcement should have plans in place for the rapid mobilization of personnel as a curfew is imposed. This fact should be widely disseminated to the public. A curfew should be implemented as soon as sufficient law enforcement personnel are available, consistent with the judgment that a significant level of violence and looting will occur without it. Finding 7: Media coverage may have played the role of contagion, in the sense that people who were ready to loot or riot were more motivated to do so when they saw that there was little law enforcement. It may have also frightened people who were not inclined to loot to do so when they saw that their grocery store was vulnerable. On the other hand, it also played a critical role in providing information about the event to citizens who wished to avoid getting caught up in the violence, and for response planning. Recommendation 7: There should be expanded Positive media coverage of ethnic community activities, including Anglos living there, that are not gang or drug bust related. Emphasis should be placed on how these communities relate to and are part of the larger community (Kerner, 1968).

Medical Care for the Injured

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