Residents Seek Return to Normality : Community: From Santa Ana to Newport Beach, relief is voiced despite disagreements on the outcome’s fairness.

Some were worried. Some were not. Some were not sure justice had been done.

But the most common reaction was relief, and the most common wish was for a return to normality.

“I am glad it is over,” said Henry Yaldizcian, a Laguna Niguel jewelry store owner. “I was scared.”

Yaldizcian was among the score of passengers, pilots and workers at John Wayne Airport who crowded around a television set at 7 a.m. Saturday to hear the verdicts in the Rodney G. King federal civil rights trial.

The group went silent, and after the two guilty verdicts were read, they remained still. “Wow,” someone finally said.

“I’m glad they got two of them,” said Phil Willie, 33, of Anaheim, who was waiting for a flight to Seattle. “I think that any (police officer) who hit him should have been guilty.”

Yaldizcian said that last year he had wept in anger over the rioting. “Because I am in the jewelry business, I was scared. We are the first targets” of looters, he said. “Last week when we thought the verdicts were coming, all of us were ready to take our merchandise and leave.”

Now? “I don’t worry. Nothing will happen.”

In a jewelry store in Santa Ana’s 4th Street Latino shopping district, Marta Sanchez said it seemed people were staying home that morning. The usual sidewalk bustle was absent.

She said that all morning, Spanish-language radio stations had been urging people to remain calm, and “most of the customers who came in today expressed concern about the verdicts and the possibility of trouble.”

“I was anxious,” said Juan Jose Chavelas, 31, a musician who got up early to hear the verdicts. “But I was happier that the two men were found guilty. I’m hoping, and I know a lot of other Latinos here on 4th Street and in Orange County are hoping, that everything will remain peaceful.”

At Disneyland, visitors were not about to let possible turmoil spoil a trip to the “Happiest Place on Earth.”

“I was a little worried about the outcome, but life goes on,” said Viola Martin of Chicago. “It wasn’t going to stop me from having my vacation.”

Such lack of concern ruined the plans of 17-year-old Andrew Durben of West Covina. He was stuck in 30-deep lines at the Knott’s Berry Farm ticket booths. “I was hoping that nobody would be here because they’re scared to come out,” he complained.

Some were not so glib.

“I wasn’t going to come down if they were found innocent,” said Jean Oslowski of Hemet, who was attending a trade show in Anaheim. “I was scared to death that something was going to happen.”

Donald Adam of Long Beach was in San Juan Capistrano after having driven his family there to spend Friday night.

“We drove down after we heard that a verdict might be ready,” Adam said. “There was no way we were staying in Long Beach after all that ugliness last year. (Rioters) burned down a store right down the block from our house. It was terrifying.”

Outrage from some Orange County residents made its way onto the radio talk shows. A woman who identified herself as the wife of an Orange County police officer called former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates’ radio talk show to say: “This is a total injustice to Stacey Koon.” He was just doing his job, she said.

A caller from Fullerton said the guilty verdicts were merely a “politically correct” gesture to appease people and avoid further rioting.

At a bus stop in Garden Grove, Diane Griffin, 33, now a Garden Grove resident who had fled Los Angeles after last year’s rioting, said she hoped that appraisal was not true. “I would like to think (the jurors) would make a decision because it was right in their hearts, and not for political reasons.”

Vera Moody, 82, of Costa Mesa was waiting for a train in Santa Ana and said she sympathized with jurors. She had been a juror in 1932 during a controversial trial of six rioters. Saturday’s verdicts “will appease many people. I really feel that was a consideration. But it was worth it to quiet everything down.”

But were the verdicts fair? The opinions covered the entire range.

“We have to give black people their rights too,” Yaldizcian said. “There is no reason to beat up blacks in the street because of their skin color. Overall, I hope that something good can come of all this.”

“I don’t think they were guilty,” said John Hong, 17, an employee at a cosmetics store in Garden Grove’s Koreatown. “I didn’t think that Rodney King’s race was the basis for the beating. The police officers were just trying to keep the peace.”

“I just can’t believe that someone could sit and listen to the evidence and not realize it was excessive force, unjust and racially motivated,” said Loretta Garcia, a teacher from Northern California.

She and friend Flora LeeGanzler were waiting in Santa Ana for the train home. “I’m pleased,” LeeGanzler said. “Probably justice was done. Maybe the city can get on with the healing.”

“A jury of 12 men and women made the final decision and I don’t think we should second-guess them,” said Bich Le, 30, of Westminster, a customer in a Little Saigon sandwich shop. “I think many of us wanted to see all four officers convicted, but I think that’s our heart talking.”

“I didn’t care how it turned out,” said Miriam Chaviano, 16, of Bell, who was spending the day in Buena Park. “I just hoped there wouldn’t be any more trouble.”