Mrs. Frye's Fuse

The all-white jury in Los Angeles Municipal Court leaned forward as a young deputy city attorney summed up the state's case against a Negro woman charged with impeding a lawful arrest. "If Rena Frye had not interfered with the police officer when they were trying to arrest her son Marquette," Rayford Fountain said, "all we would have today would be a hoy with a slight scar on his forehead, a boy who had experienced a slight jab to his stomach, the effects of which he probably wouldn't remember by this time anyway."

But Rena Frye, 49, did interfere when California highway patrolmen stopped Marquette, 21, on suspicion of drunken driving last Aug. 11. His brother Ronald, 22, was a passenger in the battered grey and white Buick. Hearing that her sons were in trouble, diminutive (5 ft.) Mrs. Frye came from her house near by, scolded Marquette, and asked the officers if she could take the car--which her husband needed to drive to his job. A hostile crowd gathered, and the two boys got into a scuffle with the cops. Mrs. Frye jumped on one officer's back, was dragged off, then leaped on another patrolman. Finally, all three Fryes were taken to jail. Soon every Negro slum dweller in Watts heard rumors that the family had been brutally manhandled.

Thus, though he had been ordered by the judge to confine his argument strictly to the facts of the arrest, Prosecutor Fountain, 28, insisted on adding that the fuse lighted by the Fryes turned into the five-day Watts riot that took 34 lives, cost millions in property damage, and "left a blight on our city's history that may take 50 to 100 years to erase." The prosecution contended that the patrolmen had not used excessive force on the Fryes. The defense argued that the officers' unjustifiably rough treatment of the brothers excused Mrs. Frye's actions.

After deliberating 31 hours, the jury found Mrs. Frye guilty. Sentencing, which could amount to a one-year prison term plus $1,000 fine, was deferred pending appeal. She and her sons--Marquette was convicted of drunken driving, malicious destruction of property and battery; Ronald of impeding an arrest--never saw their Buick again. It was towed away after their arrest, and by the time they were able to find it the storage charges exceeded the value of the car.

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