Plus Chief Davis was outta town and the decision was made by acting Police Chief. BAD decision. It could have been stopped at Florence and Normandie.
IIRC, it was Gates who was still chief at that time and Davis was the acting chief. Either way, pretty much every decision made by city, county and police leadership was wrong that night.
I was actually visiting a friend a few blocks away from Florence and Normandy when everything went up. I had an... interesting... 60 block journey back home.