L.A.-O.C. housing market is least affordable in U.S., Zillow says

Los Angeles and Orange counties are the least-affordable housing market in the country. And it's likely to only get worse.

That's according to new figures due out Thursday from real estate website Zillow, which found that renters here need to pay more of their income to afford a place to live than anywhere else in the country.

Adding to the affordability woes, Zillow is predicting that home prices here will climb 5.7% in the next year, outpacing likely growth in most people's paychecks.

The real estate website crunched for-sale and rent prices and incomes across 35 housing markets in the U.S. It found that a family earning the median household income of $59,424 in metro Los Angeles — defined as L.A. and Orange counties — would need to spend 47.9% of its income to afford a median-priced rental apartment, and 42.6% to afford a median-priced house. Both were the highest share in the U.S., though L.A. tied with San Francisco in for-sale housing.

Prices here have grown much faster than incomes in the last few years, said Svenja Gudell, Zillow's senior director of economic research. That's pushing L.A. housing out of reach for many.

"For people who aren't on the high end of income distribution — teachers, police officers — it becomes a real issue," she said.

Zillow's figures echo a recent study by UCLA's Ziman Center for Real Estate, which also pegged Los Angeles County as the least-affordable market in the country, and said that the rent crunch here has spread up the income ladder, to affect more middle-class households.

It's a twofold problem, economists say.

Housing prices here are high, though not as high as in the Bay Area, and comparable to New York, Washington and Boston. Those places score better on affordability measures, though, because people there tend to earn more than the average Southland resident. Median household income in the San Francisco area in the second quarter was $76,239, according to Zillow; in the L.A.-O.C. area it was $59,424.

"Los Angeles has a lower median household income than comparable cities such as New York or San Francisco but only a small difference in median rents," the UCLA report said.

Even for professionals with good incomes, buying a house in Southern California is a heavy lift, as Natalie Lohrenz sees every day.

As the director of counseling at the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Orange County, she works regularly with first-time buyers trying to purchase a home in a place where the median house cost $600,000 in July, according to CoreLogic DataQuick. Last week, Lohrenz said, she met a registered nurse with a six-figure income who was struggling to buy a two-bedroom townhouse in Irvine.

"In the majority of the country, she'd have no problem at all," Lohrenz said.

One reason California is so unaffordable, said Gudell, may ironically be that it got hit harder in the housing bust than high-cost East Coast markets. Prices crashed. Investors scooped up homes cheap. Then as the market recovered, the price of what was left surged.

"They almost overshot," Gudell said. "These California markets have these extremely high home values now, but incomes haven't kept up."

If there's good news, it's that those price gains are slowing down. Zillow projects — based on supply, income growth and other factors — that prices here will climb 5.7% in the next year, more than twice the national average. But that's barely half the pace they grew over the last year, and down sharply from the 8.7% annual jump the firm projected a month ago. Slow income growth is clearly putting a damper on demand, Gudell said.

And the places where rents are climbing fastest tend to be places with strong job growth. Zillow said rents are up nearly 20% in the last year in Santa Monica and Venice, where tech jobs have surged. Rents have fallen in more remote areas such as Lancaster and Palmdale.

That trend probably will continue, Gudell said, as the housing rebound fades and growth becomes driven more by jobs and income.

"It wasn't as much of a jobs story six months ago," she said. "Now we have a healthy job market and that's really what's driving home values."

In the long run, that's a healthy thing, said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of mortgage-tracking firm HSH.com. Price growth based on market fundamentals is a lot more sustainable than growth generated by market swings. Still, he said, it'll take awhile to work out the damage of the last few years.

"We're falling back to typical dynamics, and that should be healthier overall," he said. "But income growth, wage growth, has been pretty weak. They've got a ways to catch up."

tim.logan@latimes.com

Twitter: @bytimlogan

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

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Israeli airstrike kills 3 senior Hamas leaders

The militant group Hamas said three of its senior military leaders were killed early Thursday in an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip that also killed at least seven other people.

The Israeli military confirmed carrying out the attack in response to continuing rocket fire from Palestinian militants in Gaza.

The latest strikes appeared to mark a tactical shift on the part of Israel, which until this week had largely refrained from targeting specific Hamas leaders. On Tuesday, Israeli forces made an apparent attempt to assassinate Hamas' top military commander, killing his wife and infant son in an airstrike. Hamas said the commander, Mohammed Deif, was not present at the time.

Thursday marked a third day of renewed hostilities in Gaza after two weeks of relative calm, during which the two sides had for the most part observed a series of temporary cease-fires while holding indirect talks in Cairo. The negotiations collapsed along with the calm; there was no word on when or whether those talks would resume.

Hamas' military wing, the Qassam Brigades, said in a brief announcement that the three men killed in the southern town of Rafah were Mohammad Abu Shamaleh, Raed Attar and Mohammad Barhoum. Witnesses said Israeli warplanes fired a volley of missiles at a five-story building in the Tel Sultan neighborhood, leveling it.

Rafah was the scene of heavy fighting earlier in the Israeli offensive.

The three Hamas men killed were known to be senior members of the Qassam command structure. Attar was the local commander in Rafah, and was believed to have overseen the building of a network of tunnels in the area, and the smuggling of weapons from Egypt. Abu Shamaleh was a commander in southern Gaza, and Israel says he and Attar masterminded the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was held prisoner in Gaza for five years before being freed in a large-scale prisoner exchange.

Attar was years ago sentenced to death by the Palestinian Authority for killing a police officer, but that sentence was commuted by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The death toll in Gaza since fighting broke out on July 8 is now above 2,000. Sixty-seven people have died on the Israeli side, all but three of them soldiers.

Special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank contributed to this report.

Laura.King@latimes.com

@laurakingLAT

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

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L.A.-O.C. housing market is least affordable in U.S., Zillow says

Los Angeles and Orange counties are the least-affordable housing market in the country. And it's likely to only get worse.

That's according to new figures due out Thursday from real estate website Zillow, which found that renters here need to pay more of their income to afford a place to live than anywhere else in the country.

Adding to the affordability woes, Zillow is predicting that home prices here will climb 5.7% in the next year, outpacing likely growth in most people's paychecks.

The real estate website crunched for-sale and rent prices and incomes across 35 housing markets in the U.S. It found that a family earning the median household income of $59,424 in metro Los Angeles — defined as L.A. and Orange counties — would need to spend 47.9% of its income to afford a median-priced rental apartment, and 42.6% to afford a median-priced house. Both were the highest share in the U.S., though L.A. tied with San Francisco in for-sale housing.

Prices here have grown much faster than incomes in the last few years, said Svenja Gudell, Zillow's senior director of economic research. That's pushing L.A. housing out of reach for many.

"For people who aren't on the high end of income distribution — teachers, police officers — it becomes a real issue," she said.

Zillow's figures echo a recent study by UCLA's Ziman Center for Real Estate, which also pegged Los Angeles County as the least-affordable market in the country, and said that the rent crunch here has spread up the income ladder, to affect more middle-class households.

It's a twofold problem, economists say.

Housing prices here are high, though not as high as in the Bay Area, and comparable to New York, Washington and Boston. Those places score better on affordability measures, though, because people there tend to earn more than the average Southland resident. Median household income in the San Francisco area in the second quarter was $76,239, according to Zillow; in the L.A.-O.C. area it was $59,424.

"Los Angeles has a lower median household income than comparable cities such as New York or San Francisco but only a small difference in median rents," the UCLA report said.

Even for professionals with good incomes, buying a house in Southern California is a heavy lift, as Natalie Lohrenz sees every day.

As the director of counseling at the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Orange County, she works regularly with first-time buyers trying to purchase a home in a place where the median house cost $600,000 in July, according to CoreLogic DataQuick. Last week, Lohrenz said, she met a registered nurse with a six-figure income who was struggling to buy a two-bedroom townhouse in Irvine.

"In the majority of the country, she'd have no problem at all," Lohrenz said.

One reason California is so unaffordable, said Gudell, may ironically be that it got hit harder in the housing bust than high-cost East Coast markets. Prices crashed. Investors scooped up homes cheap. Then as the market recovered, the price of what was left surged.

"They almost overshot," Gudell said. "These California markets have these extremely high home values now, but incomes haven't kept up."

If there's good news, it's that those price gains are slowing down. Zillow projects — based on supply, income growth and other factors — that prices here will climb 5.7% in the next year, more than twice the national average. But that's barely half the pace they grew over the last year, and down sharply from the 8.7% annual jump the firm projected a month ago. Slow income growth is clearly putting a damper on demand, Gudell said.

And the places where rents are climbing fastest tend to be places with strong job growth. Zillow said rents are up nearly 20% in the last year in Santa Monica and Venice, where tech jobs have surged. Rents have fallen in more remote areas such as Lancaster and Palmdale.

That trend probably will continue, Gudell said, as the housing rebound fades and growth becomes driven more by jobs and income.

"It wasn't as much of a jobs story six months ago," she said. "Now we have a healthy job market and that's really what's driving home values."

In the long run, that's a healthy thing, said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of mortgage-tracking firm HSH.com. Price growth based on market fundamentals is a lot more sustainable than growth generated by market swings. Still, he said, it'll take awhile to work out the damage of the last few years.

"We're falling back to typical dynamics, and that should be healthier overall," he said. "But income growth, wage growth, has been pretty weak. They've got a ways to catch up."

tim.logan@latimes.com

Twitter: @bytimlogan

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

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Israeli strike kills family of Hamas military leader, reports say

Rocket fire hit Israel for a second day on Wednesday amid reports that an Israeli airstrike a day earlier had killed the wife and child of fugitive Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif.

Israel, meanwhile, called up 2,000 military reservists, according to Israeli media reports. Most part-time soldiers had been sent home after Israel withdrew its ground forces from Gaza last month.

In the wake of the collapse of the latest cease-fire and the derailing of interim talks in the Egyptian capital, the fate of Deif himself was not immediately known. The Izzidin al-Qassam Brigades, the military branch of Hamas, claimed in a tweet that he was alive and healthy, while threatening to "destroy every Zionist city" at his command.

Israel has not commented on who or what was the target of a strike Tuesday on a house in Gaza's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, which came shortly after several rockets struck southern Israel. Hamas denied responsibility for that initial volley, but claimed responsibility for dozens of rockets fired into the evening, including some longer-range strikes aimed at metropolitan areas including Tel Aviv.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that more than 70 rockets had been fired from Gaza since Tuesday afternoon.

Israel in the past tried many times to kill Deif, a famed but shadowy figure who spent decades in hiding. Hamas called for public participation in the funeral later Wednesday for his wife and child, identified by the group as a seven-month-old son named Ali. Earlier reports said the dead infant was a daughter.

Amid the resumption of hostilities, Palestinian officials reported that at least 10 people died in Gaza in overnight airstrikes. More than 2,000 Palestinians, most of them reported by the U.N. to be civilians, have been killed since the conflict broke out on July 8. On the Israeli side, the toll has been 64 soldiers and three civilians.

The resumption of heavy rocket fire took an immediate toll on daily life in southern Israel, which has been the main target of projectiles fired by militants from inside Gaza. The southern cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon canceled public events, closed their beaches, and shut down a regional college only days after it had reopened.

The United Nations said in a statement that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was "gravely disappointed" by the resumption of fighting.

The most recent chain of events spurred calls from some quarters for a hard line against Hamas. "Giving in to Hamas will only bring more fire … It is absolutely clear Israel cannot trust Hamas," Zeev Elkin, the head of the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee, told Israel radio.

Special correspondent Sobelman reported from Jerusalem and staff writer King from Istanbul.

Laura.King@latimes.com

@laurakingLAT

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

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Establishment GOP candidate defeats tea party opponent in Alaska race

In one of the final primary season fights between battling Republicans, former Alaska Atty. Gen. Dan Sullivan defeated tea party favorite Joe Miller to seize the party's nomination for a much-desired U.S. Senate seat.

Sullivan will take on Democrat Mark Begich, a first-term incumbent who glided to his party's nomination.

Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, the third major GOP candidate, trailed Sullivan and Miller throughout the night. Sullivan broke to an early lead and maintained it as votes eased their way in from Alaska's far-flung rural environs. The Associated Press projected Sullivan as the winner about five hours after the polls closed.

The stakes in Alaska's GOP primary extended far beyond the state's reach to the national efforts by the party to take over the U.S. Senate. The seat held by Begich has long been among those most sought by Republicans as they seek the six needed to wrest control of the upper house.

Eager to prevent the GOP bloodletting that accompanied the 2010 contest — Miller stunned the state by knocking off incumbent Lisa Murkowski in the primary but she won reelection with a write-in campaign — establishment Republicans rallied behind Sullivan.

On his own the best-financed of the candidates, he received additional help from conservative groups like American Crossroads and the Club for Growth, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

But Sullivan also came under a nearly $4-million barrage from an independent group, Put Alaska First PAC, a "super PAC" that received much of its funding from the liberal Senate Majority PAC, which seeks to keep the Senate in Democratic hands. (Adding another complication, a second Dan Sullivan was running for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, and won easily.)

The Democrats' fiercest hope was to hand the nomination to Miller, whom they judged the weakest candidate against Begich, or foment the sort of multi-candidate free-for-all that he kicked off in 2010. Republicans won a small victory late in the race when Miller told his fellow Republicans that he would support the party nominee, regardless of who it was — although, he said, he was confident it would be him.

Miller's improbable attempt at a political comeback was hardly a financial juggernaut; he was a distant third in campaign donations and spending among his GOP brethren. But he sought to take advantage of a late endorsement by the state's former governor, Sarah Palin, who continues to hold some sway over the tea party's ranks.

Miller hewed to their platform in the race, sending out a controversial mailer characterizing undocumented immigrants as menacing gang members. When Treadwell criticized those words in a recent debate, Miller called them "real-world stuff."

For political news and analysis, follow me on Twitter: @cathleendecker

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

2:07 a.m.: This story has been updated with results calling the race for Dan Sullivan.

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Establishment GOP candidate defeats tea party opponent in Alaska race

In one of the final primary season fights between battling Republicans, former Alaska Atty. Gen. Dan Sullivan defeated tea party favorite Joe Miller to seize the party's nomination for a much-desired U.S. Senate seat.

Sullivan will take on Democrat Mark Begich, a first-term incumbent who glided to his party's nomination.

Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, the third major GOP candidate, trailed Sullivan and Miller throughout the night. Sullivan broke to an early lead and maintained it as votes eased their way in from Alaska's far-flung rural environs. The Associated Press projected Sullivan as the winner about five hours after the polls closed.

The stakes in Alaska's GOP primary extended far beyond the state's reach to the national efforts by the party to take over the U.S. Senate. The seat held by Begich has long been among those most sought by Republicans as they seek the six needed to wrest control of the upper house.

Eager to prevent the GOP bloodletting that accompanied the 2010 contest — Miller stunned the state by knocking off incumbent Lisa Murkowski in the primary but she won reelection with a write-in campaign — establishment Republicans rallied behind Sullivan.

On his own the best-financed of the candidates, he received additional help from conservative groups like American Crossroads and the Club for Growth, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

But Sullivan also came under a nearly $4-million barrage from an independent group, Put Alaska First PAC, a "super PAC" that received much of its funding from the liberal Senate Majority PAC, which seeks to keep the Senate in Democratic hands. (Adding another complication, a second Dan Sullivan was running for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, and won easily.)

The Democrats' fiercest hope was to hand the nomination to Miller, whom they judged the weakest candidate against Begich, or foment the sort of multi-candidate free-for-all that he kicked off in 2010. Republicans won a small victory late in the race when Miller told his fellow Republicans that he would support the party nominee, regardless of who it was — although, he said, he was confident it would be him.

Miller's improbable attempt at a political comeback was hardly a financial juggernaut; he was a distant third in campaign donations and spending among his GOP brethren. But he sought to take advantage of a late endorsement by the state's former governor, Sarah Palin, who continues to hold some sway over the tea party's ranks.

Miller hewed to their platform in the race, sending out a controversial mailer characterizing undocumented immigrants as menacing gang members. When Treadwell criticized those words in a recent debate, Miller called them "real-world stuff."

For political news and analysis, follow me on Twitter: @cathleendecker

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

2:07 a.m.: This story has been updated with results calling the race for Dan Sullivan.

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31 arrested in Ferguson unrest, some from CA and NY, officer says

As another night of peaceful protests over the police killing of an unarmed black man devolved into confrontation and confusion, the Missouri State Highway Patrol officer in charge of law enforcement in this St. Louis suburb said 31 people had been arrested as of 2 a.m. Tuesday, some from as far away as California and New York. 

The arrests underscore that outsiders are making trouble during the demonstrations that have followed the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown, 18, by a Ferguson police officer, Capt. Ron Johnson said at a news briefing.

At one point, he said, "Our officers came under heavy gunfire" but did not fire a single bullet. 

"This was not an act of protesters. This was an act of violent criminals," he said.   

Monday night's vandalism included two fires, he said  -- one at a business, the other at an unoccupied residence. At least two people were shot, he said; he did not know their conditions. Officers used an armored vehicle to rescue one of the gunshot victims. 

The trouble began about 9:40 p.m., he said, when 200 "loud but not aggressive protesters" converged at the corner of Ferguson and West Florissant avenues and faced a line of police in riot gear.

"Police did not react," Johnson said. "That's when bottles were thrown from the middle and the edge" of the crowd.

"These criminal acts came from a tiny minority of troublemakers," he said.   

Johnson displayed two guns and a Molotov cocktail that he said officers had seized from instigators of the night's violence. 

"Protesters are peaceful and respectful. They don't clash with police. They don't throw Molotov cocktails," he said. 

Johnson urged protesters to come out only in the daylight so that provocateurs could not hide behind peaceful crowds. 

At times, Johnson grew emotional as he defended the actions of law enforcement officers, raising his voice as he described the chaos around them. "We just had officers in the midst of gunfire," he said.

He vowed to restore calm.

"This nation is watching each and every one of us," he said. "We're going to solve this ... We're going to make this neighborhood whole. We're going to make this community whole."

As if to get a little help from a higher power, Johnson had a chaplain open the news briefing with a prayer for peace.

Hours earlier, Johnson told CNN that attacks on police had prompted the decision to fire tear gas and begin arresting those who defied orders to disperse. 

"There becomes a balance on how long do we wait and if we wait too long …we do not have an opportunity to address that issue. So it becomes a balance."

"That was not part of our plan," he said of the decision to use force to try to scatter the protesters.

Johnson was brought in after a massive, militarized police response in the early days after Brown's killing backfired and enraged the protesters.

He said he still favors a more peaceful approach but would not shrink from other tactics as needed.

"I know that we still have that approach, we truly do, and for the most part it still works," he told CNN. But some in the crowd "have decided they are not going to be a part of peaceful protest."

Johnson noted that as the ranking officer he was buffeted between protesters angry about a police presence on the streets, and business owners upset that when he first became the commander he had ordered police not to respond to looters lest the violence escalate.

"Can we have it both ways?" he asked. "No."

As he and other law enforcement and community leaders have throughout the crisis, he implored Ferguson's residents -- whom he termed "people who come in peace" -- to leave the protest areas by 4 p.m., well before most of the nightly protests have escalated.

"This has to stop. It has to stop," he said on CNN. " I don't want anyone to get hurt…We have to find a way to stop it."

But how exactly that would happen was left unspoken.

Anthony Bell, a ward committeeman in St. Louis, was among those trying to keep the peace on the streets. These protests just have to play out, he told the Los Angeles Times. "It's releasing frustrations. We've got to let them vent."

But as the first sounds and flashes of tear gas rocked the far end of West Florissant Avenue, Bell conceded the nightly standoffs could go on for a long time.

"To get them to go home is going to be difficult," he said of the young men comprising most of the protesters. "The young people who come into the world nowadays, they have minds of their own."

For some time during the tense evening, police lined up hip-to-hip across one of the main roads in the protest area. Some officers leveled weapons in the direction of the demonstrators who had defied bullhorn orders to leave.

Alexis Tucker, 19, of Ferguson, a sophomore at Howard University, watched from the parking lot of a Family Dollar store on West Florissant as protesters lobbed a couple bottles and as police barked commands and, at times, pointed their guns and nightsticks.

"It's horrible," she said, "It's not representative of Ferguson, of fighting for justice."

 The dynamic that has marked the protests since Brown's death at the hands of a Ferguson police officer persisted: A massive police presence, community leaders trying to convince protesters to leave, a small band of persistent agitators and a substantial media presence recording it all. 

Pastor Charles Ewing was among several clergymen who came to the protest site Monday to urge a peaceful night. "These young people are hurting. They're frustrated," he told The Times.

Speaking of the violence that has erupted, Bishop Edwin C. Bass told The Times that it was "symptomatic of a greater disease. "

Bass cited poor job prospects, lack of access to quality education, and what he said was St Louis' segregated neighborhoods that made it easy for races not to mix.

"If you don't have access to other races, it's easy to dehumanize them," he said, "and that's how these kinds of things happen."

 Follow @tinasusman, @mollyhf and @cathleendecker for more national news

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

1:38 a.m.: This story has been updated with more information from the news briefing. 

12:50 a.m.: This story has been updated with information from an early Tuesday news briefing. 

12:07 a.m.: This story has been updated with quotes from a protest witness, Alexis Tucker.

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Navy identifies sunken World War II vessel as cruiser USS Houston

U.S. Navy divers concluded Monday that a wrecked vessel in southeast Asia is World War II cruiser USS Houston, a ship sunk by the Japanese that remains the final resting place for about 700 sailors and Marines.

The Houston, nicknamed "The Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast," sank in the Java Sea during the Battle of Sunda Strait on Feb. 28, 1942. It carried 1,068 crewmen, but only 291 sailors and Marines survived both the attack and becoming prisoners of war.

Navy archaeologists worked with Indonesian Navy divers to survey the wreck over the course of 19 underwater searches, said U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Harry Harris.

The Navy History and Heritage Command confirmed that the recorded data is consistent with the identification of the former USS Houston.

Documented evidence shows the gravesite was disturbed, noting that unknown people removed hull rivets and a metal plate from the ship. Both U.S. and Indonesia officials are working to coordinate protection of the historic site, which is also a popular recreational dive location.

The report say "active seepage of oil from the hull" and "evidence suggests the unauthorized recovery of unexploded ordnance from the vessel raising public safety and security concerns."

A final report will be completed in the fall as underwater archeologists continue to collect data from the dives.

The Navy estimates more than 17,000 sunken ships and aircraft rest on the ocean floor.  

nicole.charky@latimes.com 

Twitter: @NicoleCharky

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

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31 arrested in Ferguson unrest, some from CA and NY, officer says

As another night of peaceful protests over the police killing of an unarmed black man devolved into confrontation and confusion, the Missouri State Highway Patrol officer in charge of law enforcement in this St. Louis suburb said 31 people had been arrested as of 2 a.m. Tuesday, some from as far away as California and New York. 

The arrests underscore that outsiders are making trouble during the demonstrations that have followed the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown, 18, by a Ferguson police officer, Capt. Ron Johnson said at a news briefing.

At one point, he said, "Our officers came under heavy gunfire" but did not fire a single bullet. 

"This was not an act of protesters. This was an act of violent criminals," he said.   

Monday night's vandalism included two fires, he said  -- one at a business, the other at an unoccupied residence. At least two people were shot, he said; he did not know their conditions. Officers used an armored vehicle to rescue one of the gunshot victims. 

The trouble began about 9:40 p.m., he said, when 200 "loud but not aggressive protesters" converged at the corner of Ferguson and West Florissant avenues and faced a line of police in riot gear.

"Police did not react," Johnson said. "That's when bottles were thrown from the middle and the edge" of the crowd.

"These criminal acts came from a tiny minority of troublemakers," he said.   

Johnson displayed two guns and a Molotov cocktail that he said officers had seized from instigators of the night's violence. 

"Protesters are peaceful and respectful. They don't clash with police. They don't throw Molotov cocktails," he said. 

Johnson urged protesters to come out only in the daylight so that provocateurs could not hide behind peaceful crowds. 

At times, Johnson grew emotional as he defended the actions of law enforcement officers, raising his voice as he described the chaos around them. "We just had officers in the midst of gunfire," he said.

He vowed to restore calm.

"This nation is watching each and every one of us," he said. "We're going to solve this ... We're going to make this neighborhood whole. We're going to make this community whole."

As if to get a little help from a higher power, Johnson had a chaplain open the news briefing with a prayer for peace.

Hours earlier, Johnson told CNN that attacks on police had prompted the decision to fire tear gas and begin arresting those who defied orders to disperse. 

"There becomes a balance on how long do we wait and if we wait too long …we do not have an opportunity to address that issue. So it becomes a balance."

"That was not part of our plan," he said of the decision to use force to try to scatter the protesters.

Johnson was brought in after a massive, militarized police response in the early days after Brown's killing backfired and enraged the protesters.

He said he still favors a more peaceful approach but would not shrink from other tactics as needed.

"I know that we still have that approach, we truly do, and for the most part it still works," he told CNN. But some in the crowd "have decided they are not going to be a part of peaceful protest."

Johnson noted that as the ranking officer he was buffeted between protesters angry about a police presence on the streets, and business owners upset that when he first became the commander he had ordered police not to respond to looters lest the violence escalate.

"Can we have it both ways?" he asked. "No."

As he and other law enforcement and community leaders have throughout the crisis, he implored Ferguson's residents -- whom he termed "people who come in peace" -- to leave the protest areas by 4 p.m., well before most of the nightly protests have escalated.

"This has to stop. It has to stop," he said on CNN. " I don't want anyone to get hurt…We have to find a way to stop it."

But how exactly that would happen was left unspoken.

Anthony Bell, a ward committeeman in St. Louis, was among those trying to keep the peace on the streets. These protests just have to play out, he told the Los Angeles Times. "It's releasing frustrations. We've got to let them vent."

But as the first sounds and flashes of tear gas rocked the far end of West Florissant Avenue, Bell conceded the nightly standoffs could go on for a long time.

"To get them to go home is going to be difficult," he said of the young men comprising most of the protesters. "The young people who come into the world nowadays, they have minds of their own."

For some time during the tense evening, police lined up hip-to-hip across one of the main roads in the protest area. Some officers leveled weapons in the direction of the demonstrators who had defied bullhorn orders to leave.

Alexis Tucker, 19, of Ferguson, a sophomore at Howard University, watched from the parking lot of a Family Dollar store on West Florissant as protesters lobbed a couple bottles and as police barked commands and, at times, pointed their guns and nightsticks.

"It's horrible," she said, "It's not representative of Ferguson, of fighting for justice."

 The dynamic that has marked the protests since Brown's death at the hands of a Ferguson police officer persisted: A massive police presence, community leaders trying to convince protesters to leave, a small band of persistent agitators and a substantial media presence recording it all. 

Pastor Charles Ewing was among several clergymen who came to the protest site Monday to urge a peaceful night. "These young people are hurting. They're frustrated," he told The Times.

Speaking of the violence that has erupted, Bishop Edwin C. Bass told The Times that it was "symptomatic of a greater disease. "

Bass cited poor job prospects, lack of access to quality education, and what he said was St Louis' segregated neighborhoods that made it easy for races not to mix.

"If you don't have access to other races, it's easy to dehumanize them," he said, "and that's how these kinds of things happen."

 Follow @tinasusman, @mollyhf and @cathleendecker for more national news

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

1:38 a.m.: This story has been updated with more information from the news briefing. 

12:50 a.m.: This story has been updated with information from an early Tuesday news briefing. 

12:07 a.m.: This story has been updated with quotes from a protest witness, Alexis Tucker.

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Missouri governor orders National Guard to help quell Ferguson unrest

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon early Monday ordered the National Guard deployed to Ferguson, where another night of violence saw police pelted with bottles and Molotov cocktails and looters rampaging through local businesses.

The executive order directs the resources of the National Guard "to help restore peace and order and to protect the citizens of Ferguson."

"Tonight, a day of hope, prayers and peaceful protests was marred by the violent criminal acts of an organized and growing number of individuals, many from outside the community and state, whose actions are putting the residents and businesses of Ferguson at risk," the governor said in a statement.

LIVE COVERAGE: Images from the streets in Ferguson

At least two people were shot Sunday night, and police were fired upon in street protests that have escalated since the Aug. 9 shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old black youth, Michael Brown, by a white police officer in this largely black St. Louis suburb.

Police said there were signs of a pre-planned and coordinated attempt to disrupt the city and launch an advance on the police command post not far from the scene of the shooting.

"There were shootings, vandalism and other acts of violence that clearly appear not to have been spontaneous but premeditated criminal acts," Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson told reporters early Monday.

"The catalyst was not civil disobedience, but pre-planned agitation," he said.

At one point, a McDonald's restaurant that has been near the center of the street agitation in recent days was overrun by unruly protesters, forcing employees to lock themselves in a storage room, Johnson said.

Not far away, police fired tear gas at a large crowd as protesters swept toward the main police command post, hurtling bottles and bottle rockets, he said.  Authorities received reports of at least two people shot during the evening, though police were not involved in either incident. The extent of their injuries was not known.

"Based on these conditions, I had no alternative but to elevate the level of our response," Johnson said.

"We are planning additional steps to quiet the violence. We are all determined to restore peace and safety to the people of Ferguson, and I believe the continued resolve of the good people of this community will ultimately triumph over the few people bent on violence and destruction," he said. 

The new street eruptions came as a private autopsy revealed that Brown had been shot at least six times, including twice in the head.

Anthony Gray, an attorney for the Brown family, said a diagram provided by New York forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, commissioned by the family to do an independent examination, revealed details of the bullets that struck Brown's body.

The fact that one of the shots struck the top of Brown's head, Gray said, was significant.

"To have a shot that's at a 90-degree angle from the top of his skull to the bottom of his chin, almost vertical, that sounds like an officer standing over him," Gray said.

Baden said his examination suggested that none of the six bullets was fired at point-blank range, but all were fired from at least one to two feet away.

"There's no evidence of powder residue," Baden said in a telephone interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Baden said two bullets struck Brown in the head: one in the forehead and one at the top of the head — fired at "a right angle to the top of the head."

"The top of the head one was the one that would have made him unconscious and fall to the ground," Baden said.

But it is difficult to draw firm conclusions from that, he said, without also considering witness statements and marks on Brown's clothing. "The head is very movable, and it can be in a number of positions," he said.

At least one of the wounds to Brown's arm "could have been defensive," Baden said.

Police say Brown had participated in a strong-arm robbery at a mini-mart shortly before his encounter with Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson.

Wilson, police said, was confronted by Brown inside his police car in a scuffle that led to the shooting. At least one witness who was accompanying Brown that afternoon has said Brown was shot as he walked away from the police officer with his hands raised, and then was hit with additional bullets.

The latest round of street clashes Sunday began about 8:30 p.m. -- well before the midnight curfew.

A large group of protesters marched toward a shopping center toward a police command post. They held their hands aloft, chanting "Hands up, don't shoot."

Police began lobbing smoke canisters and tear gas toward the marchers when they neared the command post and refused to back down.

At first protesters fled, then held their ground in the middle of the street. A few protesters grabbed smoke canisters from the street and hurled them back at police. Large numbers of people found themselves unable to flee as police advanced in half a dozen military vehicles because the street was blocked by the crowd behind them.

Johnson said the first sign of problems came at 8:25 p.m., with reports of someone shot. A number of officers responded but shots were fired at them as they approached, as well as Molotov cocktails, he said.

Within minutes, more shots were fired to the north and there were reports of another person shot. At least eight people were seen with guns, Johnson said.

Looting began at several businesses, including a pizza restaurant and an auto parts store, and shortly before 9 p.m. the crowd began approaching the police command post at a local shopping center, he said.

Officers called in support from other police agencies and began deploying tear gas, Johnson said.

No officers were injured.

Citizens appeared stunned by the level of mayhem even after nearly a week of nightly protests.

"It's unbelievable. This is something you would see on TV in a third-world country. Tear gas — I've never seen it escalate to that point," said Martin McDonald, 38, a truck driver from the town of Florissant who joined the protests for the first time on Sunday.

Chris Hudson, 31, a construction worker, said he wished protesters would gather near the police station, instead of paralyzing a residential area.

"I feel like they're taking advantage of the situation," he said as stood on the side of the street, watching as police advanced in a cloud of gas.

"They should have let people be. It's not even 12 yet," said Nikki Chamberlain, 36, referring to the midnight-to-5-a.m. curfew ordered by Gov. Jay Nixon on Saturday. "It's like they didn't give us a chance."

She watched as a young man threw a canister back at police.

"Good," she said. "Give them a taste of their own medicine."

She gestured into the surrounding darkness.

"Somewhere out there, there's still people's houses getting broken into, people getting raped, kids getting molested. And they're out here with people demonstrating peacefully. A peaceful situation turned into a war. We're not here acting like animals," she said.

Kenny Thompson, 21, said protesters were marching peacefully until confronted with a heavy police response.

"I feel like the situation got out of hand when the police came toward everyone in so much force instead of coming toward everyone in a polite way," he said. "We were all sitting here responding just fine, us people, walking, talking—whites  and blacks, no racism at all.  But the officers came full force, shooting mace and tear gas."

Thompson rubbed his eyes and doused his face with a bottle of water after inhaling the gas. Several gunshots were heard, and Thompson called out to those who began running.

"It's OK, he shouted. "That's our people shooting at the cops."

Earlier Sunday, Ferguson had hopes for peace. More than 1,300 people gathered for a rally at the Greater Grace Church, filling the sanctuary and spilling out the door.

The Brown family hosted the event, along with the National Bar Assn. and civil rights leader Al Sharpton's National Action Network. Sharpton and Martin Luther King III called for the nation to respond constructively and address what Sharpton called the militarization of police.

Sharpton told the community to take positive action. "Don't loot in Michael's name," he implored.

He also told residents to vote, noting that the 12% turnout in the last election "is an insult to your children."

But the most celebrated speaker was Johnson, who took over the police response last week at the direction of the governor.

Johnson, dressed in his uniform and wearing his badge, told the audience that he had met with some of Brown's relatives on Saturday.

"They brought tears to my eyes and shame to my heart," Johnson said. "I wear this uniform. And I should stand up here and say I'm sorry."

The crowd erupted in cheers.

Brown's death will make the world safer for young black men, Johnson said.

"When this is over, I'm going to go in my son's room, my black son, who wears his pants sagging, wears his hat cocked to the side, got tattoos on his arms, because that's my baby," he said.

"Michael's going to make it better for our sons."

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Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

10 p.m.: This post has been updated with information from a private autopsy report.

12:04 a.m. Monday: This post has been updated with the governor calling out the National Guard. 

12:42 a.m. Monday: This post has been updated throughout. 

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