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A music vendor sets up shop at the corner of Mount Pleasant and Lamont Street, the heart of Washington's Latino community. He's one of at least a dozen Latino merchants doing business near Parque de las Palomas, a small triangular park at the end of a city bus line.

Just two years ago, the worst riots the nation's capital had seen in over 20 years started right here. On May 4th, 1991, Daniel Gómez, a Salvadoran immigrant, was stopped by an African American police officer for drinking in public. There are differing accounts about what happened next. Police say Gómez launched at the rookie officer who shot him in self-defense, but many Latinos heard a different version, one that said Gómez was shot after being harassed and handcuffed by the officer. Gómez was seriously wounded and as news of the incident spread, outrage poured from the community.

During the riots, these men looted a 7-Eleven store because they were angry at police for mistreating Latinos. The looting and burning in Mount Pleasant lasted three days. To calm people down, DC Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly arrived on the scene and promised to address Latino concerns as soon as the violence ended. It was a victory of sorts. Latino leaders had long complained that city officials ignored charges of discrimination and police brutality. The riots changed that.

Juan Milanés was a law student at the time. Today, he is legal counsel for the Latino Civil Rights Task Force, an organization created after the disturbances in Mount Pleasant.

A few months after the riots, the Latino Civil Rights Task Force issued a blueprint for action, detailing 200 specific steps the city could take to address Latino concerns. Task Force executive director Pedro Aviles says the city has not done enough to stop discrimination and police insensitivity.

What has been done has been done slowly according to task force officials. One example, the city hired bilingual 911 operators a year and a half after the task force recommended it and only after a Latina who had been raped had to wait two hours for assistance in Spanish. Carmen Ramírez, director of the Mayor's Office on Latino Affairs, says the city has taken significant steps to address community concerns.

To do that, the city has created bilingual positions in almost all departments of DC government. Ramírez adds that DC's police department has hired more bilingual personnel and sent hundreds of police officers to Spanish classes and sensitivity training. But last year, Latino leaders complained they were excluded from developing the initial sensitivity training program and they say there are still plenty of police brutality cases. In January, the US Commission on Civil Rights agreed when it issued its report on the Mount Pleasant disturbances. Commission Chair Arthur Fletcher called the plight of Latinos in DC appalling.

The commission also found that the District of Columbia still shuts off Latinos from basic services because it lacks bilingual personnel. Many DC Latinos feel that in a city dominated by African Americans, it's often hard to get a fair distribution of resources. BB Otero is chair of the Latino Civil Rights Task Force.

African American council member Frank Smith represents Ward 1, the area where most DC Latinos live. He says, the struggle for civil rights is about citizenship and voting.

Over half of Washington's estimated 60,000 Latinos are undocumented, many of whom have fled war and unrest in El Salvador and most recently, Guatemala. BB Otero who ran unsuccessfully for a school board seat last fall says she's hopeful a Latino political base will develop as time goes by and as the community matures.

Change, however slow some may consider it, seems to be happening at Parque de las Palomas, where the disturbances erupted two years ago. There are now more Latino officers walking the beat. Merchant José Valdezar says, even those stopped for drinking in public are now treated with respect by police.

Daniel Gómez, whose shooting sparked the disturbances in Mount Pleasant two years ago, recovered from his wounds and was later acquitted of assaulting the police officer who shot him. For Latino USA. I'm William Troop reporting from Washington DC.