1992 Los Angeles riots

When LA Erupted In Anger: A Look Back At The Rodney King Riots : NPR

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The 1992 Los Angeles riots, also known as the Rodney King riots, the South Central riots, the 1992 Los Angeles civil disturbance, the 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest, the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising, and the Battle of Los Angeles, were a series of riots, lootings, arsons, and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California in April and May 1992. The unrest began in South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after a trial jury acquitted four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department for usage of excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King, which had been videotaped and widely viewed in TV broadcasts. The rioting spread throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area, as thousands of people rioted over a six-day period following the announcement of the verdict.

Widespread looting, assault, arson, and murder occurred during the riots, and estimates of property damage were over $1 billion. With local police overwhelmed in controlling the situation, Governor Pete Wilson sent in the California Army National Guard, and President George H. W. Bush deployed the 7th Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division. After that, order and peace were restored throughout L.A. County, but 63 people were killed, 2,383 people were injured, and more than 12,000 were arrested. LAPD chief of police Daryl Gates, who had already announced his resignation by the time of the riots, was attributed with much of the blame.

Video 1992 Los Angeles riots

Background

On the evening of March 3, 1991, Rodney King and two passengers were driving west on the Foothill Freeway (I-210) through the Lake View Terrace neighborhood of Los Angeles. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) attempted to initiate a traffic stop. A high-speed pursuit ensued with speeds estimated at up to 115 mph (185 km/h), along freeways and then through residential neighborhoods. When King stopped, CHP Officer Timothy Singer and CHP Officer Melanie Singer (his wife), arrested him and two occupants of the car.

After the two passengers were placed in the patrol car, five white Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers - Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno, and Rolando Solano - surrounded King, who came out of the car last. They tasered him, struck him severely tens of times with side-handled batons, and tackled him to the ground before handcuffing him. Sgt. Koon later testified at trial that King resisted arrest, and that he believed King was under the influence of PCP at the time of the arrest, which caused him to be very aggressive and violent toward the officers. Video footage of the arrest showed that King attempted to get up each time he was struck, and that the police made no attempt to cuff him until he lay still. A subsequent test of King for the presence of PCP in his body at the time of the arrest was negative.

Unknown to the police and King, the incident was captured on a camcorder by local civilian George Holliday from his nearby apartment. The tape was roughly 12 minutes long. While the tape was presented during trial, some clips of the incident were not released to the public. In a later interview, King, who was on parole for a robbery conviction and had past convictions for assault, battery and robbery, said that he had not surrendered earlier because he was driving while intoxicated under the influence of alcohol, which he knew violated the terms of his parole.

The footage of King being beaten by police became an instant focus of media attention and a rallying point for activists in Los Angeles and around the United States. Coverage was extensive during the first two weeks after the incident: the Los Angeles Times published forty-three articles about it, The New York Times published seventeen articles, and the Chicago Tribune published eleven articles. Eight stories appeared on ABC News, including a sixty-minute special on Primetime Live.

Upon watching the tape of the beating, LAPD chief of police Daryl Gates said:

I stared at the screen in disbelief. I played the one-minute-50-second tape again. Then again and again, until I had viewed it 25 times. And still I could not believe what I was looking at. To see my officers engage in what appeared to be excessive use of force, possibly criminally excessive, to see them beat a man with their batons 56 times, to see a sergeant on the scene who did nothing to seize control, was something I never dreamed I would witness.

Before the release of the Rodney King tape, minority community leaders in Los Angeles had repeatedly complained about harassment and excessive use of force by LAPD officers. An independent commission (the Christopher Commission) formed after the release of the tape concluded that a "significant number" of LAPD officers "repetitively use excessive force against the public and persistently ignore the written guidelines of the department regarding force," and that bias related to race, gender, and sexual orientation were regularly contributing factors in use of excessive force. The commission's report called for the replacement of both Chief Daryl Gates and the civilian Police Commission.

Charges and trial

The Los Angeles County District Attorney subsequently charged four police officers, including one sergeant, with assault and use of excessive force. Due to the extensive media coverage of the arrest, the trial received a change of venue from Los Angeles County to Simi Valley in neighboring Ventura County. The jury was composed of nine whites, one bi-racial male, one Latino, and one Asian American. The prosecutor, Terry White, was black.

On April 29, 1992, the seventh day of jury deliberations, the jury acquitted all four officers of assault and acquitted three of the four of using excessive force. The jury could not agree on a verdict for the fourth officer charged with using excessive force. The verdicts were based in part on the first three seconds of a blurry, 13-second segment of the videotape that, according to journalist Lou Cannon, had not been aired by television news stations in their broadcasts.

The first two seconds of videotape, contrary to the claims made by the accused officers, show King attempting to flee past Laurence Powell. During the next one minute and 19 seconds, King is beaten continuously by the officers. The officers testified that they tried to physically restrain King prior to the starting point of the videotape, but King was able to physically throw them off.

Afterward, the prosecution suggested that the jurors may have acquitted the officers because of becoming desensitized to the violence of the beating, as the defense played the videotape repeatedly in slow motion, breaking it down until its emotional impact was lost.

Outside the Simi Valley courthouse where the acquittals were delivered, county sheriff's deputies protected Stacey Koon from angry protesters on the way to his car. Movie director John Singleton, who was in the crowd at the courthouse, predicted, "By having this verdict, what these people done, they lit the fuse to a bomb."

Maps 1992 Los Angeles riots

Riots

The riots began the day the verdicts were announced, and peaked in intensity over the next two days. A dusk-to-dawn curfew and deployment by the California Army National Guard and federal troops from the 7th infantry Division and 1st Marine Division eventually controlled the situation.

A total of 63 people died during the riots, including nine who were killed by law enforcement personnel and 1 who was killed by Guardsmen. As many as 2,383 people were reported injured. Estimates of the material losses vary between about $800 million and $1 billion. Approximately 3,600 fires were set, destroying 1,100 buildings, with fire calls coming once every minute at some points. Widespread looting also occurred. Rioters targeted stores owned by Koreans and other ethnic Asians, reflecting tensions between them and the African-American communities.

Many of the disturbances were concentrated in South Central Los Angeles, where the population was majority African-American and Hispanic. Fewer than half of all the riot arrests and a third of those killed during the violence were Hispanic.

First day (Wednesday, April 29, 1992)

Before the verdicts

In the week before the Rodney King verdicts were reached, Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates set aside $1 million for possible police overtime. Even so, on the last day of the trial, two-thirds of the LAPD's patrol captains were out of town in Ventura, California, on the first day of a three-day training seminar.

At 1:00 pm on April 29, Judge Stanley Weisberg announced that the jury had reached its verdict, which would be read in two hours' time. This was done to allow reporters, but also police and other emergency responders, time to prepare for the outcome, as unrest was feared if the officers were acquitted. The LAPD had activated its Emergency Operations Center, which the Webster Commission described as "the doors were opened, the lights turned on and the coffee pot plugged in", but taken no other preparatory action. Specifically, the people intended to staff that Center were not gathered until 4:45 pm. In addition, no action was taken to retain extra personnel at the LAPD's shift change at 3:00 pm, as the risk of trouble was deemed low.

Verdicts announced

The acquittals of the four accused Los Angeles Police Department officers came at 3:15 pm local time. By 3:45, a crowd of more than 300 people had appeared at the Los Angeles County Courthouse protesting the verdicts.

Meanwhile, at approximately 4:15-4:20 pm, a group of people approached the Pay-Less Liquor and Deli on Florence Avenue just west of Normandie in South Central. A gang member in an interview said that the group "just decided they weren't going to pay for what they were getting." The store owner's son was hit with a bottle of beer, and two other youths smashed the glass front door of the store. Two officers from the 77th Street Division of the LAPD responded to this incident and, finding that the instigators had already left, completed a report.

Mayor Bradley speaks

At 4:58 pm, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley held a news conference to discuss the verdicts. He both expressed anger about the verdicts and appealed for calm.

Today, the jury told the world that what we all saw with our own eyes was not a crime. My friends, I am here to tell the jury...what we saw was a crime. No, we will not tolerate the savage beating of our citizens by a few renegade cops.
...We must not endanger the reforms we have achieved by resorting to mindless acts. We must not push back progress by striking back blindly.

Assistant Los Angeles police chief Bob Vernon later said he believed Bradley's remarks invited a riot, and were perhaps taken as a signal by some citizens. Vernon said that the number of police incidents rose in the hour after the mayor's press conference.

71st and Normandie

At Florence and Halldale, two officers issued a plea for assistance in apprehending a young suspect who had thrown an object at their car and whom they were pursuing on foot. Approximately two dozen officers, commanded by 77th Street Division LAPD officer Lieutenant Michael Moulin, arrived and arrested the youth, 16-year old Seandel Daniels, forcing him into the back of a car. The rough handling of the young man, a minor who was well known in the community, further agitated an uneasy and growing crowd, who began taunting and berating the police. Among the crowd were Bart Bartholemew, a freelance photographer for The New York Times, and Timothy Goldman, who began to record events with a camcorder. The police formed a perimeter around the arresting officers as the crowd grew more hostile, leading to further altercations and arrests (including that of Damian Williams' older brother, Mark Jackson). One member of the crowd stole the flashlight of an LAPD officer. Fearing police would resort to deadly force to repel the growing crowd, Lieutenant Moulin ordered officers out of the area altogether. Moulin later said that officers on the scene were outnumbered and unprepared to handle the situation because their riot equipment was stored at the police academy.

Hey, forget the flashlight, it's not worth it. It ain't worth it. It's not worth it. Forget the flashlight. Not worth it. Let's go.

Moulin made the call for reporting officers to retreat from the 71st and Normandie area entirely at approximately 5:50 pm. They were sent to an RTD bus depot at 54th and Arlington and told to await further instructions. The command post formed at this location was set up at approximately 6:00 pm, but had no cell phones or computers other than those in squad cars. It had insufficient numbers of telephone lines and handheld police radios to assess and respond to the situation. Finally, the site had no televisions, which meant that as live broadcasts of unrest began, command post officers could not see any of the coverage.

Unrest moves to Florence and Normandie

Emboldened by the retreat of officers at 71st and Normandie, many proceeded one block south to the intersection of Florence and Normandie. Just after 6 pm, a group of young men broke the padlock and windows to Tom's Liquor, allowing a group of more than 100 people to raid the store and loot it. Concurrently, the growing crowd in the street began attacking motorists of Caucasian and Asian appearance by throwing debris at their cars or pulling them from their vehicles when they stopped. As Goldman continued to film the scene on his camcorder, the Los Angeles News Service team of Marika Gerrard and Robert Tur arrived in a news helicopter, broadcasting from the air. The LANS feed appeared live on numerous Los Angeles television venues. At approximately 6:15 pm, as reports of vandalism, looting, and physical attacks continued to come in, Moulin elected to "take the information", but not to respond with personnel to restore order or rescue people in the area. Moulin was relieved by a captain, ordered only to assess the Florence and Normandie area, and, again, not to attempt to deploy officers there. Meanwhile, Tur continued to cover the events in progress live at the intersection. From overhead, Tur described the police presence at the scene around 6:30 pm as "none".

At 6:43 pm, truck driver Larry Tarvin, driving down Florence, stopped at a red light at Normandie in a large white delivery truck. He was pulled from the truck by a group of men including Henry Watson, who proceeded to kick and beat him, before striking him unconscious with a fire extinguisher taken from his own vehicle. He lay unconscious for more than a minute as his truck was looted, before getting up and staggering back to his vehicle. With the help of an unknown African-American named Rodney, Tarvin drove his truck out of further harm's way. Just before he did so, another truck, driven by Reginald Denny, entered the intersection.

Attack on Reginald Denny

At 6:46 pm, Denny, a white truck driver who stopped at a traffic light at the intersection of Florence and Normandie, was dragged from his semi-trailer truck and severely beaten by a mob of local black residents. The LANS news helicopter piloted by reporter Tur broadcast live footage of the attack. Damian Williams threw a brick at Denny that struck him in the skull, fracturing it in 91 places.

Tur's live reports resulted in Denny being rescued by Bobby Green Jr., a local black resident of South Central Los Angeles. After seeing the assault, Green rushed to the scene. He found Denny had climbed back into the cab of his truck and was trying to drive away, but was drifting in and out of consciousness. Green moved Denny out of the driver's seat and drove him to Daniel Freeman Hospital in Inglewood. Upon arriving at the hospital, Denny went into a seizure.

Fidel Lopez attack

Around 7:40 pm, almost an hour after Denny was rescued, another beating was filmed on videotape in that location. Fidel Lopez, a self-employed construction worker and Guatemalan immigrant, was pulled from his GMC pickup truck and robbed of nearly $2,000. Rioters including Damian Williams smashed his forehead open with a car stereo and one tried to slice his ear off. After Lopez lost consciousness, the crowd spray-painted his chest, torso, and genitals black. He was eventually rescued by Rev. Bennie Newton, who told the rioters: "Kill him, and you have to kill me too." Lopez survived the attack, but it took him years to fully recover and re-establish his business. Newton and Lopez became close friends.

Sunset on the first evening of the riots was at 7:36 pm. The first call reporting a fire came in soon after, at approximately 7:45 pm. Police did not return in force to the Florence and Normandie area until 8:30 pm, by which time the intersection was in ruins and most rioters had left.

Numerous factors were later blamed for the severity of rioting in the 77th Street Division on the evening of April 29. These included:

No effort made to close the busy intersection of Florence and Normandie to traffic.
Failure to secure gun stores in the Division (one in particular lost 1,150 guns to looting on April 29).
The failure to issue a citywide Tactical Alert until 6:43 pm, which delayed the arrival of other divisions to assist the 77th.
The lack of any response - and in particular, a riot response - to the intersection, which emboldened rioters. Since attacks, looting, and arson were broadcast live, viewers could see that none of these actions were being stopped by police.

Parker Center

As noted, after the verdicts were announced, a crowd of protesters formed at the Los Angeles police headquarters at Parker Center in Downtown Los Angeles. The crowd grew as the afternoon passed, and became violent. The police formed a skirmish line to protect the building, sometimes moving as protesters advanced. In the midst of this, before 6:30 pm, police chief Daryl Gates left Parker Center, on his way to the neighborhood of Brentwood. There, as the situation in Los Angeles deteriorated, Gates attended a political fundraiser against Los Angeles City Charter Amendment F, intended to "give City Hall more power over the police chief and provide more civilian review of officer misconduct". The amendment would limit the power and term length of his office.

The Parker Center crowd grew riotous at approximately 9:00 pm, eventually making their way through the Civic Center, attacking law enforcement, turning over vehicles, setting objects ablaze, and blocking traffic on U.S. Route 101. Nearby firefighters were shot at while trying to put out a blaze set by looters. The mayor had requested the California Army National Guard from Governor Pete Wilson; the first of these units, the 670th Military Police Company, had traveled almost 300 miles (480 kilometers) from its main armory and arrived in the afternoon to assist local police. They were first deployed to a police command center, where they began handing out bulletproof vests to the firefighters after encountering the unit whose member had been shot. Later, after receiving ammunition from the L.A. Police Academy and a local gun store, the MPs deployed to hold the Martin Luther King Shopping Mall in Watts.

Lake View Terrace

In the Lake View Terrace district of Los Angeles, 200-400 protesters gathered about 9:15 pm at the site where Rodney King was beaten in 1991, near the Hansen Dam Recreation Area. The group marched south on Osborne Street to the LAPD Foothill Division headquarters. There they began rock throwing, shooting into the air, and setting fires. The Foothill division police used riot-breaking techniques to disperse the crowd and arrest those responsible for rock throwing and the fires.

Second day (Thursday, April 30)

Mayor Bradley signed an order for a dusk-to-dawn curfew at 12:15 am for the core area affected by the riots. At 10:15 am, he expanded the area under curfew. By mid-morning, violence appeared widespread and unchecked as extensive looting and arson were witnessed across Los Angeles County. Rioting moved from South Central Los Angeles, going north through the neighborhoods of Central Los Angeles before reaching Hollywood. The looting and fires engulfed Hollywood Boulevard, before rioting erupted in the neighboring cities of Inglewood, Hawthorne, Compton and Long Beach.

Korean Americans noted that law enforcement abandoned Koreatown, contrasting that with official defense lines for such wealthy white neighborhoods as Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. Subsequently, they organized their own armed security teams composed of store owners, who defended their businesses from assault. Open gun battles were televised, including an incident in which Korean shopkeepers armed with M1 carbines, Ruger Mini-14s, pump-action shotguns, and handguns exchanged gunfire with a group of armed looters, and forced their retreat. After Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda criticized rioters for burning down their own neighborhoods, he received death threats and was taken to the LAPD academy for protection. The 670th MP Company had been redeployed to reinforce police patrols and to guard the Korean Cultural Center and Embassy after events in Koreatown.

The LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) organized response began to come together by mid-day. The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) and Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACFD) began to respond backed by police escort; California Highway Patrol reinforcements were airlifted to the city. U.S. President George H. W. Bush spoke out against the rioting, stating that "anarchy" would not be tolerated. The California Army National Guard, which had been advised not to expect civil disturbance and had, as a result, loaned its riot equipment out to other law enforcement agencies, responded quickly by calling up about 2,000 soldiers, but could not get them to the city until nearly 24 hours had passed. They lacked equipment and had to pick it up from the JFTB (Joint Forces Training Base), Los Alamitos, California, which at the time was predominately a mothballed former airbase.

Air traffic control procedures at Los Angeles International Airport were modified, with all departures and arrivals routed to and from the west, over the Pacific Ocean, avoiding overflights of neighborhoods affected by the rioting.

Popular comedian and actor Bill Cosby spoke on the local television station KNBC and asked people to stop the rioting and watch the final episode of his The Cosby Show. The U.S. Justice Department announced it would resume federal investigation of the Rodney King beating as a violation of federal civil rights law.

Third day (Friday, May 1)

Rodney King gave an impromptu news conference in front of his lawyer's office, tearfully saying, "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?" That morning, at 1:00 am, Governor Wilson had requested federal assistance. Upon request, Bush invoked the Insurrection Act with Executive Order 12804, federalizing the California Army National Guard and authorizing federal troops to help restore law and order. With Bush's authority, the Pentagon activated Operation Garden Plot, placing the California Army National Guard and federal troops under the newly formed Joint Task Force Los Angeles (JTF-LA). The deployment of federal troops was not ready until Saturday, by which time the rioting and looting were under control.

Meanwhile, the 40th Infantry Division (doubled to 4,000 troops) of the California Army National Guard continued to move into the city in Humvees; eventually 10,000 Army National Guard troops were activated. In addition, the White House sent some 1,700 riot control-trained federal law enforcement officers from different agencies across California to L.A. to protect federal facilities and assist local police. Later that evening, Bush addressed the country, denouncing "random terror and lawlessness". He summarized his discussions with Mayor Bradley and Governor Wilson, and outlined the federal assistance he was making available to local authorities. Citing the "urgent need to restore order", he warned that the "brutality of a mob" would not be tolerated, and he would "use whatever force is necessary". He referred to the Rodney King case, describing talking to his own grandchildren and noting the actions of "good and decent policemen" as well as civil rights leaders. He said he had directed the Justice Department to investigate the King case, and that "grand jury action is underway today", and justice would prevail.

By this point, many entertainment and sports events were postponed or canceled. The Los Angeles Lakers hosted the Portland Trail Blazers in an NBA playoff basketball game on the night the rioting started, but the following game was postponed until Sunday and moved to Las Vegas. The Los Angeles Clippers moved a playoff game against the Utah Jazz to nearby Anaheim. In baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers postponed games for four straight days from Thursday to Sunday, including a whole 3-game series against the Montreal Expos; all were made up as part of doubleheaders in July. In San Francisco, a city curfew due to unrest forced the postponement of a May 1, San Francisco Giants home game against the Philadelphia Phillies. The horse racing venues Hollywood Park Racetrack and Los Alamitos Race Course were also shut down. L.A. Fiesta Broadway, a major event in the Latino community, was canceled. In music, Van Halen canceled two concert shows in Inglewood on Saturday and Sunday. Metallica and Guns N' Roses moved their concert to the Rose Bowl as the Coliseum and its surrounding neighborhood were still damaged. Michael Bolton canceled his scheduled performance at the Hollywood Bowl Sunday. The World Wrestling Federation canceled events on Friday and Saturday in the cities of Long Beach and Fresno.

Fourth day (Saturday, May 2)

On the fourth day, 2,000 soldiers of the 7th Infantry Division from Fort Ord and 1,500 Marines of the 1st Marine Division from Camp Pendleton arrived to reinforce the National Guardsmen already in the city. The Marine Corps contingent included the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, commanded by John F. Kelly. It was the first significant military occupation of Los Angeles by federal troops since the 1894 Pullman Strike, and also the first time such forces were sent to an American city to quell a civil disorder since the 1968 King assassination riots.

These federal military forces took 24 hours to deploy to Huntington Park, about the same time it took for the National Guardsmen. This brought total troop strength to 13,500. Federal troops and National Guardsmen directly supported local police in restoring order; they contributed significantly to containing and stopping the violence. With most of the violence under control, 30,000 people attended an 11:00 am peace rally in Koreatown to support local merchants and racial healing.

Fifth day (Sunday, May 3)

Mayor Bradley assured the public that the crisis was, more or less, under control as areas became quiet. Later that night, Army National Guardsmen shot and killed a motorist who tried to run them over at a barrier. In another incident, the LAPD and Marines intervened in a domestic dispute in Compton, in which the suspect held his wife and children hostage. As the officers approached, the suspect fired two shotgun rounds through the door, injuring some of the officers. One of the officers yelled to the Marines, "Cover me," as per law enforcement training to be prepared to fire upon if necessary. However, per their military training, the Marines mistook the wording as providing cover while utilizing firepower, resulting in a total of 200 rounds being sprayed into the house. Remarkably, neither the suspect nor the woman and children inside the house were harmed.

Sixth day (Monday, May 4) and aftermath

Although Mayor Bradley lifted the curfew, signaling the official end of the riots, sporadic violence and crime continued for a few days afterward. Schools, banks, and businesses reopened. Federal troops did not stand down until May 9. The Army National Guard remained until May 14. Some National Guardsmen remained as late as May 27.

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Korean Americans during the riots

Many Korean Americans in Los Angeles refer to the event as Sa-I-Gu, meaning "four-two-nine" in Korean, in reference to April 29, 1992, which was the day the riots started. The week of riots following the acquittal of the LAPD officers in the beating of Rodney King has been considered a major turning point for the development of a distinct Korean American identity and community. Over 2,300 mom-and-pop shops run by Korean business owners were damaged through ransacking and looting during the riots, sustaining close to $400 million in damages. Media coverage has framed the looting and destruction as a result of growing social and economic tensions between the Korean American and African American communities, with some attributing the tensions to the Middleman minority theory where friction arises when a minority group has a role as a "middleman" such as a retailer or business owner between a more dominant majority and another minority group.

Korean Americans responded in various ways, including forming activist organizations such as the Association of Korean-American Victims and increasing efforts to build collaborative links with other ethnic groups through groups like the Korean American Coalition. During the riots, many Korean immigrants from the area rushed to Koreatown, after Korean-language radio stations called for volunteers to guard against rioters. Many were armed, with a variety of improvised weapons, shotguns, and semi-automatic rifles.

According to Edward Park the 1992 violence stimulated a new wave of political activism among Korean-Americans, but it also split them into two camps. The liberals sought to unite with other minorities in Los Angeles to fight against racial oppression and scapegoating. The conservatives emphasized law and order and generally favored the economic and social policies of the Republican Party. The conservatives tended to emphasize the political differences between Koreans and other minorities, specifically African Americans.

An article from the Los Angeles Times on June 18, 1991 highlights the growing violence prior to the riots. "Other recent incidents include the May 25 shooting of two employees in a liquor store near 35th Street and Central Avenue. The victims, both recent emigrants from Korea, were killed after complying with robbery demands made by an assailant described by police as an African-American. Last Thursday, an African-American man suspected of committing a robbery in an auto parts store on Manchester Avenue was fatally wounded by his accomplice, who accidently fired a shotgun round during a struggle with the shop's Korean-American owner. "This violence is disturbing too," store owner Park said. "But who cries for these victims?""

On March 16, 1991, a year prior to the Los Angeles riots, storekeeper Soon Ja Du physically confronted black ninth-grader Latasha Harlins, grabbing her sweater and backpack when she suspected she had been trying to steal a bottle of orange juice from Empire Liquor, the store Du's family owned in Compton. After Latasha hit Du, Du shot her in the back of the head, killing her. (Security tape showed the girl, already dead, was clutching $2 in her hand when investigators arrived.) Du was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and forced to pay a fine of $500, but not sentenced to any prison time. Relations between the African-American and Korean communities significantly worsened after this, and the former became increasingly mistrustful of the criminal justice system. Racial tensions had been simmering for years between these groups. Many African Americans were angry toward a growing Korean migrant community in South Central Los Angeles earning a living in their communities, and felt disrespected and humiliated by many Korean merchants. Cultural differences and a language barrier further fueled tensions. The probation Du received for killing Latasha Harlins, combined with the acquittal of the four LAPD officers in Rodney King's trial, resulted in the ensuing Los Angeles riots, with much anger directed at Koreans.

Television coverage of two Korean merchants firing pistols repeatedly at roving looters was widely seen and controversial. The New York Times said "that the image seemed to speak of race war, and of vigilantes taking the law into their own hands." The merchants were reacting to the shooting of Mr. Park's wife and her sister by looters who had converged on the shopping center where the shops were located.

Due to their low social status and the language barrier with immigrants, Korean Americans received very little if any aid or protection from police authorities. David Joo, a manager of the gun store, said, "I want to make it clear that we didn't open fire first. At that time, four police cars were there. Somebody started to shoot at us. The LAPD ran away in half a second. I never saw such a fast escape. I was pretty disappointed." Carl Rhyu, also a participant in the Koreans' armed response, said,

"If it was your own business and your own property, would you be willing to trust it to someone else? We are glad the National Guard is here. They're good backup. But when our shops were burning we called the police every five minutes; no response."

At a shopping center several miles north of Koreatown, Jay Rhee, who said he and others fired five hundred shots into the ground and air, said, "We have lost our faith in the police. Where were you when we needed you?" Koreatown was isolated from South Central Los Angeles, yet despite this, it was the most severely damaged in the riots.

Preparations

One of the largest armed camps in Los Angeles's Koreatown was at the California Market. On the first night after the officers' verdicts were returned, Richard Rhee, the market owner, set up in the parking lot with about 20 armed employees. One year after the riots, fewer than one in four damaged or destroyed businesses had reopened, according to the survey conducted by the Korean-American Inter-Agency Council. According to a Los Angeles Times survey conducted eleven months after the riots, almost 40% of Korean Americans said they were thinking of leaving Los Angeles.

Before a verdict was issued in the new 1993 Rodney King federal civil rights trial against the four officers, Korean shop owners prepared for the worst. Gun sales went up, many to persons of Korean descent, some merchants at flea markets removed merchandise from shelves, and they fortified storefronts with extra Plexiglas and bars. Throughout the region, merchants readied to defend themselves. College student Elizabeth Hwang spoke of the attacks on her parents' convenience store in 1992. She said at the time of the 1993 trial, they had been armed with a Glock 17 pistol, a Beretta, and a shotgun, and they planned to barricade themselves in their store to fight off looters.

Some Koreans formed armed militia groups following the 1992 riots. Speaking just prior to the 1993 verdict, Yong Kim, leader of the Korea Young Adult Team of Los Angeles, which purchased five AK-47s, said "We made a mistake last year. This time we won't. I don't know why Koreans are always a special target for African-Americans, but if they are going to attack our community, then we are going to pay them back."

Post-riots

Korean Americans not only faced physical damage to their stores and community surroundings, but they also suffered emotional, psychological, and economic despair. About 2,300 Korean-owned stores in Southern California were looted or burned, making up 45 percent of all damages caused by the riot. According to the Asian and Pacific American Counseling and Prevention Center, 730 Koreans were treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, which included symptoms such as insomnia, sense of helplessness, and muscle pain. In reaction, many Korean Americans worked to create political and social empowerment.

The L.A. riots resulted in the development of new ethnic agendas and organization. A week after the riots, in the largest Asian-American protest ever held in a city, about 30,000 mostly Korean and Korean-American marchers walked the streets of L.A. Koreatown, calling for peace and denouncing police violence. This cultural movement was devoted to the protection of Koreans' political rights, ethnic heritage, and political representation. New leaders arose within the community, and second-generation children spoke on behalf of the community. Korean Americans began to have different occupation goals, from storeowners to political leaders. Korean Americans worked to gain governmental aid to rebuild their damaged neighborhoods. Countless community and advocacy groups have been established to further fuel Korean political representation and understanding. After suffering from isolation, they worked to gain new understanding and connections. The representative voice that was created remains present in South Central Los Angeles, as such events as the riots contributed to the shaping of identities, perceptions and political and social representation.

Edward Taehan Chang, a professor of ethnic studies and founding director of the Young Oak Kim Center for Korean American Studies at the University of California, Riverside, has identified the LA riots as a turning point for the development of a Korean American identity separate from that of Korean immigrants and that was more engaged with other minority groups. "What was an immigrant Korean identity began to shift. The Korean-American identity was born... They learned a valuable lesson that we have to become much more engaged and politically involved, and that political empowerment is very much part of the Korean-American future."

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Hispanics in the riots

According to a report prepared in 1993 by the Latinos Futures Research Group for the Latino Coalition for a New Los Angeles, one third of those who were killed and one half of those who were arrested in the riots were Latino; moreover, between 20% and 40% of the businesses that were looted were owned by Latino owners. Hispanics were considered a minority despite their increasing numbers, and thus lacked political support and were poorly represented. Their lack of knowledge, both socially and politically, within the area additionally silenced their acknowledgment of participation. Many of the individuals of the area were new immigrants; they often did not speak English and were seen as unimportant and "different" from blacks.

Gloria Alvarez claims the riots did not create social distance between Hispanics and black people, but rather united them. Although the riots were perceived in different aspects, Alvarez argues it brought a greater sense of understanding between Hispanics and blacks. Even though Hispanics now heavily populate the area that was once predominantly black, such transition has improved over time. The building of a stronger and more understanding community could help to prevent social chaos arising between the two groups. Hate crimes and widespread violence between the two groups continue to be a problem in the L.A. area, however.

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Media coverage

Almost as soon as the disturbances broke out in South Central, local television news cameras were on the scene to record the events as they happened. Television coverage of the riots was near continuous, starting with the beating of motorists at the intersection of Florence and Normandie broadcast live by television news pilot/reporter Bob Tur and his camera operator Marika Gerrard. By virtue of their extensive coverage, mainstream television stations provided a vivid, comprehensive and valuable record of the violence occurring on the streets of Los Angeles.

In part because of extensive media coverage of the Los Angeles riots, smaller but similar riots and other anti-police actions took place in other cities throughout the United States. The Emergency Broadcast System was also utilized during the rioting.

Coverage came from the American media, which gave an extensive portrayal of the riots, Korean-American media, and Korea itself. One of the most prominent sources for news about the coverage came from the Korea Times, a Korean-American newspaper run entirely independently from American newspapers, such as The New York Times.

Korean-American newspapers

Articles presented from the Korean-American side stated that "Korean American merchants were apparently targeted by looters during the LA. Riots, according to the FBI official who directed federal law enforcement efforts during the disturbance." The Korean American newspaper focused on the 1992 riots with Korean Americans being the center of the violence. Initial articles from late April and early May were about the stories depicting victims lives and the damage done to the LA Korean Community. Interviews with Koreatown merchants, such as Chung Lee, drew sympathy from its readers. Chung Lee, the model example of good merchant watched, helplessly, as his store was burned down. "I worked hard for that store. Now I have nothing," said Lee.

American newspapers

While several articles included the minorities involved when citing damages or naming victims, few actually incorporated them as a significant part of the struggle. American news coverage was mainly directed at the oppression of African American citizens especially at white hands. One story framed the race riots as "time when the wrath of blacks was focused on whites." They acknowledged that racism and stereotyped views contributed to the riots, the articles from American newspapers made the LA riots about black and whites struggling to coexist, rather than include all minorities involved.

Racism

While some news articles compared the LA riots to the Watts riots of the 1960s, many of them focused on the tension between black and white residents of America, drawing the history as far back as slavery and deep set racial divides.

Multiethnic struggle

The Korean-Americans and their stores throughout LA's Korea town were hit the hardest by the riots, with an estimated $400 million done in damages. Despite claims that Koreatown had not been intentionally targeted during the riots, by Sunday, over 1,600 Korean-American owned stores had been completely destroyed. Hispanic owned stores and African-American owned stores were also destroyed during the riots. Because many ethnic groups were affected, the 1992 LA riots later were called "America's First Multiethnic 'Riots.'"

A major criticism of the mainstream media coverage was the pitting of Koreans and against blacks one another and the framing of the LA riots has having been caused by a black-Korean conflict. As filmmaker Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, who created the 1993 documentary "Sa-I-Gu", described, "Black-Korean conflict was one symptom, but it was certainly not the cause of that riot. The cause of that riot was black-white conflict that existed in this country from the establishment of this country."

Photos: Los Angeles Riots in 1992 and 20 years later (page 1 of 2 ...

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Aftermath

The rioting ended after numerous forces of the California Army National Guard, the 7th Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division were brought in to reinforce the local police. In total, 55 people were killed during the riots and more than 2,000 people were injured.

After the riots subsided, an inquiry was commissioned by the city Police Commission, led by William H. Webster (special advisor), and Hubert Williams (deputy special advisor, president of the Police Foundation). The findings of the inquiry, The City in Crisis: A Report by the Special Advisor to the Board of Police Commissioners on the Civil Disorder in Los Angeles, also colloquially known as the Webster Report or Webster Commission, was released on October 21, 1992.

LAPD chief of police Daryl Gates, who had seen his successor Willie L. Williams named by the Police Commission days before the riots, was forced to resign on June 28, 1992. Some areas of the city saw temporary truces between the rival gangs the Crips and the Bloods, which fueled speculation among LAPD officers that the truce was going to be used to unite them against the department.

Post-riot commentary

Scholars and writers

In addition to the catalyst of the verdicts in the excessive force trial, various other factors have been cited as causes of the unrest. In the years preceding the riots, several other highly controversial incidents involving alleged police brutality or other perceived injustices against minorities had been criticized by activists and investigated by media. Thirteen days after the beating of King was widely broadcast, African Americans were outraged when Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old black girl, was killed by a Korean-American shopkeeper in the course of an ostensible shoplifting incident. Soon Ja Du was sentenced to 5 years probation and 400 hours of community service but no jail time. Rioters targeted Korean-American shops in their areas, as there had been considerable tension between the two communities. Such sources as Newsweek and Time suggested that blacks thought Korean-American merchants were "taking money out of their community", that they were racist as they refused to hire blacks, and often treated them without respect. There were cultural and language differences, as some shopowners were immigrants.

There were other factors for social tensions: high rates of poverty and unemployment among the residents of South Central Los Angeles, which had been deeply affected by the nationwide recession. Articles in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times linked the economic deterioration of South Central to the declining living conditions of the residents, and reported that local resentments about these conditions helped to fuel the riots. Other scholars compare these riots to those in Detroit in the 1920s, when whites rioted against blacks. But instead of African-Americans as victims, the race riots "represent backlash violence in response to recent Latino and Asian immigration into African-American neighborhoods."

Social commentator Mike Davis pointed to the growing economic disparity in Los Angeles, caused by corporate restructuring and government deregulation, with inner city residents bearing the brunt of such changes. Such conditions engendered a widespread feeling of frustration and powerlessness in the urban populace. They reacted to the King verdicts with a violent expression of collective public protest. To Davis and other writers, the tensions between African-Americans and Korean-Americans had as much to do with the economic competition between the two groups caused by wider market forces as with either cultural misunderstandings, or blacks angered about the killing of Latasha Harlins.

A Special Committee of the California Legislature also studied the riots, producing a report entitled To Rebuild is Not Enough. The Committee concluded that the inner city conditions of poverty, racial segregation, lack of educational and employment opportunities, police abuse and unequal consumer services created the underlying causes of the riots. It also noted that the decline of industrial jobs in the American economy and the growing ethnic diversity of Los Angeles had contributed to urban problems. Another official report, The City in Crisis, was initiated by the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners; it made many of the same observations are as the Assembly Special Committee about the growth of popular urban dissatisfaction. In their study Farrell and Johnson found similar factors, which included the diversification of the L.A. population, tension between the successful Korean businesses and other minorities, use of excessive force on minorities by LAPD, and the effect of laissez-faire business on urban employment opportunities.

Rioters were believed to have been motivated by racial tensions but these are considered one of numerous factors. Urban sociologist Joel Kotkin said, "This wasn't a race riot, it was a class riot." Many ethnic groups participated in rioting, not only African Americans. Newsweek reported that "Hispanics and even some whites; men, women and children mingled with African-Americans." "When residents who lived near Florence and Normandie were asked why they believed riots had occurred in their neighborhoods, they responded of the perceived racist attitudes they had felt throughout their lifetime and empathized with the bitterness the rioters felt. Residents who had respectable jobs, homes, and material items still felt like second class citizens. A poll by Newsweek asked whether black people charged with crimes were treated more harshly or more leniently than other ethnicities; 75% of blacks responded "more harshly", versus 46% of whites.

In his public statements during the riots, Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader, sympathized with the anger of African-Americans about the verdicts in the King trial, and noted root causes of the disturbances. He repeatedly emphasized the continuing patterns of racism, police brutality, and economic despair suffered by inner city residents.

Several prominent writers expressed a similar "culture of poverty" argument. Writers in Newsweek, for example, drew a distinction between the actions of the rioters in 1992 with those of the urban upheavals in the 1960s, arguing that "[w]here the looting at Watts had been desperate, angry, mean, the mood this time was closer to a manic fiesta, a TV game show with every looter a winner." Meanwhile, in an article published in Commentary entitled "How the Rioters Won", conservative columnist Midge Decter referred to African-American city youths and asked "[h]ow is it possible to go on declaring that what will save the young men of South Central L.A., and the young girls they impregnate, and the illegitimate babies they sire, is jobs? How is it possible to look at these boys of the underclass ... and imagine that they either want or could hold on to jobs?"

Politicians

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton said that the violence resulted from the breakdown of economic opportunities and social institutions in the inner city. He also berated both major political parties for failing to address urban issues, especially the Republican Administration for its presiding over "more than a decade of urban decay" generated by their spending cuts. He maintained that the King verdicts could not be avenged by the "savage behavior" of "lawless vandals". He also stated that people "are looting because ... [t]hey do not share our values, and their children are growing up in a culture alien from ours, without family, without neighborhood, without church, without support." While Los Angeles was mostly unaffected by the urban decay the other metropolitan areas of the nation faced since the 1960s, racial tensions had been present since the late 1970s, becoming increasingly violent as the 1980s progressed.

Democrat Maxine Waters, the African-American Congressional representative of South Central Los Angeles, said that the events in L.A. constituted a "rebellion" or "insurrection", caused by the underlying reality of poverty and despair existing in the inner city. This state of affairs, she asserted, were brought about by a government that had all but abandoned the poor and failed to help compensate for the loss of local jobs, and by the institutional discrimination encountered by racial minorities, especially at the hands of the police and financial institutions.

Conversely, President Bush argued that the unrest was "purely criminal". Though he acknowledged that the King verdicts were plainly unjust, he said that "we simply cannot condone violence as a way of changing the system ... Mob brutality, the total loss of respect for human life was sickeningly sad ... What we saw last night and the night before in Los Angeles is not about civil rights. It's not about the great cause of equality that all Americans must uphold. It's not a message of protest. It's been the brutality of a mob, pure and simple."

Vice President Dan Quayle blamed the violence on a "Poverty of Values" - "I believe the lawless social anarchy which we saw is directly related to the breakdown of family structure, personal responsibility and social order in too many areas of our society" Similarly, the White House Press Secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, alleged that "many of the root problems that have resulted in inner city difficulties were started in the '60s and '70s and ... they have failed ... [N]ow we are paying the price."

Writers for former Congressman Ron Paul framed the riots in similar terms in the June 1992 edition of the Ron Paul Political Newsletter, billed as a special issue focusing on "racial terrorism." "Order was only restored in LA", the newsletter read, "when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began... What if the checks had never arrived? No doubt the blacks would have fully privatized the welfare state through continued looting. But they were paid off and the violence subsided."

Rodney King

In the aftermath of the riots, public pressure mounted for a retrial of the officers. Federal charges of civil rights violations were brought against them. As the first anniversary of the acquittal neared, the city tensely awaited the decision of the federal jury.

The decision was read in a court session on Saturday, April 17, 1993 at 7:00 am. Officer Laurence Powell and Sergeant Stacey Koon were found guilty, while officers Theodore Briseno and Timothy Wind were acquitted. Mindful of criticism of sensationalist reporting after the first trial and during the riots, media outlets opted for more sober coverage. Police were fully mobilized with officers on 12 hour shifts, convoy patrols, scout helicopters, street barricades, tactical command centers, and support from the Army National Guard, the active duty Army and the Marines.

All four of these officers have since quit or have been fired from the LAPD. Briseno left the LAPD after being acquitted on federal charges. Wind, who was also acquitted, was fired after the appointment of Willie L. Williams as Chief of Police. Chief Williams' tenure was short lived. The Los Angeles Police Commission declined to renew his contract, citing Williams' failure to fulfill his mandate to create meaningful change in the department. Susan Clemmer, an officer who gave crucial testimony for the defense at first trial of officers, committed suicide in July 2009 in the lobby of a Los Angeles Sheriff's Station. She had ridden in the ambulance with King and testified that he was laughing and spat blood on her uniform. She had remained in law enforcement and was a Sheriff's Detective at the time of her death.

Rodney King was awarded $3.8 million in damages from the City of Los Angeles. He invested most of this money in founding a hip-hop record label, "Straight Alta-Pazz Records". The venture was unable to garner success and soon folded. King was later arrested at least eleven times on a variety of charges, including domestic abuse and hit and run. King and his family moved from Los Angeles to Rialto, California, a suburb in San Bernardino County, in an attempt to escape the fame and notoriety and to begin a new life. King and his family later returned to Los Angeles, where they ran a family owned construction company. Until his death on June 17, 2012, King rarely discussed the night of his beating by police or its aftermath, preferring to remain out of the spotlight. King died of an accidental drowning; authorities said that he had alcohol and drugs in his body. Renee Campbell, his most recent attorney, described King as "... simply a very nice man caught in a very unfortunate situation."

Deaths and arrests

On May 3, 1992, in view of the very large number of persons arrested during the riots, the California Supreme Court extended the deadline to charge defendants from 48 hours to 96 hours. That day, 6,345 people were arrested and 44 dead bodies were still being identified by the coroner using fingerprints, driver's license, or dental records.

By the end of the riot 63 people had died, including 35 from gunfire (including eight shot by law enforcement officers and two by National Guardsmen), six due to arson, two from attackers armed with sticks or boards, two from stabbings, six in car accidents (including two hit-and-runs), and one from strangling.

Nearly one third of the rioters arrested were released because police officers were unable to identify individuals in the sheer volume of the crowd. In one case, officers arrested around 40 people stealing from one store; while they were identifying them, a group of another 12 looters were brought in. With the groups mingled, charges could not be brought against individuals for stealing from specific stores, and the police had to release them all.

In the weeks after the rioting, more than 11,000 people were arrested. Many of the looters in black communities were turned in by their neighbors, who were angry about the destruction of businesses who employed locals and providing basic needs such as groceries. Many of the looters, fearful of prosecution by law enforcement and condemnation from their neighbors, ended up placing looted items curbside in other areas to get rid of them.

Rebuilding Los Angeles

After three days of arson and looting, 3,767 buildings were burned and property damage was estimated at more than $1 billion. Donations were given to help with food and medicine. The office of State Senator Diane E. Watson provided shovels and brooms to volunteers from all over the community who helped clean. 13,000 police and military personnel patrolled the area, protecting intact gas stations and food stores; they reopened along with other businesses areas such as the Universal Studios tour, dance halls, and bars. Many organizations stepped forward to rebuild Los Angeles; South Central's Operation Hope and Koreatown's Saigu and KCCD (Korean Churches for Community Development), all raised millions to repair destruction and improve economic development. President George H.W. Bush signed a declaration of disaster; it activated Federal relief efforts for the victims of looting and arson, which included grants and low-cost loans to cover their property losses. The Rebuild LA program promised $6 billion in private investment to create 74,000 jobs.

The majority of the local stores were never rebuilt.Store owners had difficulty getting loans; myths about the area arose discouraging investment in the area and preventing growth of employment. Few of the rebuilding plans were implemented, and business investors and some community members rejected South L.A.

Residential life

Many Los Angeles residents bought weapons for self-defense against further violence. The 10-day waiting period in California law stymied those who wanted to purchase firearms while the riot was going on.

In a survey of local residents in 2010, 77% felt that the economic situation in Los Angeles had significantly worsened since 1992. From 1992-2007, the black population dropped by 123,000, while the Latino population grew more than 450,000. According to the Los Angeles police statistics, violent crime fell by 76% between 1992 and 2010, which has been a period of declining crime across the country. It was accompanied by lessening tensions between racial groups. 60% of residents reported racial tension has improved in the past 20 years, and gang activity has decreased.

Vigil held to mark 25th anniversary of 1992 Los Angeles riots ...

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References

External links

General

Of the 63 people killed during '92 riots, 23 deaths remain unsolved -- artist Jeff Beall is mapping where they fell -- 25 Years After, an Artist's Response -- LA Times, April 28, 2017.
The L.A. Riots: 15 Years after Rodney King from Time.com.
Flawed Emergency Response during the L.A. riots - article by Taubman Center for State and Local Government.
The L.A. 53 - full listing of 53 known deaths during the riots, from the L.A. Weekly.
L.A.'s darkest days - Christian Science Monitor retrospective and interviews with victims and participants.
"Charting the Hours of Chaos". Los Angeles Times. April 29, 2002.
1992: The LA riots - an anarchist perspective characterizing the riots as political uprising.
Of Illicit Appearance: The L.A. Riots/Rebellion as a Portent of Things to Come, Lewis Gordon, Truthout, May 12, 2012
20 Years After the L.A. Riots, Revisiting the Rationality of Revolt, Nigel Gibson, Truthout, May 12, 2012
The Untold Story of the LA Riot, David Whitman, U.S. News & World Report, May 23, 1993, with special emphasis on the riot's first day

Photography

Urban Voyeur - black and white photographs taken during the riots.

Video and audio

CBS News Special Report: Beyond the Rage (aired May 1, 1992)
Los Angeles - A City Under Fire Part 1 (news clips montage)
Los Angeles - A City Under Fire part 3 (raw news clips)
ABC News story including amateur video of beating incident with commentary on YouTube
"The Radio Show" with Tom Snyder April 30 and May 1, 1992.
ABC Nightline special Moment of Crisis: Anatomy of a Riot

Source of article : Wikipedia

Wednesday, July 4, 2018