FURY IN THE STREETS

April 29 through May 3 mark the 30th anniversary of the largest riots in Los Angeles County history. Civil unrest in Southern California has occurred in 1943, 1965, 1992 and 2020.

People mill in the parking lot of the ABC Market in South Central Los Angeles on April 30, 1992, as violence and looting unfold on the first day of riots following the verdicts in the Rodney King assault case.

LOS ANGELES UPRISING, 1992

Two incidents led to the riots that began April 29. On March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a Black man, was clubbed and kicked by a group of Los Angeles Police Department officers during a traffic stop. George Holliday, the owner of a Los Angeles plumbing company, recorded the violence on a camcorder and sold his video to TV station KTLA Channel 5. The video was seen across the nation.

In another incident around the same time, Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old Black girl, was shot in the back of the head on March 16, 1991, by Korean American storeowner Soon Ja Du after a scuffle. Du was convicted of voluntary manslaughter but served no prison time.

MAYOR BRADLEY REACTS

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley created the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department, also known as the Christopher Commission, in April 1991. It was created to conduct "a full and fair examination of the structure and operation of the LAPD," including its recruitment and training practices, internal disciplinary system and citizen complaint system.

THE CITY ERUPTS

On April 29, after a jury acquitted four LAPD officers (three of whom were white) of crimes connected to the widely seen beating of King, rioting broke out in South Los Angeles and quickly spread to other parts of Southern California.

Over the next six days, 64 people died during the riots, including nine shot by police and one by the National Guard. Of those killed, two were Asian, 28 were Black, 19 were Latino and 15 were White. No law enforcement officials died during the riots. There were more than 12,000 arrests. Property damage was estimated at more than $1 billion, most of it taking place in Koreatown, just north of South Central L.A.

The upheaval ended after more than 5,000 federal troops were deployed.

Of the 12,111 people the LAPD arrested during the riots, 36% were Black.

CONGRESS ACTS

The conditions that led to the violence, including police intezraction with minority communities, economic inequality and racial injustice, became part of a national conversation that continues.

Two years after the riots, Congress passed Section 14141 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforce

ment Act, which authorized the U.S. Justice Department to investigate local police departments when they exhibit evidence of excessive misconduct and deadly force. It was a direct response to the abuses discovered in the LAPD by the Christopher Commission

after the King video went public.

Section 14141 also authorized the Justice Department to establish reforms within abusive police departments via consent decrees.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DAVID CRANE – SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA NEWS GROUP Rodney King calls for an end to the violence May 1, 1992: “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?” King, who struggled with substance abuse, died at 47 on June 17, 2012. He was found in his swimming pool. The autopsy showed that an “alcohol and drug-induced delirium” led to his drowning. His death was ruled both accidental and self-inflicted.