The Los Angeles riots of 1992, also known as the Rodney King uprising or the Rodney King riots, were sparked on April 29, 1992 when a jury acquitted four police officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King following a high-speed pursuit. Thousands of people in the Los Angeles area rioted over the six days following the verdict. Widespread looting, assault, arson, and murder occurred, and property damages totaled one billion dollars. Many of the crimes were racially motivated or perpetrated. In all, 53 people died during the riots.[1]
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In addition to the immediate trigger of the verdict, many other factors were cited as reasons for the unrest, including extremely high unemployment among residents of South Central Los Angeles, which had been hit very hard by the nation-wide recession; a long-standing perception that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) engaged in racial profiling and used excessive force, subsequently supported by the Christopher Commission, an investigation led by Warren Christopher (who two years later would become Secretary of State under president Bill Clinton); and specific anger over the sentence given to a Korean American shop-owner for the murder of Latasha Harlins, an African American girl. On March 3, 1991, Rodney King was tackled, tasered, and heavily beaten with clubs, by four L.A.P.D. officers. The incident, without the first few minutes where police claim King was violently resisting arrest, was captured on video by a personal camera, the Argentine George Holliday[2], from his apartment in the vicinity. The footage of King being beaten by police officers while lying on the ground became an international media sensation and a rallying point for activists in Los Angeles and around the United States. "Most of America saw an edited version of the amateur videotape. Jurors in the officers' trial saw an additional 13 seconds, in which King charged the officers. This version fueled the jurors' decision to acquit."[3]
The police officers claimed that King appeared to be under the influence of PCP,[4] though this claim was never proven. King had led police on a high-speed car chase. After driving through several red lights and boulevard stops, he pulled over in the Lake View Terrace district. In a later interview, King, who was on parole from prison on a robbery conviction, and had past convictions for assault, battery and robbery[5][6] said that, being on parole, he feared apprehension and being returned to prison for parole violations.
The Los Angeles district attorney subsequently charged four police officers with assault and three of the four with use of excessive force.[7] Due to heavy media coverage of the arrest, the trial received a change of venue from Los Angeles County to a newly constructed courthouse in the predominantly white city of Simi Valley in neighboring Ventura County. No Simi Valley residents served on the jury, which was drawn from the nearby San Fernando Valley, a predominantly white and Hispanic area, and composed of ten whites, one Hispanic, and one Asian.[8] The prosecutor, Terry White, was black.[9][10] 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.[8] The verdicts were based in part on the first two seconds of a blurry, 13-second segment of the video tape that was edited out by television news stations in their broadcast. During the first two seconds of videotape[11], Rodney King allegedly gets up off the ground and charges in the general direction of one of the police officers, Ofc. Laurence Powell but this allegation is disputed due to the blurriness of the video. During the next minute and 19 seconds, however, 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, according to the officers, King was able to physically throw them off himself.[12] Based on this testimony and the previously unseen segment of the videotape, the officers were acquitted on almost all charges.
Another theory offered by the prosecution for the officers' acquittal is that the jurors may have become 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.[13]
The riots, beginning in the evening after the verdict, peaked in intensity over the next two days, but ultimately continued for several days. Television coverage of the riots was near-continuous, including much footage from helicopter news crews. A curfew, and deployment of the National Guard began to control the situation; eventually federal troops from the 7th Infantry Division, based in Fort Ord and United States Marines from the 1st Marine Division, based in Camp Pendleton were ordered to the city to quell disorder as well.
Fifty-three lives were lost, many of them murdered, with as many as 2,000 people injured. Estimates of the material damage done 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. Over 10,000 people were arrested. Stores owned by Korean and other Asian immigrants were widely targeted, although stores owned by whites and African-Americans were targeted by rioters as well. Criminals used the chaos to their own benefit. Street gangs used the riot as an opportunity to settle scores with each other, and fought the police and military as well. There were also copycat riots across the nation such as in San Francisco, Houston, Detroit, New York City, Chicago, Seattle and Miami, and in Toronto, Canada.
The acquittals of the four accused LAPD officers came at 3:15 p.m. local time. By 3:45, a generally peaceful crowd of more than 300 people had appeared at the Los Angeles County Courthouse, most protesting the verdict passed down a few minutes before. Between 5 and 6 p.m., a group of two dozen officers, commanded by LAPD Lt. Michael Moulin, confronted a growing crowd at the intersection of Florence and Normandie in South Central Los Angeles. Outnumbered, these officers retreated.[14] A new group of protesters appeared at Parker Center, the LAPD's headquarters, by about 6:30 p.m., and 15 minutes later, the black crowd at Florence and Normandie had started looting, attacking vehicles and people, mainly European-Americans and Latino-Americans of white appearance.
At approximately 6:45 p.m., Reginald Denny, a white truck driver who stopped at a traffic light at the intersection of Florence and South Normandie Avenues, was dragged from his vehicle and severely beaten by a mob of local residents as news helicopters hovered above, recording every blow, including a concrete fragment connecting with Denny's temple and a cinder block thrown at his head as he lay unconscious in the street. The police never appeared, having been ordered to withdraw for their own safety, although several assailants (the so-called L.A. Four) were later arrested and one, Damian Williams, was sent to prison. Instead, Denny was rescued, not by police officers, but by an unarmed, African-American civilian named Bobby Green Jr who, seeing the assault live on television, rushed to the scene and drove Denny to the hospital using the victim's own truck, which carried 27 tons of sand. Denny recovered after brain surgery. Although several other motorists were brutally beaten by the same mob, due to the live coverage, Denny remains the best-known victim of the riots.
At the same intersection, just minutes after Denny was rescued, another beating was captured on video tape. Fidel Lopez, a self-employed construction worker and Guatemalan immigrant, was ripped from his truck and robbed of nearly $2,000. Damian Williams smashed his forehead open with a car stereo[15] as another rioter attempted to slice his ear off. After Lopez lost consciousness, the crowd spray painted his chest, torso and genitals black.[16] Rev. Bennie Newton, an African American minister who ran an inner-city ministry for troubled youth, prevented others from beating Fidel by placing himself between Fidel and his attackers and shouting "Kill him and you have to kill me, too". He was also instrumental in helping Fidel get medical aid by taking him to the hospital. Lopez survived the attack, after extensive surgery to reattach his partially severed ear and months of recovery.
Arsonists struck in that neighborhood and others, taking out their anger on several unguarded businesses, police and other races. By 7:30 the intersection of Florence and Normandie was completely looted, burned and destroyed, causing the rioters to move into other neighborhoods of South Central. The LAFD's first fire call relating to the riots came at about 7:45 p.m. Looters threw bricks to smash windows and Molotov cocktails to start fires. Cars were torched to block intersections; others were carjacked and their drivers beaten. Shots were fired at rescue personnel. By dark, stores were being openly looted and fires burned unabated as fire officials refused to send firemen into personal danger. The LAPD ordered all officers to report for duty, and many deployed in riot gear but they were unseen in broad sections of the city. Between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. rioting focused in South Central Los Angeles began to spread. Between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. rioting began in Inglewood and other communities.
By 9:00 p.m., the protest at Parker Center had turned violent as rioters threw rocks and damaged some downtown buildings and windows. Also by this time, the situation in affected areas had deteriorated enough that bus service was suspended on some lines, and the flight paths of incoming jets to Los Angeles International Airport were modified because of shots fired at a police helicopter. At 10 pm members of LAPD Metropolitan C and B platoons were involved in a firefight at 114th Street and Central Avenue while protecting Fire Department personnel. Hundreds of rounds were fired and the V-100 rescue vehicle was sent to extract the officers safely. The V-100 rescue vehicle then recovered the two dead bodies from the Nickerson Gardens projects that were killed during the battle.
Long-established LAPD tactics and procedures held that the opening hours of a riot were critical, and that a full-force response was required. The LAPD did not respond quickly and decisively in the opening hours, however, and suffered persistent criticism as a result during and following the riots. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley declared a state of emergency at 8:45 p.m., prompting Governor Pete Wilson to activate 2,000 members of the National Guard.
By the second day violence appeared widespread and unchecked as heavy looting and fires had started being witnessed across Los Angeles County. The Korean American community, seeing the police force's abandonment of Koreatown, organized armed security teams composed of store workers, who entered the fray. Open gun battles were televised as Korean shopkeepers took to shooting at people indiscriminately to protect their businesses from crowds of violent looters and innocents caught in the riot. (One of the volunteers, 18-year-old Edward Lee, was killed in the crossfire that evening, by bullets from another Korean volunteer.)[17] Organized law-enforcement response began to come together by mid-day. Fire crews began to respond backed by police escort; California Highway Patrol reinforcements were airlifted to the city; and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley declared a state of emergency and announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew. President George H. W. Bush spoke out against the rioting, stating that "anarchy" would not be tolerated. The California National Guard, which had been advised not to expect civil disturbance, responded quickly by calling up some 2,000 soldiers, but could not get them to the city until nearly 24 hours had passed due to a lack of proper equipment, training, and available ammunition which had to be picked up from Camp Roberts, California (near Paso Robles). Initially, they only secured areas previously cleared of rioters by police. Later, they actively ran patrols, maintained checkpoints, and provided firepower for law enforcement.
In an attempt to end hostilities, Bill Cosby spoke on the NBC affliate television station KNBC and asked people to stop what they were doing and instead watch the final episode of The Cosby Show.[18][19]
The same members of LAPD Metropolitan Division C-platoon that were involved in the firefight at 114th Street and Central Avenue on the first night drove into a robbery in progress at the gas station at Vernon and Western. One robber was killed, a second was wounded and a sawed-off shotgun was recovered.
The third day was punctuated by live footage of Rodney King asking, "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?"[20][21] That morning, at 1:00 a.m., California Governor Pete Wilson had requested federal assistance, but it was not ready until Saturday. National Guard units (doubled to 4,000 troops) continued to move into the city in Humvees. Additionally, a varied contingent of 1,700 federal law-enforcement officers from different agencies from across the state began to arrive, to protect federal facilities and assist local police. As darkness fell, the main riot area was further hit by a power outage.
Friday evening, President George H.W. Bush spoke to the nation, denouncing "random terror and lawlessness", summarizing his discussions with Mayor Bradley and Governor Wilson, and outlining 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 then turned to the Rodney King case and a more moderate tone, describing talking to his own grandchildren and pointing to the reaction of "good and decent policemen" as well as civil rights leaders. He said he had already directed the Justice Department to begin its own investigation, saying that "grand jury action is underway today" and that justice would prevail.[22]
By this point, many entertainment and sports events were postponed or canceled. The Los Angeles Lakers hosted the Portland Trail Blazers in a basketball playoff 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; all were made up as part of doubleheaders in July. The Hollywood Park Racetrack and Los Alamitos horse racing tracks were also shut down. L.A. Fiesta Broadway, a major event in the Latino community, was not held in the first weekend in May as scheduled.
On the fourth day, 4,000 Soldiers and Marines arrived from Fort Ord and Camp Pendleton to suppress the crowds and restore order. Order began to appear as the Army and Marines arrived. With most of the violence under control, 30,000 people attended a peace rally. By the end of the day a sense of normality began to return.
Whether in response to the riots, or simply to the acquital, on May 2 the Justice Department announced it would begin a federal investigation of the Rodney King beating.
Overall quiet set in and Mayor Bradley assured the public that the crisis was, more or less, under control.[23] In one incident, National Guardsmen shot and killed a motorist that they said tried to run them over.[24]
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 state guard remained until May 14; and some soldiers remained as late as May 27.
The most accurate documented count of the dead may be the April 24, 2002 LA Weekly article, "The L.A. 53", by Jim Crogan. Using coroner's reports, police records and interviews, he documented 53 people and how they died.
| “ | Gunfire killed 35, including eight people shot by law enforcement and two by National Guardsmen. Six died in arson fires. Attackers used sticks or boards to kill two others. Stabbings killed two. Six died in car accidents; two in hit-and-runs. One was strangled.
The violence crossed racial and ethnic lines. The dead included 25 African-Americans, 16 Latinos, eight Caucasians, two Asians, one Algerian, and one Indian or Middle Easterner. Men outnumbered women, 48 to 5.[1] |
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Ronald N. Jacobs’s book, Race, Media, and the Crisis of Civil Society: From the Watts Riots to Rodney King, covers some of the basic effects of the media prior and during the Rodney King beating and Riot. [25]
The media, especially the daily press and television, played a huge role in the story immediately after the beating. Coverage related to the beating was published tremendously during the initial two weeks after the beating: the Los Angeles Times published fifty-five articles about the incident, the New York Times published twenty-one articles, and the Chicago Tribune published fifteen articles. Eight stories appeared on ABC News, including a sixty minute special on “Primetime Live”. All of the stories in the media presented the incident as a shocking tragedy, and blame the police for being irresponsible and taking advantage of their power. Majority of the stories presented the police in a negative light, one story even states that the police were seen laughing and joking about the incident shortly afterwards. All of the stories commented on the appalling images from the video of the white cops beating a helpless black man.
Although all the stories claimed to only be reporting the facts, many of the articles used, what would seem to be, persuasive language and wording in their stories. Ignoring objectivity and using swaying words such as “violent”, “pounding”, “pummeling”, and “brutality” placed the police officers in a negative light and made the public even more outraged. However, the videotape provided the most persuasion as it was a view of pure reality. No story or word-play could account for as more anger as the actual videotape because it presented a “reality effect” in that there was no alteration to the story; it was what actually happened. All media outlets took advantage of the videotape and it played a vital role in the uprising of the public. The videotape finally affirmed what minorities have been complaining about for years, and this time there was no way out for the police officers. Because the incident was caught on tape, the word of the officers would not matter. This was one of the first times the secrecy and brutality of the police had actually been caught, and that was perhaps more shocking than the incident itself. The videotape tarnished the credibility of the police officers and the sense of crisis was strengthened.
There were two different perspectives of the participants during the riot. One side took the riot and turned into a romanticized drama. They portrayed the riot participants as heroic and fighting the evil giants of the Los Angeles Police Department and its leader, Police Commission Daryl Gates. On the other hand, however, the riot participants were viewed as anti-heroic with their only cause being to show its opposition – to the LAPD, Daryl Gates, and the city of Los Angeles – rather than it being response to a huge injustice. Either side a media outlet took however always placed Gates in a negative light; therefore, the riot participants usually had significant gains regardless of how they were portrayed.
There was also a second romantic narrative formed during the course of the riot by the Los Angeles Sentinel; it placed the African-American community as a whole as the hero in the riot. The Sentinel's articles seemed to suggest that American society was deeply flawed, and that the African-American community was destined to ultimately change society for the better. They viewed the African-American community as the sole voice for unity and morality, and the only ones that could solve the crisis. The Rodney King beating was a breaking point for the African-American community, and they decided it was time to unleash their full potential and power on the city.
However, not all media portrayed the rioters as heroic. Both the Chicago Defender and the Los Angeles Sentinel were very critical of the riot participants. They accused the rioters of being wrong in their actions, and that no matter what violence is never justified. They compared the Rodney King Riot to the Watts Riots of Los Angeles in 1965, stating that the African-American community handled the situation wrong and that they were overlooking the actual underlying problems that resulted in the Rodney King beating. The newspapers argued that the catharsis of destructing the city was merely a temporary feeling and that nothing was solved from their actions. On May 9, 1992 the Chicago Defender stated, “The recent two days of rioting and devastation that took place in South Central Los Angeles are a sad, sad commentary on the state of affairs of Black America…The real underlying factor was and still is economics” (p.119). These public statements also reflected those of the 1965 Watts riots in that they reprimanded the African-American community for acting out in destructive ways, and what they really needed to was redesign their infrastructure to become more successful in their tactics.
There was also the use of a tragic frame by various newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. The key to a tragic frame is to relinquish all hope, regardless of how just a cause is. To accomplish this they made a hero out of the riot participants, however they also made it clear that a victory was impossible. This was achieved by not so much relying heavily on the details of the Rodney King beating, but to relate it to a larger historical context. This was clearly relatively simple, as it is general knowledge of how much minorities, especially African-Americans, have suffered throughout the course of United States history. By discussing other forms of police brutality and institutionalized oppression that had gone on since the beginnings of America, it was quite easy to see that this secluded incident did not have much hope for a grand change either.
In the aftermath of the riots, pressure mounted for a retrial of the officers, and federal charges of civil rights violations were brought against the officers. As the first anniversary of the acquittal neared, the city tensely awaited the decision of the federal jury; seven days of deliberations raised fears of further violence in the event of another "not guilty" verdict. The LAPD Captain in charge of the division hired a press agent, thus avoiding direct contact with news media after the riots. (source: Reader's Digest)
The decision was read in an atypical 7:00 a.m. Saturday court session on April 17, 1993. Two officers --Officer Laurence Powell and Sergeant Stacey Koon-- were found guilty, while officers Theodore Briseno and Timothy Wind were acquitted. Mindful of accusations of sensationalist reporting in the wake of the first trial and the resulting chaos, media outlets opted for more sober coverage, which included calmer on-the-street interviews.[26] Police were fully mobilized with officers on 12-hour shifts, convoy patrols, scout helicopters, street barricades, tactical command centers, and support from the National Guard and Marines.[27][28] These precautionary measures, while wise, proved unnecessary.
All four of the officers involved have since quit or have been fired from the LAPD. Officer Theodore Briseno left the LAPD after being acquitted on federal charges. Officer Timothy Wind, who was also acquitted a second time, was fired after the appointment of Willie L. Williams as Chief of Police. Chief Williams' tenure was also 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 in the wake of the Rodney King disaster.[29]
Rodney King was awarded 3.8 million dollars in damages from the City of Los Angeles for the brutal attack. He invested most of this money in founding a record label, “Straight Alta-Pazz Records”. The venture was unable to garner any success and soon folded. Since the arrest which culminated in his vicous beating by the four police officers, King has been arrested eleven times on a variety of misdemeanor charges, including domestic abuse and hit-and-run. [30] [31] 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 run a family-owned construction company. King rarely discusses the incident or its aftermath, preferring to remain out of the spotlight. Renee Campbell, his most recent attorney, has described King as “...simply a very nice man caught in a very unfortunate situation.”
The Los Angeles riots had a broad impact on popular culture that still continues, influencing music, film, television, video games and other art forms.
Jacobs, R: “Race, Media, and the Crisis of Civil Society: From the Watts Riots to Rodney King”, pages 81-120. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
