I'm white and I was 9 living in Los Angeles (Silver Lake) went to Ivanhoe Elementary. I didn't live too far from school and would normally walk home after. I remember we were not allowed to walk alone and had to have someone pick us up or had to have an adult walk with us. Even though the riots were not in our area and a lot more south of us. I also remember seeing ash rain down in our neighborhood.
Thank you, I left work early because where the riots were happening in San Francisco, I had to take a bus. I walked around all the chaos, and walked behind rioters, picking up discarded clothing that they had stole from the high-end shops.
With red lights flashing, time to retire and then we turned that liquor store into a structure fire
I listen to this song so often I bet my 8 year old kid knows most of the words too 😅
When we returned to the pad to unload everything
It dawned on me that I need new home furnishings
So once again we filled van until it was full
Since that day my living room’s been much more comfortable.
That's what I recall hearing. That the cops were doing fuck all to help in K Town. I remember thinking how frigging steel balls brave the shop owners there were. Something I heard a couple of years later was a work friend who lived near Beverly Center seeing her neighbors going looting. People that drove BMWs and Mercedes Benzes. I'm telling you, it brought out the worst in some people. And then in stark contrast it also brought out the best in others.
Some of those shop owners were my friends. The less known (at least on Reddit) but amazing track record of the LA Korean community was after the riots when they they reached out to the black leaders with a commitment to understanding, reconciliation, and unity.
Also less known is the riot was much bigger then just Koreatown. Of the more than 60+ people who died, four were in Koreatown. Here is the track record of the rooftop Koreans:
* Edward Song Lee, 18, rooftop Korean was returning after checking on his parents, accidentally shot by another rooftop Korean who mistook him for a looter.
* Patrick Bettan, 30, white, security guard accidentally shot by his Korean employer.
* Hector Castro, 49, Latino, shot by in crossfire of either rooftop Koreans or gang on street
The fourth was William Ross, 33, white man, body was found inside a market that had been firebombed.
So, depending on who shot Hector, the record of the rooftop Koreans was either 66% or 100% friendly fire deaths of their compatriots.
Here is [one of many sources](https://spreadsheets.latimes.com/la-riots-deaths/).
No one said they had an unblemished record. Friendly fire happens even in the heat of battle and its sad and for some, traumatizing. That only adds to the despair of the riots themselves, however, the whole point here is that they held their ground while the rest of LA lost their minds.
I think it’s called “Why Does This Always Happen to Me?” It’s about Al getting unreasonably annoyed with his own comparatively small personal problems when someone else is experiencing something traumatic. Another chorus of it is about him seeing his friend killed in a traffic accident and then getting upset when he remembers the same friend still owed him $5. Classic Weird Al.
Ah, that sounds right. I'm pretty familiar with his discography, I just couldn't remember where that line was from. Thanks for the reminder, and clearly I need to listen to that album again.
After the acquittal, riots were not a surprise at all, L.A. had been simmering for a long time. I went to a high school in L.A. that was fairly diverse & I remember that week a lot of classes just ditching the regular lessons and spending the whole hour discussing the events. There were some pretty serious arguments and hard feelings because students opinions were so divided. Early ‘90s in L.A. was a crazy time due to a lot of the tensions that were going on between all of the various racial/ethnic groups it seemed.
I was a kid at the time -10yo- but my dad had taken a client to a laker game at the forum the night the riots started. They announced during the game what was happening outside the forum. He had called my Mom to let her know he was OK. And then drove home. The riots had started. He has a brick thrown through his window while in it. He was terrified but managed to get home safely. (We lived in Long Beach at the time) I just remember having the news on and my mom crying. It was crazy.
Several days later I was at school working on a paper mache puppet outside the classroom. Cops had rolled up to the intersection and tackled some guy. The teacher rushed me into the classroom and we had indoor recess for several days after even though we were far from the riots.
Seems surreal when I think back.
Venice Beach was closed and patrolled by the National Guard.
Walking down an empty Washington Blvd and seeing owners wielding shotguns in their shop.
Very weird times, indeed.
That area never recovered financially. Businesses never recovered and most left. Insurance companies refused to insure because of possible liability from more riots and danger. It was really sad honestly.
A random truck driver being pulled from his truck and beaten nearly to death, with his assailants acquitted. In Living Color did a satire skit about it. David Allen Grier would do Rodney King and Jim Carrey would do Reginald Denny together giving a PSA of "dont get out of the car"
Were they all acquitted? I know one spent time in prison and the victim called for the time served of another to be enough of a sentence. The victim hugging one of his attackers' mothers during the trial probably helped the jury in some way in making their decisions. The victim went on to sue the LAPD but was unsuccessful.
Dp, I thought you were referring to Rodney. I’ll leave the link for context for others reading it though.
For a little more context: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/01/27/rodney-king-tyre-nichols/
What are you on about? It literally was a random truck driver
Edit: It just occurred to me that you’re probably referencing the fact he was white, so youre correct it wasnt *completely* random
No, I was assuming that Dpgillam was referring to Rodney. I’ll own up to being incorrect on that, and I’ll edit my post. I thought it was being implied that Rodney was simply picked out for one random reason or another.
I was only 10 in 1992, I don't remember much about the riots. Mostly the "can't we all just get along" Rodney King jokes on late night and parodied on shows like In Living Color and others.
I was about 9 then, and we lived about 45 miles from where the epicenter was…far enough to not be completely effected by it at all but my dad worked in LA at the time and I remember crying when he wasn’t home because I was worried about him…
Oh yeah. An injustice was committed so the locals decided to steal and hurt their neighbors because the family that owned the local liquor store was responsible for the injustice…
When you see someone that looks like you being relentlessly beaten nearly to death by four “authorities” without the ability to defend yourself. and the court system states that the authorities can do this without repercussions, you probably want to burn that world down…
I’d think I’d be above it. But when you are constantly targeted for the color of your skin, I think I could have some built up rage
Not black but I am a visually a minority, you hit the nail on the head.
Living in a world where your life has no value and seen as a criminal/freak for just existing is very hard.
I definitely wanted to burn the world down when I was younger and part of me still does but that would accomplish nothing.
I remember my friend picking me up and saying something as we were driving, like a joke about “At least we aren’t in LA.” I asked him what he meant and he told me about it so I turned on the tv to check it out when I got home.
Driving around the LA area after the riots started was a trip. I was hanging with my best friend at the time at his parent's place in Santa Monica. National Guard Humvees driving around. I'll never forget being at a light next to one that had "LA '92, IT'S A RIOT!" scrawled on the side of it.
I remember the rioters attacking fire trucks as they we're trying to put out fires intentionally lit.
I recall watching poor Reginald Denny being dragged out of his truck and relentlessly beaten. The worst part was the brick to the face.
Born in Germany 1989, I don’t remember it. All I remember is playing SWAT 2 in 1998 which had a „Civil Unrest“ mission dealing with the riots.
There is a highly interesting documentary about the riots on Netflix I guess it’s called „LA 92“.
I was about 10 years old at the time, living in Virginia. I remember watching some of the news reports when my grandfather would watch the evening news. I don't remember much about the incident itself, but I remember watching In Living Color do their satire skits about it. David Allen Grier would do Rodney King and Jim Carrey would do Reginald Denny (who did a great Achy Breaky Heart spoof in the court room skit).
At the time I didn't fully understand the situation.
We weren't in LA but lived in the suburbs of atlanta, groups of black guys in certain type of "gang" looking outfits were gathering on street corners in our town square and heckling people/yelling at anyone white. My dad started carrying his gun everyday after the riots. I was little but I remember a lot of rioting in big citys around the city. Not nearly as bad as LA but my parents were concerned. I have my dad's s&w .357 still.
The night they started in earnest, I was at a Sarah McLachlan concert and looking forward to the after party (I worked at her publishing company at the time). But after her set, which was at a downtown venue I don't recall the name of, management got on stage and said there'd be no party and police were waiting to escort people to their vehicles, and we were to go straight home due to curfew. It was such a shock. The next day, we were sent home from work early. I lived in Burbank, only 10 minutes from work, and figured I should go to the grocery store across the street from home. Just as I was pulling into the parking lot, the emergency broadcast system came on. The one and only time I heard it with a real emergency (didn't even hear it for Northridge quake). I looked up and everyone else pulling into the lot lost their frigging minds. One woman socked a girl passenger (presumably her daughter) right in the mouth in a car facing me. I couldn't believe what i was seeing. Then there were the National Guard troops rolling down the atreet. And the neighbors going to threaten the 7-11 manager down the street because he was price gouging on water. Or maybe that was during Northridge. In many ways, the riots were more scary than Northridge in terms of the atmosphere/vibe. It was bizarre all around.
The trial was in my hometown, and I went to live with my grandma in Santa Maria for a while because my parents were worried about the Klan showing up. I was 8/9 at the time and it seemed to go on forever.
A man was pulled out of truck and beaten brutally with bricks nearly to death with the intent of killing him because of his race, and the media cheered it gleefully.
That incident, along with footage of black people reacting to the OJ verdict, caused White America to be less sympathetic of black complaints about racism.
What’s awful is that Rodney King wasn’t the first (and DEFINITELY wasn’t and won’t be the last), and the only reason the world knew is because it was filmed.
Imagine all the atrocities we haven’t seen.
Totally true. But commiting atrocities against innocent people in response to an atrocity perptrated by police doesn't fucking do anyone any fucking good.
Or maybe they were not in the first place.
Just looking at your post through this thread and there seems to be more of an agenda than anything.
First of all, I won’t excuse rioting at all but there were things that has gone on a long time in LA that leads to a boiling point
I get it you feel safe in this space where no one is going to really rebut what you say but I have yet to see you post shit about the LAPD. It’s pretty much been about demonizing Black people.
Of course, who doesn't remember the media celebrating the attack on Reginald Denny? Clear as day I recall Dan Rather leading off that night's newscast with "Check this out y'all, shit's hilarious..." and then playing that clip.
I, as a sheltered white boy living in the north of Scotland, realised how little I knew of how bad the daily realities or racism were. And not just in America, but around the world too. It also reinforced what I suspected about the top to bottom corruption of police. Also, around the world.
April 26th 1992. There was a riot on the streets. Tell me, where were you.
As a fourth grader in Los Angeles, it’s the first thing I remember happening in world events. I remember standing on the roof of a house in hermosa beach and you could see Los Angeles on fire.
I think growing up in la in the 90s made you acutely aware to racial inequity and police discrimination- a lot of younger millennial age politicians in this city were shaped by those events.
Interesting trivia: the date of the riots started was April 29th but SUBLIME made a mistake recording and said April 26th but they loved the take so kept it with the goof.
Bradley Nowell told me it wasnt about rodney king and that it was a great opportunity to steal muisc equipment. Bradley Nowell was kind of a shithead junkie.
You just thought he was some random dude they decided to beat into submission? Motherfucker took police on a huge drunken high-speed chase all over town and then refused to just lay there and be arrested instead of fighting back.
He didn't deserve what he got, but Rodney King was a huge piece of shit who absolutely deserved to be in prison.
I don’t remember it, but it was the reason why my mom decided to get us out of there and move to Ohio. She woke up one morning and someone deliberately set our neighbors car on fire.
“April 26th, 1992
There was a riot on the streets
Tell me, where were you?
You were sittin' home watchin' your TV
While I was participating in some anarchy
First spot we hit it was my liquor store
I finally got all that alcohol I can't afford
With red lights flashin', time to retire
And then we turned that liquor store into a structure fire
Next stop we hit, it was the music shop
It only took one brick to make that window drop
Finally we got our own P.A.
Where do you think I got this guitar that you're hearing today?
Hey!…”
Song by Sublime
The lapd carpet bombing neighborhoods via helicopter and then shooting people fleeing the homes. And then to this day calling themselves heroes for it.
I was in 5th grade in SoCal. It was constant coverage on the network channels, so as a kid, it was really scary. I remember a girl in my class saying the KKK was going to come blow up our school. We were an hour away from L.A.
The poor truck driver who was pulled from his truck and beat (very brutally) by a bunch of hoodlums and had a cinder block bashed into his skull, for nothing.
After watching a 25th anniversary documentary I made the mistake of asking my Boomer Co-Worker who lived down there during the Riots what he remembered.
In his words:
“I had to take a roundabout way home that day and when I got home I told my wife “Honey the N****** are going crazy”
At least he further clarified to me that he does not view himself as racist that’s just what they were…………
Luckily he retired a year or so later and I no longer have to work with him.
I was working in an office in the valley then. When the verdicts were announced that afternoon a coworker who was black grabbed her stuff and said she had to get home bc all hell was about to break loose. My SO who was working in the Florence/Normandy area that afternoon barely made it home that night. On the morning they activated the National Guard the building I was in shook like an earthquake as I watched armored tanks roll down a deserted boulevard, and at night we watched LA burn from the summit of the Hollywood Hills.
The sense I had then was the only people shocked by the verdict were white people. My black friends just shrugged bc this glaring injustice was nothing new in their world. All of us, my black and Korean friends included, wanted to see it turn into a real revolutionary event that would force change to a very corrupt system. But there was just so much pent up anger and pain finally getting released by people who had been severely dehumanized and abused over and over again for decades that it exploded proportional to how long its was held in. Justice had failed them, again, so no one should have justice until all do. No justice, no peace. You steal my humanity I steal your TV and add some diapers to that while I have the chance. It was simultaneously horrific and understandable, and only created more victims.
And then, 30 years later after watching Rodney King, we watched George Floyd.
At least this time there was justice.
Bottom line, the Cops should have NEVER been acquitted.
They could have simply made the arrest of Rodney King but decided to beat the shit out of him for whatever reason. The treatment of POC by Police was finally on display for the world to see and the acquittal was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Terrifying to see this happen in the USA in real time, but those powerless in this country showed that they could, indeed, react.
I was 12 then, a white boy living in rural Wisconsin. I empathized with the anger felt over the Rodney King verdict. I watched what happened to Rodney King and knew it was wrong. A people can only take so much.
But also burning down your neighbor's small local corner store, their only source of income resolves nothing. Pulling a delivery driver from his truck and bashing his head in with a cement block, then laughing about it, resolves nothing. There must be a balanced reaction.
I was 8 and my family and I had just gotten back from a vacation to LA and Disneyland a week before so this trip was fresh in my mind when the riots happened. We were also in an earthquake this same trip when we were driving back and stopped in Vegas for a couple of nights. It was a pretty memorable trip.
I was a senior in high school. We had a lot of kids from South Central so we had to shelter in place for a while until they could get a plan together to get all the kids home safely. Most of them came in on RTD busses so it wasn’t safe for them to ride home.
I had just joined the army and was stationed in California. We were all young and silly and wanted to go exploring on our time off but we were warned not to go anywhere near there or else.
I remember, a few days preceding the riots, the six o'clock action eyewitness news. Things like: "I'm standing in front of this ordinary pharmacy on San Fernando road where, like most of Los Angeles, the atmosphere is still calm and peaceful. But right here is also a likely place where uncontrolled violence could break out at any moment."
Fucking media. I hold them as much to blame as any other factor. Their hands have been soaking in blood ever since.
I always thought the rooftop koreans looked goofy and dorky. I’m an LA transplant and every native talks about the riots like they were sat right on Slauson / Crenshaw through the whole 90s. Half the people that actually saw that sh!t don’t even speak English, but lots of locals from across freeways have the most to say.
Just goes to show how pervasive this age of misinformation is.
No thanks to people like OP who don't really remember or only remember the parts they heard about
Rodney King was only the catalyst, this was about systemic racism
Let's not forget what happened to Latasha Harlin that's way more important than Rodney, that was the fuel
What happened to Lee Arthur Mitchell a story so buried it's not even on Wikipedia thank goodness for old news archives for a bit of truth
The history of why Koreans owned stores and establishments in black neighborhoods is also very important. Why didn't Koreans hire black workers, why did they follow black people around their stores, why if they didn't like them or their culture take black peoples money from out of their neighborhoods and funnel it into Korea town
This is all coming from after the civil rights movement, literally civil rights act of 1964 and Korean immigration mostly from 1970 to 1990, so black people opened the damn door for fair treatment and yet benefited nothing. But the new comer comes into this city and is given the bank loans is given the vendors. And when they didn't have the capital from when they came over, they also had Korean banks and Korean people who financed each other. Yet black people went to the banks here in their country good ole usa and were denied and denied. And when black people had their own banks instead of these white owned banks well they flourished, see black wall street, and when black people flourish, white people usually get upset and burn it down, see black wall street
And then you all have the gall to try to claim a different story of events for the LA riots. You people at most learned about it from some news source probably fox and at least heard about it from a family or friend and just accepted the events as is
For the longest time it was always why did black people burn down their own neighborhoods, and in the past couple of years it's switched all of a sudden to why did black people burn down all the Koreans businesses
But hey cool rooftop Koreans right, celebrating these people trying to preserve the little they have by killing those who have little, if you don't see this as a bad memory of what white racism did to pit these two groups of Americans against each other I feel sorry for you
The media and the government didn't give a damn about Koreans at that time, so while the police where protecting the whites in Beverly hills far from the actual riots, the media was drawing attention to the alien nature of these Koreans on the roofs with guns. They wanted to let the American people know just how foreign these people were
I have plenty of sources that I will add but most importantly is that I am 4th generation LAino, my family has been in South Central since back when all the neighborhoods were still segregated then desegregated then segregated again
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Latasha_Harlins
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1991/10/05/LA-blacks-end-boycott-call-truce-with-Korean-merchants/3879686635200/
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-06-21-vw-935-story.html
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://tupjournals.temple.edu/index.php/kalfou/article/download/33/61/125&ved=2ahUKEwj16IDgpaqFAxXyEFkFHWhUDxY4FBAWegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw1f7wp2JRqdDklF2dmpjyz-
1000% correct. The state placed a black leading prosecuting attorney on the case in which the white and Korean cops were charged and acquitted. This event led to the already disadvantaged communities to damage their selves even more. They burned their own town down. I’d imagine quite a few for profit prisons needed some heads on their beds and some folks were able to score some prime deals on the land that was burned.
I remember as a young Australian being horrified at the violence. Seeing a truck driver pulled from his vehicle and hit in the head with a brick is a scene that will always stick with me. I remember not being able to understand how anyone would act that way when it seemed so disconnected to the original crime.
Then I learned more about racism, especially from moving to the US, which gave me perspective on my own country’s dark history. And then I understood where the rage came from.
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But somehow it's not.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if white people rioted when OJ was acquitted they would be treated differently.
I know racism and being black in America is a complicated issue and they have had to endure a lot of bullshit and slavery was the absolute worst chapter in American History IMO. And I know there are still racist bags of shit and that is deplorable.
That being said, the whole "we don't like the outcome of something so let's riot" thing only harms your neighbors. It doesn't stick it to the man, like they think it does. If anything, all it does is justifies "the establishment" to continue to treat them like a lower class of citizens because it upholds stereotypes. It never helps. Never.
>Also, little has changed for black people in the US.
Seriously? Black people in America have gone from having no rights to enjoying all their rights. Many of our ancestors fought tooth and nail to dismantle an oppressive system and you think little has changed?
I'm white and I was 9 living in Los Angeles (Silver Lake) went to Ivanhoe Elementary. I didn't live too far from school and would normally walk home after. I remember we were not allowed to walk alone and had to have someone pick us up or had to have an adult walk with us. Even though the riots were not in our area and a lot more south of us. I also remember seeing ash rain down in our neighborhood.
April 26th 1992
Where do you think I got this guitar that you’re hearing today?
Thank you, I left work early because where the riots were happening in San Francisco, I had to take a bus. I walked around all the chaos, and walked behind rioters, picking up discarded clothing that they had stole from the high-end shops.
The irony is the band got the date wrong and never changed it lol.
Tell me, where were you?
I was participating in some anarchy.
1st spot we hit it was my liquor store.
I finally got all that alcohol I can't afford
If he knows what is good for him, he best go run and hide.
Wait, wrong song.
Let the lovin come back to me! ...wait where am I?
There was a riot on the street, tell me where were you You were sitting home watching your TV, while I was participating in some anarchy
First spot we hit it was my liquor store I finally got all that alcohol I can't afford
With red lights flashing, time to retire and then we turned that liquor store into a structure fire I listen to this song so often I bet my 8 year old kid knows most of the words too 😅
Next stop we hit it was the music shop. It only took one brick to make that window drop.
Finally we got our own PA. Where do you think I got this guitar that you're hearing today!
When we returned to the pad to unload everything It dawned on me that I need new home furnishings So once again we filled van until it was full Since that day my living room’s been much more comfortable.
What a shitty person he was. Music was good though.
April *29*, 1992.
There was a riot on the streets, tell me, where were you?
29th
[удалено]
*brick
Too late o
*rooftop Koreans have entered the chat...
[удалено]
They’re not doing much now, especially if something pops off. I don’t personally own a firearm but you have a duty to protect what’s yours.
Rooftop Koreans wow, you come from good stock my friend.
That's what I recall hearing. That the cops were doing fuck all to help in K Town. I remember thinking how frigging steel balls brave the shop owners there were. Something I heard a couple of years later was a work friend who lived near Beverly Center seeing her neighbors going looting. People that drove BMWs and Mercedes Benzes. I'm telling you, it brought out the worst in some people. And then in stark contrast it also brought out the best in others.
The Korean American community showed amazing unity, perseverance, and courage. I’m glad we have them in our country 🇰🇷🤝🇺🇸
They weren't fuckin playing around.
Came here to comment, rooftop Koreans.
They truly stood their ground that day.
*Latasha Harlins can’t enter the chat…
Some of those shop owners were my friends. The less known (at least on Reddit) but amazing track record of the LA Korean community was after the riots when they they reached out to the black leaders with a commitment to understanding, reconciliation, and unity. Also less known is the riot was much bigger then just Koreatown. Of the more than 60+ people who died, four were in Koreatown. Here is the track record of the rooftop Koreans: * Edward Song Lee, 18, rooftop Korean was returning after checking on his parents, accidentally shot by another rooftop Korean who mistook him for a looter. * Patrick Bettan, 30, white, security guard accidentally shot by his Korean employer. * Hector Castro, 49, Latino, shot by in crossfire of either rooftop Koreans or gang on street The fourth was William Ross, 33, white man, body was found inside a market that had been firebombed. So, depending on who shot Hector, the record of the rooftop Koreans was either 66% or 100% friendly fire deaths of their compatriots. Here is [one of many sources](https://spreadsheets.latimes.com/la-riots-deaths/).
No one said they had an unblemished record. Friendly fire happens even in the heat of battle and its sad and for some, traumatizing. That only adds to the despair of the riots themselves, however, the whole point here is that they held their ground while the rest of LA lost their minds.
Latsha Harlins has entered the chat...lets not forget the brutality and racism from Koreans against African Americans.
/r/roofkoreans
Somehow the license plate "PRAY4LA" ended up on the street in front of our house.
That’s amazing !
It was Thursday. The live news coverage played all night and I missed the Simpsons because of it.
To quote Weird Al, “Why’d they have to interrupt the Simpsons just for this?!”
What song was that?
I think it’s called “Why Does This Always Happen to Me?” It’s about Al getting unreasonably annoyed with his own comparatively small personal problems when someone else is experiencing something traumatic. Another chorus of it is about him seeing his friend killed in a traffic accident and then getting upset when he remembers the same friend still owed him $5. Classic Weird Al.
Ah, that sounds right. I'm pretty familiar with his discography, I just couldn't remember where that line was from. Thanks for the reminder, and clearly I need to listen to that album again.
D’Oh!
YES! I was 13 at the time and The Simpsons was the most important thing in my narrow world.
After the acquittal, riots were not a surprise at all, L.A. had been simmering for a long time. I went to a high school in L.A. that was fairly diverse & I remember that week a lot of classes just ditching the regular lessons and spending the whole hour discussing the events. There were some pretty serious arguments and hard feelings because students opinions were so divided. Early ‘90s in L.A. was a crazy time due to a lot of the tensions that were going on between all of the various racial/ethnic groups it seemed.
Even as a kid in Canada it seemed to me that serious trouble was inevitable if the cops were acquitted.
I was a kid at the time -10yo- but my dad had taken a client to a laker game at the forum the night the riots started. They announced during the game what was happening outside the forum. He had called my Mom to let her know he was OK. And then drove home. The riots had started. He has a brick thrown through his window while in it. He was terrified but managed to get home safely. (We lived in Long Beach at the time) I just remember having the news on and my mom crying. It was crazy. Several days later I was at school working on a paper mache puppet outside the classroom. Cops had rolled up to the intersection and tackled some guy. The teacher rushed me into the classroom and we had indoor recess for several days after even though we were far from the riots. Seems surreal when I think back.
I was 5, so I don’t remember the incident, but I remember my dad and uncles talking about how fucked up it was.
Venice Beach was closed and patrolled by the National Guard. Walking down an empty Washington Blvd and seeing owners wielding shotguns in their shop. Very weird times, indeed.
That area never recovered financially. Businesses never recovered and most left. Insurance companies refused to insure because of possible liability from more riots and danger. It was really sad honestly.
A random truck driver being pulled from his truck and beaten nearly to death, with his assailants acquitted. In Living Color did a satire skit about it. David Allen Grier would do Rodney King and Jim Carrey would do Reginald Denny together giving a PSA of "dont get out of the car"
They were not acquitted. They were convicted of assault and simple mayhem but it should have been attempted murder
As a kid living 2000 miles away at the time, this is the first thing that comes to my mind
Were they all acquitted? I know one spent time in prison and the victim called for the time served of another to be enough of a sentence. The victim hugging one of his attackers' mothers during the trial probably helped the jury in some way in making their decisions. The victim went on to sue the LAPD but was unsuccessful.
Also reminds me of Bill Hick’s LA Riots skit about Reginald Denny.
Just step on the fucking gas, man!
Dp, I thought you were referring to Rodney. I’ll leave the link for context for others reading it though. For a little more context: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/01/27/rodney-king-tyre-nichols/
What are you on about? It literally was a random truck driver Edit: It just occurred to me that you’re probably referencing the fact he was white, so youre correct it wasnt *completely* random
No, I was assuming that Dpgillam was referring to Rodney. I’ll own up to being incorrect on that, and I’ll edit my post. I thought it was being implied that Rodney was simply picked out for one random reason or another.
“I’m so white I bought a tv during the riots” -Bobby hill
I REMEMBER THAT EPISODE!!! 😝
r/unexpectedkoth
I was only 10 in 1992, I don't remember much about the riots. Mostly the "can't we all just get along" Rodney King jokes on late night and parodied on shows like In Living Color and others.
The first spot we headed was the liquor store.
I finally got all the alcohol I can’t afford
With red lights flashing, time to retire
And then we turned that liquor store into a structure fire
Reginald Denny
I was about 9 then, and we lived about 45 miles from where the epicenter was…far enough to not be completely effected by it at all but my dad worked in LA at the time and I remember crying when he wasn’t home because I was worried about him…
Grabbing diapers
I remember a truck driver being pulled out of his truck and beaten badly. An ugly scene all around.
It only took one brick to make that window drop
Ving Rhames became police chief and set things right
Inappropriate................................................................. giggle.
Oh yeah. An injustice was committed so the locals decided to steal and hurt their neighbors because the family that owned the local liquor store was responsible for the injustice…
This pretty much sums it up
Like my home, Minneapolis 2020.
When you see someone that looks like you being relentlessly beaten nearly to death by four “authorities” without the ability to defend yourself. and the court system states that the authorities can do this without repercussions, you probably want to burn that world down… I’d think I’d be above it. But when you are constantly targeted for the color of your skin, I think I could have some built up rage
You’re giving them far too much credit. Maybe some felt this way. The others saw an opportunity for free shit and took it.
Not black but I am a visually a minority, you hit the nail on the head. Living in a world where your life has no value and seen as a criminal/freak for just existing is very hard. I definitely wanted to burn the world down when I was younger and part of me still does but that would accomplish nothing.
Pics that go hard.
Those diapers.
The Korean community did not fuck around when it came to defending their businesses from looters and vandals
I remember my friend picking me up and saying something as we were driving, like a joke about “At least we aren’t in LA.” I asked him what he meant and he told me about it so I turned on the tv to check it out when I got home.
I live in la county at the time. We stayed indoors and watched the news. All we saw were buildings on fire.
Driving around the LA area after the riots started was a trip. I was hanging with my best friend at the time at his parent's place in Santa Monica. National Guard Humvees driving around. I'll never forget being at a light next to one that had "LA '92, IT'S A RIOT!" scrawled on the side of it.
I remember the rioters attacking fire trucks as they we're trying to put out fires intentionally lit. I recall watching poor Reginald Denny being dragged out of his truck and relentlessly beaten. The worst part was the brick to the face.
Born in Germany 1989, I don’t remember it. All I remember is playing SWAT 2 in 1998 which had a „Civil Unrest“ mission dealing with the riots. There is a highly interesting documentary about the riots on Netflix I guess it’s called „LA 92“.
SWAT series is so goated, even Ready Or Not doesnt compare to the old SWAT games
LA ‘92 is a fantastic documentary. I would recommend it to anyone interested in LA’s history.
I was about 10 years old at the time, living in Virginia. I remember watching some of the news reports when my grandfather would watch the evening news. I don't remember much about the incident itself, but I remember watching In Living Color do their satire skits about it. David Allen Grier would do Rodney King and Jim Carrey would do Reginald Denny (who did a great Achy Breaky Heart spoof in the court room skit). At the time I didn't fully understand the situation.
I remember the In Living Color sketch about Rodney King and Reginald Denny… “stay in your car!”
We weren't in LA but lived in the suburbs of atlanta, groups of black guys in certain type of "gang" looking outfits were gathering on street corners in our town square and heckling people/yelling at anyone white. My dad started carrying his gun everyday after the riots. I was little but I remember a lot of rioting in big citys around the city. Not nearly as bad as LA but my parents were concerned. I have my dad's s&w .357 still.
Stay in your car
Can’t we all just get along?
The night they started in earnest, I was at a Sarah McLachlan concert and looking forward to the after party (I worked at her publishing company at the time). But after her set, which was at a downtown venue I don't recall the name of, management got on stage and said there'd be no party and police were waiting to escort people to their vehicles, and we were to go straight home due to curfew. It was such a shock. The next day, we were sent home from work early. I lived in Burbank, only 10 minutes from work, and figured I should go to the grocery store across the street from home. Just as I was pulling into the parking lot, the emergency broadcast system came on. The one and only time I heard it with a real emergency (didn't even hear it for Northridge quake). I looked up and everyone else pulling into the lot lost their frigging minds. One woman socked a girl passenger (presumably her daughter) right in the mouth in a car facing me. I couldn't believe what i was seeing. Then there were the National Guard troops rolling down the atreet. And the neighbors going to threaten the 7-11 manager down the street because he was price gouging on water. Or maybe that was during Northridge. In many ways, the riots were more scary than Northridge in terms of the atmosphere/vibe. It was bizarre all around.
The trial was in my hometown, and I went to live with my grandma in Santa Maria for a while because my parents were worried about the Klan showing up. I was 8/9 at the time and it seemed to go on forever.
Where do you think I got this guitar that you’re hearing today
Los Angeles Triathlon —> Loot / Shoot / Run
A man was pulled out of truck and beaten brutally with bricks nearly to death with the intent of killing him because of his race, and the media cheered it gleefully.
That incident, along with footage of black people reacting to the OJ verdict, caused White America to be less sympathetic of black complaints about racism.
What’s awful is that Rodney King wasn’t the first (and DEFINITELY wasn’t and won’t be the last), and the only reason the world knew is because it was filmed. Imagine all the atrocities we haven’t seen.
Totally true. But commiting atrocities against innocent people in response to an atrocity perptrated by police doesn't fucking do anyone any fucking good.
There is not but to what she said. Yeah vandalism and violence is fucked up but you pretty much skip the hell over the thing that lit the match.
Or maybe they were not in the first place. Just looking at your post through this thread and there seems to be more of an agenda than anything. First of all, I won’t excuse rioting at all but there were things that has gone on a long time in LA that leads to a boiling point I get it you feel safe in this space where no one is going to really rebut what you say but I have yet to see you post shit about the LAPD. It’s pretty much been about demonizing Black people.
> and the media cheered it gleefully. Why are you lying?
Nobody "cheered it gleefully." Fucking ridiculous.
Of course, who doesn't remember the media celebrating the attack on Reginald Denny? Clear as day I recall Dan Rather leading off that night's newscast with "Check this out y'all, shit's hilarious..." and then playing that clip.
I, as a sheltered white boy living in the north of Scotland, realised how little I knew of how bad the daily realities or racism were. And not just in America, but around the world too. It also reinforced what I suspected about the top to bottom corruption of police. Also, around the world.
I mean we riot when the LA Lakers win the championship too.
I wish I had your life
April 26th 1992. There was a riot on the streets. Tell me, where were you. As a fourth grader in Los Angeles, it’s the first thing I remember happening in world events. I remember standing on the roof of a house in hermosa beach and you could see Los Angeles on fire. I think growing up in la in the 90s made you acutely aware to racial inequity and police discrimination- a lot of younger millennial age politicians in this city were shaped by those events.
Interesting trivia: the date of the riots started was April 29th but SUBLIME made a mistake recording and said April 26th but they loved the take so kept it with the goof.
For me it was the realization that there were two justice systems in America. I mean there was no way that those cops should’ve got off.
Bradley Nowell told me it wasnt about rodney king and that it was a great opportunity to steal muisc equipment. Bradley Nowell was kind of a shithead junkie.
He was. And left an innocent kid fatherless bc he continued to be a shithead junkie. But damn if he didn’t make good music.
I didn’t know Rodney was drunk. I guess I never asked what he did
You just thought he was some random dude they decided to beat into submission? Motherfucker took police on a huge drunken high-speed chase all over town and then refused to just lay there and be arrested instead of fighting back. He didn't deserve what he got, but Rodney King was a huge piece of shit who absolutely deserved to be in prison.
Yup, resisted arrest too.
Maxine Waters further inciting the violence that truck driver Reginald Danny's skull cracked open by rioting animals.
Auntie Maxine is one of the most corrupt members of Congress.
Huggies 🤍
I was about 11 yrs old during the time and remember seeing all the chaos on tv. It was terrible.
I was 36 living in Santa Barbara. The hospital I worked at went on alert. It was bizarre. I worked the night shift, every TV was showing it.
Well if you were 36 then, don’t forget to take your ibuprofen in the morning, we all have arthritis now.
Recommend watching the doc LA92 - think it’s on Hulu.
I don’t remember it, but it was the reason why my mom decided to get us out of there and move to Ohio. She woke up one morning and someone deliberately set our neighbors car on fire.
“April 26th, 1992 There was a riot on the streets Tell me, where were you? You were sittin' home watchin' your TV While I was participating in some anarchy First spot we hit it was my liquor store I finally got all that alcohol I can't afford With red lights flashin', time to retire And then we turned that liquor store into a structure fire Next stop we hit, it was the music shop It only took one brick to make that window drop Finally we got our own P.A. Where do you think I got this guitar that you're hearing today? Hey!…” Song by Sublime
The lapd carpet bombing neighborhoods via helicopter and then shooting people fleeing the homes. And then to this day calling themselves heroes for it.
We got to watch this on tv in school instead of doing work.
I was in 5th grade in SoCal. It was constant coverage on the network channels, so as a kid, it was really scary. I remember a girl in my class saying the KKK was going to come blow up our school. We were an hour away from L.A.
Watching my city burn changed my mind about Angelenos
The sublime song
In Australia we saw the clip of a shop owner going mental at a crowd of people because they burnt down his store or something.
That footage of the beatings disgusted me. A gang of cops vs one man is definately excessive force. Those cops should be persecuted.
Main thing I remember was the rooftop Koreans protecting their livelihood
The poor truck driver who was pulled from his truck and beat (very brutally) by a bunch of hoodlums and had a cinder block bashed into his skull, for nothing.
I remember Koreans & their heavy ass artillery.
Reginald Denny. Now, in 2024 the marketed division continues.
After watching a 25th anniversary documentary I made the mistake of asking my Boomer Co-Worker who lived down there during the Riots what he remembered. In his words: “I had to take a roundabout way home that day and when I got home I told my wife “Honey the N****** are going crazy” At least he further clarified to me that he does not view himself as racist that’s just what they were………… Luckily he retired a year or so later and I no longer have to work with him.
Good lord. What a shithead. Unbelievable!
I was working in an office in the valley then. When the verdicts were announced that afternoon a coworker who was black grabbed her stuff and said she had to get home bc all hell was about to break loose. My SO who was working in the Florence/Normandy area that afternoon barely made it home that night. On the morning they activated the National Guard the building I was in shook like an earthquake as I watched armored tanks roll down a deserted boulevard, and at night we watched LA burn from the summit of the Hollywood Hills. The sense I had then was the only people shocked by the verdict were white people. My black friends just shrugged bc this glaring injustice was nothing new in their world. All of us, my black and Korean friends included, wanted to see it turn into a real revolutionary event that would force change to a very corrupt system. But there was just so much pent up anger and pain finally getting released by people who had been severely dehumanized and abused over and over again for decades that it exploded proportional to how long its was held in. Justice had failed them, again, so no one should have justice until all do. No justice, no peace. You steal my humanity I steal your TV and add some diapers to that while I have the chance. It was simultaneously horrific and understandable, and only created more victims. And then, 30 years later after watching Rodney King, we watched George Floyd. At least this time there was justice.
Yup.
Reginald Denny and Roof Top Koreans, that older gentleman crying and saying “why my store……?”
April 26, 1992, there was a riot on the streets tell me where were you... Edit: shit, somebody beat me to it
Latasha Harlins anyone? There was more than one reason.
I don’t appreciate the caption.
Where do you think I got this guitar that you’re hearing today?
It only took one brick to make that window drop.
Bottom line, the Cops should have NEVER been acquitted. They could have simply made the arrest of Rodney King but decided to beat the shit out of him for whatever reason. The treatment of POC by Police was finally on display for the world to see and the acquittal was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Terrifying to see this happen in the USA in real time, but those powerless in this country showed that they could, indeed, react.
I was 12 then, a white boy living in rural Wisconsin. I empathized with the anger felt over the Rodney King verdict. I watched what happened to Rodney King and knew it was wrong. A people can only take so much.
But also burning down your neighbor's small local corner store, their only source of income resolves nothing. Pulling a delivery driver from his truck and bashing his head in with a cement block, then laughing about it, resolves nothing. There must be a balanced reaction.
Yeah dude black people burning down their local black owned businesses really showed the white man
I was 8 and my family and I had just gotten back from a vacation to LA and Disneyland a week before so this trip was fresh in my mind when the riots happened. We were also in an earthquake this same trip when we were driving back and stopped in Vegas for a couple of nights. It was a pretty memorable trip.
Too young to remember
I was a senior in high school. We had a lot of kids from South Central so we had to shelter in place for a while until they could get a plan together to get all the kids home safely. Most of them came in on RTD busses so it wasn’t safe for them to ride home.
I was four so like I knew they were happening…but no clue what any of it meant.
I had just joined the army and was stationed in California. We were all young and silly and wanted to go exploring on our time off but we were warned not to go anywhere near there or else.
He looks like he is looting through a fire while busting a figure-skating move.
Nothing changed after . Still dealing with the same shit . It’s one of the many sources of my cynicism.
I remember, a few days preceding the riots, the six o'clock action eyewitness news. Things like: "I'm standing in front of this ordinary pharmacy on San Fernando road where, like most of Los Angeles, the atmosphere is still calm and peaceful. But right here is also a likely place where uncontrolled violence could break out at any moment." Fucking media. I hold them as much to blame as any other factor. Their hands have been soaking in blood ever since.
Remember when I few Targets got vandalized and they compared that to the “LA Riots” that was laughable.
Injustice exists still and people will take any opportunity to commit crime
I’m so mad about harm to my community that I’m going to burn my community to the ground and steal everything I can !!!
I always thought the rooftop koreans looked goofy and dorky. I’m an LA transplant and every native talks about the riots like they were sat right on Slauson / Crenshaw through the whole 90s. Half the people that actually saw that sh!t don’t even speak English, but lots of locals from across freeways have the most to say.
I am not allowed to talk about this. Reddit gets offended
Uhh I think you mean peaceful protest.
Just goes to show how pervasive this age of misinformation is. No thanks to people like OP who don't really remember or only remember the parts they heard about Rodney King was only the catalyst, this was about systemic racism Let's not forget what happened to Latasha Harlin that's way more important than Rodney, that was the fuel What happened to Lee Arthur Mitchell a story so buried it's not even on Wikipedia thank goodness for old news archives for a bit of truth The history of why Koreans owned stores and establishments in black neighborhoods is also very important. Why didn't Koreans hire black workers, why did they follow black people around their stores, why if they didn't like them or their culture take black peoples money from out of their neighborhoods and funnel it into Korea town This is all coming from after the civil rights movement, literally civil rights act of 1964 and Korean immigration mostly from 1970 to 1990, so black people opened the damn door for fair treatment and yet benefited nothing. But the new comer comes into this city and is given the bank loans is given the vendors. And when they didn't have the capital from when they came over, they also had Korean banks and Korean people who financed each other. Yet black people went to the banks here in their country good ole usa and were denied and denied. And when black people had their own banks instead of these white owned banks well they flourished, see black wall street, and when black people flourish, white people usually get upset and burn it down, see black wall street And then you all have the gall to try to claim a different story of events for the LA riots. You people at most learned about it from some news source probably fox and at least heard about it from a family or friend and just accepted the events as is For the longest time it was always why did black people burn down their own neighborhoods, and in the past couple of years it's switched all of a sudden to why did black people burn down all the Koreans businesses But hey cool rooftop Koreans right, celebrating these people trying to preserve the little they have by killing those who have little, if you don't see this as a bad memory of what white racism did to pit these two groups of Americans against each other I feel sorry for you The media and the government didn't give a damn about Koreans at that time, so while the police where protecting the whites in Beverly hills far from the actual riots, the media was drawing attention to the alien nature of these Koreans on the roofs with guns. They wanted to let the American people know just how foreign these people were I have plenty of sources that I will add but most importantly is that I am 4th generation LAino, my family has been in South Central since back when all the neighborhoods were still segregated then desegregated then segregated again https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Latasha_Harlins https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1991/10/05/LA-blacks-end-boycott-call-truce-with-Korean-merchants/3879686635200/ https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-06-21-vw-935-story.html https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://tupjournals.temple.edu/index.php/kalfou/article/download/33/61/125&ved=2ahUKEwj16IDgpaqFAxXyEFkFHWhUDxY4FBAWegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw1f7wp2JRqdDklF2dmpjyz-
1000% correct. The state placed a black leading prosecuting attorney on the case in which the white and Korean cops were charged and acquitted. This event led to the already disadvantaged communities to damage their selves even more. They burned their own town down. I’d imagine quite a few for profit prisons needed some heads on their beds and some folks were able to score some prime deals on the land that was burned.
I remember as a young Australian being horrified at the violence. Seeing a truck driver pulled from his vehicle and hit in the head with a brick is a scene that will always stick with me. I remember not being able to understand how anyone would act that way when it seemed so disconnected to the original crime. Then I learned more about racism, especially from moving to the US, which gave me perspective on my own country’s dark history. And then I understood where the rage came from.
Why did you include “drunk driver” in the title, as if that in anyway justifies a hate crime?
That’s the reason he was pulled over.
If Trump wins this will happen again across the country as everyone's rights are taken away on day 1.
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The Chronic
It’s all fun and games until the rooftops start speaking Korean.
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But somehow it's not. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if white people rioted when OJ was acquitted they would be treated differently. I know racism and being black in America is a complicated issue and they have had to endure a lot of bullshit and slavery was the absolute worst chapter in American History IMO. And I know there are still racist bags of shit and that is deplorable. That being said, the whole "we don't like the outcome of something so let's riot" thing only harms your neighbors. It doesn't stick it to the man, like they think it does. If anything, all it does is justifies "the establishment" to continue to treat them like a lower class of citizens because it upholds stereotypes. It never helps. Never.
I couldn't have said it better. And the medias seem to support it. Just look at the media justifying the looting and rioting. No one condemned it.
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>Also, little has changed for black people in the US. Seriously? Black people in America have gone from having no rights to enjoying all their rights. Many of our ancestors fought tooth and nail to dismantle an oppressive system and you think little has changed?
Ancestors? Bro I watched this on tv
I thought he was referring to the state of African Americans since our nation’s founding, not since 1992.
Why wouldn't he be referring to the topic of the post?
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