In Los Angeles, California, four Los Angeles police officers that had been caught beating an unarmed African-American motorist in an amateur video are acquitted of any wrongdoing in the arrest. Hours after the verdicts were announced, outrage and protest turned to violence as the L.A. riots began. Protestors in south-central Los Angeles blocked freeway traffic and beat motorists, wrecked and looted numerous downtown stores and buildings, and set more than 100 fires.
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On March 3, 1991, paroled felon Rodney King led police on a high-speed chase through the streets of Los Angeles County before eventually surrendering. Intoxicated and uncooperative, King resisted arrest and was brutally beaten by police officers Laurence Powell, Theodore Briseno, and Timothy Wind. Unbeknownst to the police, a citizen with a personal video camera was filming the arrest, and the 89-second video caught the police beating King with their batons and kicking him long after he was capable of resistance. The video, released to the press, caused outrage around the country and triggered a national debate on police brutality.
Rodney King was released without charges, and on March 15 Sergeant Stacey Koon and officers Powell, Wind, and Briseno were indicted by a Los Angeles grand jury in connection with the beating. All four were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force. Though Koon did not actively participate in the beating, as the commanding officer present at the scene he was charged with aiding and abetting. Powell and Koon were also charged with filing false reports.
Because of the uproar in Los Angeles surrounding the incident, the judge, Stanley Weisberg, was persuaded to move the trial outside Los Angeles County to Simi Valley in Ventura County. On April 29, 1992, the 12-person jury issued its verdicts: not guilty on all counts, except for one assault charge against Powell that ended in a hung jury. The acquittals touched off the L.A. riots, which grew into the most destructive U.S. civil disturbance of the 20th century.
Violence first erupted at the intersection of Florence Boulevard and Normandie Avenue in south-central Los Angeles. Traffic was blocked, and rioters beat dozens of motorists, including Reginald Denny, a white truck driver who was dragged out of his truck and nearly beaten to death by three African-American men. A news helicopter, hovering over the street, recorded the gruesome event. Los Angeles police were slow to respond, and the violence radiated to areas throughout the city. California Governor Pete Wilson deployed the National Guard at the request of Mayor Tom Bradley, and a curfew was declared. By the morning, hundreds of fires were burning across the city, more than a dozen people had been killed, and hundreds were injured.
Rioting and violence continued during the next 24 hours, and Korean shop owners in African-American neighborhoods defended their businesses with rifles. On May 1, President George Bush ordered military troops and riot-trained federal officers to Los Angeles and by the end of the next day the city was under control. The three days of disorder killed more than 60 people, injured almost 2,000, led to 7,000 arrests, and caused nearly $1 billion in property damage, including the burnings of more than 3,000 buildings.
Under federal law, the four officers could also be prosecuted for violating Rodney King’s constitutional rights. On April 17, 1993, a federal jury convicted Koon and Powell for violating King’s rights by their unreasonable use of force under color of law. Although Wind and Briseno were acquitted, most civil rights advocates considered the mixed verdict a victory. On August 4, Koon and Powell were sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
These guys ‘chronicled’ the event in a music form.
Guerrillas in the Mist, indeed.
There was oh so much wrong w/this case from the start.
King was not beaten nearly as badly as it looked.
Being able to try those guys in Federal court and use the evidence the state presented is so dirty it’s incredible.
I’m proud to say that I contributed to their defense funds.
I flew back to LA from DC on the last United flight that evening. They had stopped all LAX traffic because of the rioters shooting at anything flying. The green and white tracers were up and active. We were directed to land at McCarron in Las Vegas and take on fuel and make a west to east water landing as the final flight path was over the worst of the rioting. The only reason United 55 heavy got in that night was that it was loaded with members of congress getting home and getting in front of the camera.
Jesse Jackson showed up with his camera team and got on the flight and managed to weasel his way into first class. GOV Wilder from VA was on board as well as Mad Max Waters….she was freaking as it was here kids that were tearing up the pea patch. When we landed at McCarron she was standing all alone and you would have never thought that she was a member of congress she looked so small and weak….but when the camera lights went on the world famous “big mouth” took off blaming everything on everybody else short of the perps leading the charge.
The trip home to San Pedro (Ft MacArthur A/O) down the 405 to the 110 was at 110 plus…fastest trip home in LA county in my life. When I got home I got upstairs with the lights off and watched the green and silver tracers from the vicinity of Wilmington and Compton light up the sky………
Some things never change…….until one person says Why at we doing this to ourselves?
I was there. Watched the fires spread along the major highways as the gangs moved out of the hood…I was in a high rise in downtown. Managed to bail and get to the West side before the 10 was shuttered. Smoke was everywhere and the news choppers were providing amazing shots….of course we were not armed and gathered at a friends place to see how far the wave of rioting would go. The police were nowhere to be seen and the gangbangers remained unopposed until they got close to Beverly Hills (naturally).
Within the rioting zone it was a looting festival. My girlfriend at the time lived just East of Koreatown and we hunkered down in her apartment with the lights out and trying to stay quiet for the next 48 hours. Saw a few groups go by but nothing happened. The morning of the third day there was a platoon of national guard at the intersection where they stayed for the next couple of days. We were glad to see them.
Koreatown is a very interesting case study. Despite a “call to arms” to protect the community and having quite a few armed folks milling around….half of Korea Town was burned to the ground, I think one third of the total buildings destroyed in the riot were in Korea Town. The armed response did not “Work” might have deterred even more damage but Korea Town was wrecked. Preppers keep that in mind.
If you lived in LA at the time everybody knew that if you ran from the cops you were catching a beating. A simple way to deter perps from endangering everyone on the many highways. The many police chases post 1992 were a direct result of the cops backing off this policy…..Rodney King fully deserved his beating.
The Koreans were targeted after the shooting of Latasha Harlings by a Korean shop owner. Latasha was accused of stealing an orange juice by the shop keeper when in fact she was trying to pay for it. Then Latasha shot her mouth off as black (and my own) teenagers are prone to do and the shopkeeper freaked out and shot her. Confirming the impression (of the ghetto south central neighborhoods) that the Koreans were an exploitive racist group and the riots were a great opportunity for payback.
LA has always been “undermanned” relative to say NYC in the police force and sheriffs office and has compensated with force and intimidation. That strategic choice led to tragedy and you would think after the original Watts riots that at some point the “geyser” explodes.
We watched on tv as a poor Hispanic paid for Briseno’s sin. They beat him, pulled his pants down and spray painted his privates. An outraged president Bush ordered a re-trial, Simi Valley being known as a police neighborhood at the time.
I think all of South-Central is up here in the AV now. This used to be an all-white community. At least now we have crime to rival LA so that’s there. And I mean we have black and brown scum from LA, not just black.