LA Riot: Violent And Unfair To People

Though sparked by the Rodney King verdict, there were many other causes of the riots that erupted on the streets of Los Angeles on April 29, 1992. The Los Angeles riots in 1992 were devastating. The obvious issue portrayed through the media was black versus white. If you did not live in Los Angeles or California chances are you did not hear full coverage of the story, you heard a simple cut and dry portrayal of the events in South Central. If you heard one thing about the riots, it was that there was a man named Rodney King and he was a black male beaten with excessive force by four white Los Angeles police officers on Los Angeles concrete. The media portrayed the riots as black rage on the streets due to the

On April 29, 1992, the City of Los Angeles was surrounded in a riot in response to the "not guilty" verdicts in the trial of four white Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers accused of unlawfully beating Rodney King. Six days later, when the fires were finally extinguished and the smoke had cleared, "estimates of the material damage done vary between about $800 million and $1 billion, 54 people had been killed, more than 2000 injured, in excess of 800 structures were burned, and about 10,000 people were arrested."(Khalifah 89) The 1992 riots in the City of Los Angeles were arguably the most devastating civil disturbance in the history of the United States.

Through the past centuries many acts of rebellion have occurred. However not many have had such an impact compared to the L.A. riots of May of 1992. After the events that occurred on May of 1992 in Los Angeles, many things changed. The L.A. riots changed race relations between police and the people of Los Angeles for the coming years.

Race riots are one of the major news items we hear about via the media when a social crisis occurs. The riots in Baltimore, however, were not so much about race, but more about economic and social class separations. The riots began as a peaceful protest amongst the citizens of Baltimore over the death of one of their own, Freddie Gray. Gray was a young, African-American, from a financially lower class area of Baltimore. Unfortunately, he died while in custody of the Baltimore Police. While this is a tragic loss, he was unlawfully detained by the police (Sarlin, 2015) during this ordeal. On the surface, the riots may appear as a cut-and-dry race provoked, once they are looked into further, that is not necessarily the case.

The riots helped bring a change to the community for the African Americans because before the riots they didn't have a voice, any protest or march they did didn't receive attention. When the riots happened, they got the attention that they were searching for. The communities were said to be too "poor" to care about them. In the article Sandy banks publish it said "The devastation was heartbreaking, but I understood the rage behind it. Los Angeles had been building to this moment, with years of protests, meetings, and marches that got little attention outside a black community seemed too wretched and too poor to care about." Los Angeles was going to have a breakout sooner or later due to the little attention put for the communities that were in need. The communities felt that with Rodney King, they finally had a voice. For the community Rodney King was their voice because of him the people

“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 paticipatin' in some anarchy,” these are the lyrics Sublime uses in their song ‘April 26, 1992’ to describe what happened during the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. “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,” people ,running through the streets, had no pity when demolishing small businesses and taking what ever they may want from them. The streets, neighborhoods, businesses were destroyed by angry protesters. Their reasons were clear, all they wanted was some

the riots in the first place. Another reason why New York City was overrun with followers of the

They did not appreciate Charles and his actions; this lead to a riot. A large white mob was formed where the two police men were injured wanted to end Robert Charles’s life because of what he has done. They wanted to be killed without being given a trial. The mob consisted of people from Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and other surround states. On July 23, word had gotten out that Charles was killed. This was not the case and Charles was very much still alive and hiding from the police. Many African Americans who were in trouble, were running and hiding from the police at this time. Many people mistook Charles for those people. After the people found out that Charles was not dead, they were angry again. The mob roamed through the city trashing and terrorizing New Orleans’s African American community. They stormed the African American business district only to find it deserted. Over the course of three days, the angry mob took the innocent lives of several African Americans and injured several more. By having these riots, they people hoped to restore some justice in the

The Baltimore riots began on Monday, April 27th, 2014 sparked by the death of Freddie Gray. He died under the hands of police custody and it triggered an anger that has been building up over the months by African American who are desperate for justice. In our community I feel as if every person should feel welcomed and loved and not excluded or made an outcast based on their race, beliefs, gender or disability. This is very important because lately there has been much discrimination on the news and in our community by misunderstanding and it has lead to a lot of misunderstanding.

This paper will cover the events that took place within the first five days in south central Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict .

The history of the United States has been characterized by brutality of violence based on race. Many historians have neglected most of the episodes of this important national history as it helps people to learn where they have come from and where they are headed to. Race riots are characterized by violence between two or more racial groups and the end result in most cases is death. For a protest to be called a riot, there must be a group of people with a common agenda and may occur between police and the public or between two or more racial groups.

Additionally, my favorite element of the documentary is within Part 1, which relives his great football career. O. J. was responsible for the resurrection of football at University of Southern California, the Buffalo Bills, and ended with a Hall of Fame career. Bringing back pleasant memories of his dominance and exploding into the limelight, O. J. seemed like the perfect role model for young impressionable young Black men such as myself. Watching old highlights film, especially with Buffalo and the offensive line which included two local players, Reggie McKenzie, U of M, and Joe DeLamielleure, MSU alumni was refreshing.

The beginnings of the riots came on March 3, 1991, when Rodney King was stopped and brutally assaulted by police. King was stopped after a high speed chase police after police caught him intoxicated and was subsequently forced out of the car (History.com). From there, police began to unlawfully assault Rodney King, leaving him with a fractured skull, along with a broken cheekbone (History.com). A witness, George Holliday, filmed the officers beating Rodney King; a day after the tape was airing on CNN for the rest of the country to witness (Los Angeles Daily News). Four officers were later arrested and put to trial a year later, however all of them were not pleaded guilty. The verdict angered a massive amount of African

The Detroit riots occurred in the summer of 1967. The riot initially started because of race when poor African Americans got kicked out of their houses. They started living on 12th street in Detroit. The riot started there because African Americans were fed up with the way that they were being treated. Many years prior to the riot there were already racial issues. The government made it hard for African Americans to buy houses in the 1950s. During that time, white people were resisting African Americans from moving into Detroit. They were gathering outside of houses owned by African Americans until they would leave. According to Stanford, “I was blissfully unaware of the pervasive racism and resentment that was simmering in my city” (28).

The state of California has a rich history of events, that on a social level, have played major parts in change and perception among the populations as a whole, and in individual communities. History has shown, and will continue to do so in the future, that changes within communities, towns, cities, states, and countries is generally motivated by civil injustice. In researching “defining moments”, I have chosen the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. The riots of 1992 mark a pivotal point in time for California in regard to social issues and injustices in matters of race and socioeconomics. Following, I will describe the “defining event”, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and why I believe what was important that was learned, and how it has impacted California 25 years later.