Essay On The Rodney King Riots

Rodney King Riots

April 29th, 1992 at the intersection of Florence and Normandie, Reginald Denny a white truck driver was pulled from his truck cab and beaten senseless as a news helicopter above captured the attack on videotape. Governor Pete Wilson immediately called a state of emergency and ordered the National Guard to take the streets of Los Angeles, in an attempt to salvage what they could of the city. Prior to the beginning of the Rodney King Riots, also known as the 1992 South Central Riots, was decades of racial tension paired with the notorious maltreatment of the Los Angeles Police Department. The actual beating of Rodney King by four Los Angeles Policemen is considered the main catalyst of the riots, but truly the riots have a

much deeper history and meaning than just one senseless event. The early 1990’s in Los Angeles marked a very tough time for residents predominantly of the South Central neighborhoods. The crack epidemic severely effected downtown in addition to Los Angeles having the worst crime rate in history of the city during the years of 1991 and 1992. Between the years of 1980 and 1991 the Los Angeles District Attorneys Office declined to prosecute over 278 Police Officers and Sheriffs who had been accused of assaulting civilians. The Riots of 1992 are a key moment in history that forever changed Los Angeles’s and America’s racial landscape.
One of the greatest misconceptions about the Rodney King Riots is that the crimes and lootings were random, unorganized, and an attempt to aimlessly destroy the city. People, uneducated about the riots, believe that there was only mayhem in the streets, burning any building and flipping any car. However, that is totally untrue. Each looting, assault and arson were all strategically planned and intentionally executed. Although the initial uproar was a result of four white men beating on black man, during the riots many different races clashed and attacked each other separate of just the blacks attacking whites. By individual races, the riots can be broken up and examined in terms of what each race endured over the six days of chaos.
Around a year prior to the riots, Soon Ja Du shot and killed an African American ninth grade girl who was thought to be attempting to steal a bottle of orange juice.

It was March 16, 1991, when Latasha Harlins was gunned down in a Korean grocery store. The storeowner’s sister accused Latasha of stealing and as Latasha turned around to leave the store she was shot in the back of the head. At the same time the Rodney King video was being shown, the video of the Latasha Harlins murder was shown on television drastically exacerbating the hatred towards Koreans during the riots. After warnings broadcasted over Korean radio stations in Los Angeles that the Los Angeles Police Department had left Koreatown and its residents to fend for themselves an influx of Korean-Americans rushed to Koreatown. As the riots started, they united and save what they could of Korean owned stores, restaurants and other businesses in both Koreatown and South Central from the mass looting and burning of angry mobs. At the California Market in Koreatown remained the most heavily guarded forces, over twenty armed men fighting off groups of mobs and looters. As a result of the riots 2,300 stores that were burned belonged to Korean Americans, amounting to 45 percent of all damages caused by the riots. In addition to the physical damages faced, over 730 Koreans were treated after the riots ended for post-traumatic suffering with symptoms that included muscle pains, sense of inactivity, and even insomnia. The

Korean community in Los Angeles was irreparably affected for a long time.
The Latino population in Los Angeles was also greatly effected by the 1992 South Central Riots.

Latinos accounted for one third of those who were killed, one third of those who were arrested, and almost one half of the shops that were looted and burned belonged to persons of the Latino ethnicity. Based on the 1990 US census, South Central Los Angeles, which was the area most heavily attacked during the riots had a population that was 45 percent Latino and 48 percent Black. The large percentages did not unite the community yet divided South Central into two dominant cultures, that of the Latinos and Blacks. Since Rodney King was an African American, the news predominantly focused on the black community in South Central. Yet, even though the two communities were viewed as totally separate entities, different spaces and places, during the riots they eventually grew to unite over common sentiment such as mistreatment from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and Los Angeles Sheriffs Department (LASD), and huge unemployment rates in downtown Los Angeles. From the years of 1984-89 citizen complaints about police brutality rose 33 percent. In addition, according to the Los Angeles Times, from 1986 to 1990 around 1,400 officers were all investigated for claims regarding excessive force, yet only one percent was prosecuted. When a nationwide recession hit Los Angeles, it caused already major unemployment rates to spike to almost 45 percent for black males in South Central Los

Angeles. Blacks blamed Koreans for taking jobs away in their own neighborhoods by only hiring family members, not those who lived locally. These tensions in addition to the light probation sentence given to Soon Ja Du for killing Latasha Harlins combined to cause heated confrontations between Blacks and Koreans during the riots.
The outbursts of the Los Angeles Riots of 1992 were an opportunity for residents of Los Angeles, specifically downtown and South Central to speak out and retaliate for years of oppression. At the end of the riots 53 persons were killed, over 2,000 persons were injured, over 11,000 persons were arrested, and over $1 Billion in damage was calculated. After the riot ended it was no longer referred to as a race riot, yet a class riot. People had been suffering from poverty, police brutality, racism, and unemployment. After the riots finally ended there was a lot to be done. In addition to rebuilding the City of Los Angeles physically, the social structure had to be rebuilt. The violence that occurred changed any and all relations between races and the government. One of the most important changes made to the City of Los Angeles was to it’s police department. Since the riots of 1992 the police force has grown from 41 percent nonwhite to 64 percent nonwhite. Even more important was the implementation of Charter Amendment F, which ended civil service status for chiefs in the LAPD. Before this amendment chiefs were appointed by the Police Commission and essentially were allowed to serve indefinitely regardless of formal findings of wrongdoings. Warren Christopher, a former Secretary of State, gave the recommendation of Charter Amendment F. After Daryl F. Gates resigned, for the first time a black Police Chief was appointed named Willie L. Williams who was later succeeded by another black Police Chief named Bernard C. Parks.
In a more technical sense there were many changes after riots worth mentioning. Technical changes refer to the social, economic, and racial changes that occurred after six days of relentless rioting and burning of the city of Los Angeles. Socially things were drastically different. With the reform of the LAPD, citizens, especially those who lived in less fortunate areas were treated with more respect and professionalism than they had been in the past. The police force was very careful and by the book when interacting with citizens after the video was taken, ultimately setting the riots off. Also, relations between different cultures and races were much different. Blacks and Latinos bonded over the same maltreatment during the riots. Together they fought back over the LAPD’s constant excessive force and being treated like second-class citizens in South Central. After the riots downtown Los Angeles became predominantly Latino populated, especially South Central. However, the Korean race, in Los Angeles specifically, was intensely shaken. But the Koreans responded in positive light making a huge effort to establish their social and political ground as Los Angeles residents and as a large population. The riots of 1992 are a major example of how one single event has the ability to totally change all racial and social identities in a given city. A period of six days, though gruesome, changed what citizens had been feeling for decades.