The Los Angeles riots in 1992 began when five Los Angeles police officers chased African American Rodney King and two passengers. After the police officers arrested King and his passengers, when King exited the police vehicle, it was caught on video that the officers tasered, forcefully beat, and handcuffed King; King was supposedly under the influence of PCP, causing aggression. As technology was rapidly developing during this time, this footage was able to be rapidly distributed across the entire nation, horrifying people ranging from activists to the LAPD police chief himself.
Consequently, four of these officers were charged with assault and excessive force. However, these officers were acquitted of wrongdoing on April 29, and that same day, the mayor Tom Bradley chastised the jury for wrongly ruling that this was not a crime. This comment was one of the prompts for the riots began out of outrage towards the rulings. Starting from Florence Boulevard and Normandie Avenue, rioters beat many motorists, prompting violence to spread across Los Angeles, with police officers taking a long time to respond. In a single day, dozens were left day, bringing Mayor Bradley to sign a curfew.
On May 1, two days after the riots commenced, Bush ordered federal officers and military troops to put Los Angeles under control, the first time so many forces were used in civil disorder since the King assassination riots in 1968. By the next day, much of the riot had been kept under control, and 30,000 people gathered in a peace rally in Koreatown. However, violence still continued afterwards in a less organized fashion, and federal troops stayed as long as until the end of May. Two of the four initially convicted police officers had their sentences revised, being sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.
Although the major conflict was over police brutality towards African Americans, a different minority was also considerably affected: Korean Americans. Koreatown was particularly targeted due to previous tensions building up between African Americans and Korean Americans. During the riots, with most of the police having gone to defend wealthy white neighborhoods, Korean shopkeepers organized their own defense line using their own firearms. Eventually, police were redirected to Koreatown after seeing how gunfire was exchanged in Korean neighborhoods. After the riots, Korean Americans responded by increasing activism through activist organizations among other means. Due to the lack of police response, the Korean American community lost its faith in the LAPD.
The involvement of many different ethnic communities during the 1992 Los Angeles riots is an example of how race dynamics have become far more complex than just black and white. Even though the original cause may have been focused on the black-white conflict, as the riots progressed, different groups such as the Korean Americans were drawn in. One consequence was that more people bought their own firearms for self defense in case another event like this would happen again. Even now, police discrimination is a major topic of discussion and debate; although the law may claim equal rights, there was and still is a long way to go.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/riots-erupt-in-los-angeles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots
I think that your post brings up an interesting event and I enjoyed reading it although I do have some questions. You mentioned that the "rioters beat many motorists" but I don't understand why it was mostly motorists who were attacked. Were they targeted? Also in part about the Korean Americans, were they defending themselves from the rioters from attacking. Also were the rioters mostly african american?
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting how you talked about the effect of the riots on another group of people. I also wonder, why were there racial tensions between the Korean Americans and African Americans? Were there any specific issues that caused this?
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post, and I liked how you provided your own analysis of the events. I found it quite interesting how despite the progress made by the civil rights movement in the 1960s, African Americans were still being heavily discriminated against thirty years later. One possible cause of this was a more conservative Supreme Court, as their rulings narrowed the legal definition of discrimination. On an unrelated note, why do you think there were tensions between Korean Americans and African Americans?
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