Kenny, Lorraine Delia.Daughters of Suburbia: Growing
Up White, Middle Class, and Female.New Bruns-
wick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000.
Car yn E. Neumann
See also Bobbitt mutilation case; Crime; Journalism.
Los Angeles riots
The Event Four days of continuous violence,
including arson, assault, looting, and shooting,
erupts after the unexpected acquittal of four
Caucasian Los Angeles police officers on
charges of police brutality
Date April 29-May 2, 1992
Place Los Angeles, California
The largest multiracial urban disturbance of the twentieth
centur y, the Los Angeles riots brought to the fore issues of im-
migrant assimilation, racism, poverty, and gang warfare.
When a private citizen brought forward a videotape
of a lengthy beating of African American Rodney
King by four Los Angeles Police Department
(LAPD) officers on the night of March 3, 1991, tele-
vision stations eagerly played the tape. The public
then expected that the Caucasian officers would
surely be found guilty of police brutality. The offi-
cers, however, believed that they were trying to ap-
prehend a motorist who was resisting arrest after a
high-speed highway chase.
On April 1, 1991, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Brad-
ley, an African American, decided to set up an inde-
pendent commission to determine whether King’s
beating was part of a pattern of racism within the po-
lice department. The report, issued on July 9, found
that LAPD officers often used excessive force with-
out being disciplined. Once again, the public ex-
pected convictions of the four officers. A key recom-
mendation, to institute community policing, was
ignored by Bradley. The report also asked Police
Chief Daryl Gates to resign, but he refused.
When the four officers were arraigned on charges
of excessive force, the judge moved the trial outside
Los Angeles because of prejudicial pretrial publicity,
including remarks by Bradley that the officers
should be punished and numerous replays of the
most sensational segment of the videotape on televi-
sion. The venue chosen, Simi Valley, was a suburb in
Ventura County. The jury, assembled from residents
of a nearby community in Los Angeles, consisted of
ten Caucasians, one Hispanic, and one Asian.
About a year later, on March 16, 1992, fifteen-
year-old African American Latasha Harlins entered
Empire Liquor Market, a convenience store owned
by a Korean American immigrant family that previ-
ously experienced burglary, shoplifting, and gang
terrorism. After putting a bottle of orange juice in
her backpack, she approached the counter with
money in her hands. Observing the bottle in her
backpack but not the money, proprietor Soon Ja Du
attempted to take the backpack away, whereupon
Latasha knocked the woman down and put the juice
bottle on the counter. As Latasha attempted to leave
the store, Du shot and killed her. On March 22, Du
was charged with voluntary manslaughter.
On April 21, a jury found Du guilty and recom-
mended a sixteen-year sentence. Judge Joyce Karlin,
however, reduced the sentence to five years proba-
tion, four hundred hours of community service, and
a fine of $500. The verdict seemed much too light
from the viewpoint of the African American commu-
nity in Los Angeles.
Then, on April 29, three of the LAPD officers
were acquitted and there was a hung jury for the
fourth officer. Exculpatory evidence included a
thirteen-second segment that had been edited out
of the television broadcasts during which King got
up from the ground and charged one of the officers.
The officers also testified that King held all four off,
but that was not on tape. Unaware of the exculpatory
evidence outside the courtroom, many African
American residents were incredulous of yet another
apparent miscarriage of justice involving their com-
munity.The Riots Begin Thirty minutes after the verdict
was announced, about three hundred people ap-
peared outside the downtown Los Angeles court-
house to protest; the number doubled over the next
two hours. At approximately the same time, a large
crowd of African Americans assembled at an inter-
section (Florence and Normandie) in South Central
Los Angeles. Members of the group began to loot
businesses and accost those with white faces. When
Reginald Denny, a construction worker, stopped at
the intersection, his truck was surrounded, and he
was dragged from his vehicle, severely beaten, and
almost murdered by the mob in the presence of a
television news helicopter. However, several African528 Los Angeles riots The Nineties in America