Guard and law-enforcement personnel shot ten
dead. Six were killed in car crashes. The rest died
from stabbings, strangulation, or beatings. Five
women died. Among the dead were twenty-five Afri-
can Americans, sixteen Hispanics, eight Caucasians,
two Asians, and two Middle Easterners. Some 4,000
were wounded. The Empire Liquor store and about
2,000 Korean-owned businesses were burned to the
ground. Among the 12,000 arrested for looting and
other crimes, Latinos were the most numerous.
There was approximately $1 billion in property dam-
age, mostly from the destruction of a thousand
buildings. Koreatown resembled a war zone because
of the burning after the looting.
Observers have called the event an “urban distur-
bance” rather than a “race riot.” The main reason is
that many participants simply took advantage of the
chaos to loot nearby stores, with little interest in the
political overtones that began the riots.
Impact The Los Angeles riots made it clear that
class conflict complicates racial conflict in the
United States, involving immigrant Asians and His-
panics as well as the black-white conflict. Observers
commented that resentment builds when some im-
migrants with limited English ability succeed while
some articulate African Americans do poorly in
American society, and indeed there were mini-riots
in sixteen other American cities after the verdict.
The looting by some of the poorest Latino immi-
grants brought to light the way in which the demo-
graphics of Los Angeles had become increasingly
complex throughout the 1990’s.
The United States struggles to find a coherent
concept of how to deal with a burgeoning multicul-
tural, multiracial population. Riots are possible any-
where when events bring to the fore reminders of in-
justice. Indeed, disturbances continued beyond the
1990’s, notably in Cincinnati during 2001.
The 1992 riots also brought to light the practice
of racial profiling, that is, the tendency of white po-
lice officers to stop black motorists and pedestrians
more frequently than Asians or whites. The Rodney
King incident also made television media realize the
viewing potential of film car chases, and the public
realized the importance of private videotaping. Sub-
sequently, Hollywood films capitalized on the theme
of race relations in Los Angeles. The filmGrand Can-
yon, released in 1992 after the King beating but be-
fore the riots, promoted racial cooperation. InAmer-
ican Histor y X(1998), the character played by actor
Edward Norton speculates that there would have
been no Los Angeles riots in 1992 if Gates’s succes-
sor, African American Willie Williams, had been the
police chief.Crash(2005) suggests that nothing had
improved in race relations since 1992.
Subsequent Events On April 17, 1993, the verdict
in the federal civil rights trial found two of the police
officers guilty; they were sentenced to thirty months
in prison. Three were fired and one resigned from
LAPD. Gates resigned after Bradley’s office released
unfavorable information about him. Williams tried
to restore confidence in LAPD by establishing com-
munity policing as he had done while Philadelphia
police chief. Bradley did not seek reelection. King
was awarded $3.8 million in compensation, largely
to pay his attorneys, but he was arrested several times
thereafter. Koreatown was rebuilt. While some Kore-
ans moved to homes outside the city, many Latino
immigrants moved into their former Koreatown
apartments. Some $1.4 billion was used from the Re-
build Los Angeles project, but South Central Los An-
geles observers found little evidence of any major re-
construction besides a Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and
new grocery stores. The Multicultural Collaborative
and other groups emerged to bring African Ameri-
cans and Korean Americans together.
Further Reading
Cannon, Lou.Official Negligence: How Rodney King
and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD.
New York: Crown, 1998. The definitive account of
the trials of the four Los Angeles police officers,
including the impact of the missing thirteen sec-
onds of videotape on the jury, with a conclusion
about the way in which a new mayor and police
chief tried to correct the city’s many problems re-
garding law enforcement.
Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles
Police Department. Los Angeles: Independent Com-
mission on the Los Angeles Police Department,- After reviewing five years of reports, the
commission concluded that many LAPD officers
used excessive force against the public in viola-
tion of written guidelines, while complaints were
dismissed without corrective action. The commis-
sion was chaired by well-respected Los Angeles
business executive Warren Christopher, who later
became secretary of state.
Tervalon, Jervey, ed.Geography of Rage: Remembering
530 Los Angeles riots The Nineties in America