The media loves ‘celebrating’ anniversaries, but there was surprisingly little coverage on the LA Riots this year. What coverage there was talked about how South Central (now South) Los Angeles remains a tinderbox . Worse, the Yuppies are coming.
The Los Angeles Riots began on April 29, 1992, at around 6:45PM. The not-guilty verdict in the trial of four LAPD officers charged with the beating of Rodney King came down around 3:15PM in Simi Valley, a northern (white) suburb of Los Angeles. By 4:30PM, crowds were gathering at Florence and Normandie Avenues in South Central LA. By 6:45PM, a division of LA Police officers had ‘redeployed’, never to return,. The crowd grew violent, pulling (white) truckdriver Reginald Denny out of his truck and beating him.
In the same way many can remember where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated, I remember where I was April 29: arriving at a Los Angeles Lakers playoff game against the Portland Trailblazers. Leaving our two year old with a babysitter, we had driven south from West Hollywood down La Cienega Boulevard to the Great Western Forum. Listening to Chick’s pre-game analysis, we probably missed radio news reports about the just-beginning troubles by minutes. We also just missed the rioting which had spread to Inglewood between 7 and 9PM.
The game, which took place long before the cell phone/mobile Web era, was an engrossing thriller. Few had any idea what was going on outside. The Lakers, staggered early that season by the HIV-related retirement of Magic Johnson, won in overtime in what would be their only playoff win that year.
Late in the game, a message flashed on the square scoreboard above center court. ”Inglewood Police Control: Exit to the North and West only.” The crowd had been psyched–until we stepped out into the darkness and fire. A friend’s Honda had the windshield smashed. Our inconspicuous 1987 Chevy Cavalier was unharmed. All the streetlights were out. People threw rocks as we drove through deep puddles where firemen had tried to stop the burning. We raced north on LaBrea, looking into every car as they looked at us, wondering if the people inside were angry enough to kill.
We made it home and sent the babysitter away. The next day, I carried my two-year-old on my shoulders to my office at Larry Flynt Publications. Our child care provider couldn’t make it to work from the devastated area. A curfew was declared, schools and businesses were closed, and we went home and watched TV. Our neighborhood was relatively safe, patrolled by the Los Angeles Sheriffs department rather than the embattled LAPD. Still, opportunistic thieves smashed their way into a Gap store two blocks away. Much of the rest of the city was burned or looted in what the politically correct called “the uprising.” The California National Guard stood with their M-16s guarding streetcorners near our house.
On Monday, May 4, 1992, schools and businesses reopened. The toll: more than 50 killed, over four thousand injured, 12,000 arrested, and $1 billion in property damage.
To this day, my wife tells me I should have known better. I can only hang my head, knowing we had driven into the inferno. The good news: we are still together, Magic Johnson is still alive and going strong and so is Los Angeles.
