The L.A. Riots | 28
History of the 90s
Kathy Kenzora
4.7 • 610 Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2020
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of History of the 90's we look back at the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the various factors that led to the largest and most violent case of civil unrest in United States history.
The acquittal of four police officers in connection with the brutal video taped beating of Rodney King wasn’t the only reason people went into the streets of South L.A. looting and burning buildings over a six day period in April 92.
The Black community was also reeling from a judges’ decision not to send a Korean shopkeeper to jail in connection with the shooting death of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins. Plus, South L.A., which was 50 percent Black in the early 90s was hit hard by unemployment, gang violence and the crack epidemic. As you’ll hear in this episode. the conditions were ripe for unrest.
A note on sources:
The information in this podcast about the timeline of events at the intersection of Florence and Normandie was based on reporting in a 1998 article by The Washington Post.
Contact:
Twitter: @1990shistory
Facebook: @1990shistory
Instagram: @that90spodcast
Email: 90s@curiouscast.ca
Guest:
Brenda Stevenson, Professor of African American Studies at UCLA. Author of The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender and the Origins of the L.A. Riots
https://www.drbrendastevenson.com/
Ryan Gattis, author of All Involved
Twitter: @ryan_Gattis
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's Kathy. I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to History of the 90s |
| 0:04.7 | early and ad-free on Amazon music included with Prime. |
| 0:10.0 | George Holliday was awakened just before 1 a.m. by the sound of a helicopter outside his |
| 0:15.6 | Los Angeles apartment. He went on to the balcony to see what was going on. |
| 0:25.0 | The light from the helicopter illuminated a disturbing scene. |
| 0:32.0 | Two dozen members of the LAPD were gathered around a man lying on the ground beside a parked car. |
| 0:36.4 | Four other officers were kicking and hitting the man with batons. |
| 0:39.5 | The 31-year-old plumber ran back into his apartment and grabbed his new Sony handicam video camera, and he documented the vicious |
| 0:46.0 | beating of the unarmed black man. That recording helped spark one of the most intense |
| 0:53.5 | and violent periods of civil unrest in U.S. history. |
| 0:57.5 | But it wasn't the only spark. |
| 0:59.9 | South Central L.A. was already an open Tinderbox waiting to be lit. |
| 1:04.8 | I'm Kathy Kanzora, and on this episode of History of the 90s, we look back at the 1992 Los Angeles riots. |
| 1:17.5 | Just after midnight on March 3, 1991, Rodney King and his friends Bryant Allen and Freddie Helms |
| 1:25.2 | were in King's 1987 Hyundai XL, heading west on the |
| 1:29.9 | foothill freeway in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. The three had spent the night |
| 1:35.2 | drinking and smoking weed while watching basketball. At about 1230 a.m., officers Tim and |
| 1:42.3 | Melanie Singer, a husband and wife team from the California Highway |
| 1:46.0 | Patrol, noticed King's car speeding on the freeway. They attempted to pull him over, but King refused |
| 1:53.2 | to stop. The 25-year-old unemployed construction worker later admitted he tried to outrun the cops because he was on parole for a |
| 2:03.4 | robbery conviction and didn't want to return to prison. King left the freeway near Lakeview |
| 2:09.8 | Terrace and the high-speed pursuit continued through residential streets for about 15 minutes. |
... |
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