A quick warning. This episode has some explicit language.

Hector Tobar watched the chaos of April 29, 1992 from the Los Angeles Times' third floor newsroom.

That night, a large crowd of people gathered outside the building and started pelting it with rocks.

And then a little bit later on, I said, hey, am I the only one who smells fire?

You know, there's smoke.

There's smoke.

Something's burning.

And unbeknownst to me, down on the first floor, a few members of this particular mob

had managed to break through the windows, the offices down there, and had set a couple of

small fires on the first floor.

Tobar kept on working.

That first day, he collected notes from reporters in the field and wrote a story about

the LAPD's response to the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King.

He left the newsroom around 11 p.m.

Eventually, the mob went on and dispersed, and we went home and everybody thought it was over.

It was like, wow, that was a horrible night that the city went through. It's all over. And we all

went to bed thinking that the next morning, the city would start sweeping

up the glass and taking stock of what had happened. The politicians would make their speeches,

and everything would go back to normal. The next morning's newspaper laid out the toll that

April 29th had taken on Los Angeles.

At least four deaths, 106 people injured, and more than 150 fires burning across the city.

At first, April 30th felt like the calm after the storm.

...