Rodney King and the Los Angeles Riots (April 29, 1992)

[Sequoia]

by Stan Chambers of KTLA

Our helicopter whirled in a tight circle over Florence and Normandie in South Central Los Angeles. Pilot Mike Smith kept the ship at an almost constant bank. I was in the left seat next to the pilot and had a clear view of the rampaging clutter on the street below. Cameraman Martin Clancey, strapped in a shoulder harness, was hanging out of the helicopter. He had opened the left side door, placed his mini-cam on his shoulder and was recording the helter-skelter action. This was the early evening of April 29, 1992. The Los Angeles Riots were erupting below us.

We had begun to get reports of scattered violence shortly after we had watched on television the barbaric video tape of motorists being ripped out of their cars, hammered, pounded and chased by rock-throwing men on the ground. The image of a man, later identified as Reginald Denny, being pulled from his truck by thugs, still burned in my mind. My memory was seared by the vivid imprint of the motionless, beaten man lying on the ground, being kicked and brutalized. I was still filled with rage at the sight of one of the assailants picking up a large piece of cinder-block and throwing it at his apparently lifeless body, smashing him in the head. Then, after the savage beating, the attacker appeared to do a dance, raise his hands towards the helicopter overhead and flashed a gang sign. Then, to my utter disbelief, another person on the street reached into the pocket of the fallen driver and stole his wallet.

This was my television memory; now I was seeing first hand what was really happening.

I peered through my side-window as the copter continued to circle in a steep bank. I could see that traffic was moving through the intersection below us. I watched as various cars whipped in a U-turn around to avoid the ominous chaos ahead. There were clusters of people milling around. They were throwing rocks and bottles at the passing cars. There were no police officers around, just an unruly mob venting hate on innocent motorists who happened to find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

<snip>

http://www.citivu.com/ktla/sc-ch1.html




I'll never forget it. The burning was a scene out of "Day of the Locusts". My sister was in the Florence/Normandy area a few hours before people were being dragged out of their cars.

[debbierlus]

1. My fiancee was in the wrong place at the wrong time & had his teeth knocked out

He was rounding a corner & a gang of men beat him into unconsciousness & broke his teeth at the roots...

Because he was white. Racial violence is horrible no matter WHO perpetrates it.

[Kingshakabobo]

2. Did something happen? Why are you posting this?

Just curious.....That was an awful day.

[Sequoia]

5. It will be April 29 on Sunday.

And I was there. April is one bad assed month for tons of stuff with the VT shootings being the recent. In April we have: Revolutionary War, Civil War, Lincoln Assisinated, Titanic, 1906 Earthquake, Oklahamo Bombings, Columbine, Hilter's B-Day, and the L.A. Riots.

[Kingshakabobo]

8. Doh.....forgot what month we were in....geez this year is flying fast.

Thanks!

[kwassa]

3. I went through it, too, as it spread

I was much further north and east, around 6th and Wilshire. There were stores burning all around us, and columns of smoke rising on a beautiful spring day. We watched one gang trying to break into Adrays, a popular consumer electronics store. All the gas stations up and down LaBrea were torched. The Radio Shack that was a couple blocks away was looted.

[bluestateguy]

4. I was growing up in the SF Bay Area

I remember being worried that the violence would spread up north. To a small extent it did, and things were very tense in SF and Oakland for a few days.

[damntexdem]

6. I sat at home in Long Beach and saw the flames and smoke ...

near places that I liked to go -- Exposition Park, the Tar Pits and nearby museums. And I watched the military convoys on PCH, headed up toward LA. And people were killed right in Long Beach.

And I murmered, not seriously, "since the beating took place in Simi Valley, why couldn't the riots be there?"

[flyarm]

7. i was living in the valley..but best friend was on that side and under her bed

i stayed on the phone with her all night as gun shots sounded outside her windows...she was terrified..

then i was called for jury duty for the Reginald Denny case...

i took a fine and a contempt of court..i did not want to sit on that jury..i had a son in school and i lived in the valley..

out of 600 people called to jury duty for that case..400 did not show up..

then Rodney moved close to me in the valley on Laural Canyon..and the cops and helicopters were always flying over..each and everytime he broke the law..

fly

[Sequoia]

9. OMG! I have no words.

I remember the night KTLA put the Rodney King beating on the news at 10pm. I thought then there would be trouble down the road. That poor guy who submitted the videos was hounded and made to feel like a criminal.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

10. A little 7 year old boy went off to play in Los Angeles......

He was Mexican. When he came back his neighborhood was in flames, and his parents were dead. He moved to Houston.

He became friends with my daughter in middle school. He found out he was one-quarter Japanese. The lady who I thought was his mother, all this time, is really his aunt who adopted him.

He's the same age as my daughter. Got a scholarship to art college and is doing quite well. He found out that he understands Japanese as his first language.

I just found out that this had happened to this young man about a year ago.
It's true.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

11. kick

[oscarmitre]

12. And I was sitting in a bar in LAX

waiting for my flight back to Australia and totally unaware of what was happening. I'd driven through South Central that morning and though it was awfully quiet (been to LA a few times) and I saw little groups of street people gathering at the intersections. By the time I took the rental car back, checked in and headed to the bar it was beginning to happen.

[3waygeek]

13. I lived in Thousand Oaks back then

just south of Simi Valley, where the trial triggering the riots took place. I remember driving up the 101 to my job in Santa Barbara and seeing a convoy of camouflage-painted Hummers & trucks carrying National Guard troops into LA.