29 de Abril de 1992

Riots in Los Angeles, California, follow the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 54 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed. The 1992 Los Angeles riots, also known as the Rodney King uprising or the Rodney King riots, was sparked on April 29, 1992 when a mostly white jury acquitted four police officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King, after he committed felony evading, leading police on a 110 to 115 MPH freeway pursuit. Thousands of people in Los Angeles, mainly young black and Latino males, joined in what has often been characterized as a race riot, involving mass law-breaking, including looting, arson and murder. In all 50 to 60 people were killed during the riots.

On March 3, 1991 African-American Rodney King, on parole from prison on a robbery conviction, led police on a 110-115 MPH pursuit, refusing to pull over in response to the red lights and sirens behind him. Finally, after driving through several red lights and boulevard stops, he pulled over in the Lake View Terrace district by Los Angeles police assisted by other law enforcement. King, who had a record of drunk driving and was believed to be under the influence of PCP, resisted arrest and was tasered, tackled, and beaten with nightsticks by four LAPD officers (three whites and one Hispanic). He is also alleged to have lunged for the weapon of one of the police officers on site, although that event, supposedly being early in the altercation, was not caught on the infamous taping. In a later interview, King admitted that, being on parole, he feared apprehension and being returned to prison for parole violations.

The incident, minus the first few minutes, was captured on video by a private citizen, and it became an international media sensation and a touchpoint for minority activists in Los Angeles and the United States. Eventually the Los Angeles district attorney charged the four with the use of excessive force in the beating. Due to the media coverage of the beating, the trial received a change of venue to a newly constructed courthouse in predominantly white Simi Valley, a Ventura County city. Contrary to popular belief, however, no Simi Valley residents served on the jury, which had been empaneled in Los Angeles County; the jury was, however, drawn from the nearby San Fernando Valley, a predominantly white and Latino area. On April 29, 1992, the jury returned an acquittal on all but one count.

The riots, beginning in the evening after the verdict, peaked in intensity over the next two days, but would ultimately continue for several days. Continuous television coverage, especially by helicopter news crews, riveted the country and shocked viewers around the world as parts of the city went up in flames, stores were openly looted, innocent bystanders were beaten, and rioters shot at police. A curfew and deployment of California National Guard troops began to control the situation; eventually federal troops would be sent to the city to quell disorder.

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