California Market owner Richard Rhee returns fire at looters approaching his market in Koreatown, Los Angeles on the second day of the Los Angeles Riots.
"I hold the L.A.P.D. and those 4 officers solely responsible for those riots...."
Los Angeles City Councilman
After the riots, the Department of Justice reinstated investigation and obtained an indictment of violations of federal civil rights against the four officers.
The Riots
The Los Angeles riots of 1992, also known as the Rodney King uprising or the Rodney King riots, were sparked on April 29, 1992 when a jury acquitted four police officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King following a high-speed pursuit.
Thousands of people in the Los Angeles area rioted over the six days following the verdict. Widespread looting, assault, arson, and murder occurred, and property damages totaled one billion dollars.
The rioting had been sparked by the Rodney King beating.
Rodney Glen King (born April 2, 1965 in Sacramento, California) is an African-American taxi driver who, in 1991, was stopped and then beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers (Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno and Sergeant Stacey Koon) after being chased for speeding. A bystander, George Holliday, videotaped much of the event from a distance.
Part of the video was broadcast around the world and shows four LA police officers restraining and repeatedly striking a black man, while four to six other officers stand by. There is no part of the tape that shows Mr. King attacking the officers, as some have claimed. King had also been tasered by the officers.
The resulting public outrage raised tensions between the black community and the LAPD, and increased anger over police brutality and issues such as unemployment, racial tension, and poverty in the black community. The four officers were tried in a state court for using excessive force, but were acquitted, the announcement of the acquittals sparked the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Read more Rodney King Beating
1992 Los Angeles Riots
Source: wikipedia
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