How LA Is Marking 30 Years Since the 1992 Rodney King Verdict
Thirty years ago, a jury's acquittal of four LAPD officers on trial for the beating of Rodney King led to days of violence, looting and fires.
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Video documents what happened in the days that followed the Rodney King beating trial verdict.
Family members of Rodney King and Latasha Harlins will join community leaders Friday to mark 30 years since the Rodney King verdict and the violence that followed.
They plan to urge unity during the gathering at 11 a.m. at the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues, the epicenter of the unrest that stemmed from a jury's acquittal of the four LAPD officers on trial in the videotaped beating of King during a traffic stop in the San Fernando Valley.
The jury's decision led to six days of rioting, looting and fires, much of it in South Los Angeles and Koreatown. More than 60 people died, thousands were injured and millions of dollars worth of property was damaged.
Family members of Latasha Harlins, a teen who was fatally shot in 1991 by a Korean-born shopkeeper who owned a South Los Angeles liquor store.
LAPD South Bureau Deputy Chief Gerald Woodyard
Activist and CEO of Faith and Community Empowerment (FACE) Hyepin Im
Activist and director of Project Islamic Hope Najee Ali
Operation HOPE Founder and CEO John Hope Bryant
Video documents what happened in the days that followed the Rodney King beating trial verdict.
Operation HOPE, a major financial empowerment nonprofit that was founded by Bryant immediately after the riots, will also provide a community bus tour on Friday, departing the First African Methodist Episcopal Church at 9 a.m., as part of the anniversary.
"My late father, Rodney King, became synonymous with police brutality to some people. But our family remembers him as a human being -- not a symbol," said Lora King, CEO of the Rodney King Foundation. "He never advocated for hatred or violence and pleaded for peace as the city burned by asking, 'Can we all get along?' That's my father's legacy and what the King Foundation is about, unity. And bringing people together."
Connie Chung Joe, CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, told City News Service that the anniversary of the riots is "a reminder of how racial injustice and anti-Blackness, particularly within our criminal justice and law enforcement systems, has persisted for decades in this country.''
AP
George Holliday, left, has died of COVID-19. In this image, he points to the spot in April 26, 1997, along a roadside in the Lake View Terrace section of Los Angeles where he videotaped Rodney King, right, being beaten in April 1992.
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A California Highway patrolman directs raffic around a shopping center engulfed in flames in Los Angeles, 30 April 1992. Riots broke out in Los Angeles, 29 April 1992, after a jury acquitted four police officers accused of beating a black youth, Rodney King, in 1991, hours after the verdict was announced. (Photo credit should read CARLOS SCHIEBECK/AFP via Getty Images)
AP/David Longstreath
Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton tours the devastation in Los Angeles, California, May 4, 1992, following rioting after the Rodney King verdict. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)
Corbis via Getty Images
A man walks past a burning building during the Los Angeles riots. In April of 1992, after a jury acquitted the police officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, riots broke out throughout South Central Los Angeles, killing 55 people, injuring another 2,000, and causing more than $1 billion in damage. (Photo by David Butow/Corbis via Getty Images)
AP Photo/Reed Saxon
A cross, flowers and a banner urging an end to violence adorn the ruins of a service station at Florence and Normandie Avenues in South-Central Los Angeles, May 3, 1992. The intersection was the site of the first reported violence on Wednesday that led to days of rioting, looting and burning as people angrily reacted to the acquittal of four Los Angeles police officers in the Rodney King assault. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
AP Photo/Paul Sakuma
A National Guardsman escorts a surfer off Venice Beach in Los Angeles Saturday, May 2, 1992 as area beaches were closed in the wake of disturbances following the verdict in the Rodney King videotaped beating trial. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
AP Photo/Nick Ut
A Korean shopping mall burns at Thrid Street and Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles Thursday, April 30, 1992 on the second day of rioting in the city following the Rodney King assault. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
AP Photo/Bob Galbraith
An unidentified man runs down Vermont Street in Los Angeles on Thursday, April 30, 1992 with electronic appliances taken from a 3rd Street store. Looting and fires continue in the wake of the verdicts from the Rodney King beating trial handed down. (AP Photo/Bob Galbraith)
A Los Angeles police officer takes aim at a looter in a market at Alvarado and Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, April 30, 1992, during the second night of rioting in the city. On April 29, 1992, four white police officers were declared innocent in the beating of black motorist Rodney King, and Los Angeles erupted in the deadliest riots of the century. Three days later, 55 people were dead and more than 2,000 injured. Fires and looting had destroyed $1 billion worth of property. (AP Photo/John Gaps III)
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A California Highway patrolman directs raffic around a shopping center engulfed in flames in Los Angeles, 30 April 1992. Riots broke out in Los Angeles, 29 April 1992, after a jury acquitted four police officers accused of beating a black youth, Rodney King, in 1991, hours after the verdict was announced. (Photo credit should read CARLOS SCHIEBECK/AFP via Getty Images)
Andy Katz/Corbis via Getty Images
This April 29, 1992, file photo, shows protests against a not-guilty verdict against LAPD officers in the beating of Rodney King transformed into civil unrest in Los Angeles, California.
HAL GARB/AFP via Getty Images
In this May 1, 1992, file photo, a National Guardsmen patrols trough a destroyed area in central Los Angeles.
David Butow/Corbis via Getty Images
FILE: Asian American demonstrators march through the street carrying South Korean flags and signs which say “Love Your Neighbor-Jesus” and “We Can Get Along-Rodney King”.
Kirk McKoy/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
In this April 29, 1992, file photo, residents of the West Adams (Western Ave. and Adams Blvd.) district protest the verdict of the police officer who were acquitted of beating Rodney King in Los Angeles, California.
Diana Walker/Getty Images
FILE: Pres. Bush (4L) conferring w. LA Urban League Pres. John Mack (L) et al during tour of area devastated in riots re cops’ acquittal in Rodney King trial.
Bob Riha, Jr./Getty Images
In this April 30, 1992, file photo, outside the Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters at Parker Center (at 150 N Los Angeles Street), demonstrators protest in the wake of the verdict in the Rodney King case was announced, Los Angeles, California.
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
In this June 9, 2020, file photo, people walk past the name Rodney King seen on a chain-link fence surrounding Silver Lake Reservoir in Los Angeles, where a new art installation protesting police brutality spells out, in colourful woven fabric, the names of unarmed African Americans who have been killed by police.
She added that during the COVID-19 pandemic, two movements have achieved national prominence -- Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate. And she noted that ``it's a good moment to think about what Black and Asian racial solidarity truly looks like.''
"This anniversary is an opportunity to move beyond the pitting of communities against one another and seek a pathway towards true interracial solidarity building,'' she said.
Eunice Song, executive director of the Korean American Coalition, said in a statement to City News Service that she views the 1992 riots as the moment when Korean people living in Los Angeles had their identity ``reborn as Korean Americans.''
"They began communicating with their communities and formed community organizations to bridge cultural gaps and advocate for themselves out of necessity,'' she said, adding that the Korean community ``transformed itself from insular observers to active political stakeholders within Koreatown today.''
Garcetti said Thursday that 1992 was ``both a trauma and a turning point for our city -- a moment of pain and destruction from which we emerged stronger and more resilient.''
"In the last three decades we have made progress to build a city where resources, opportunity and hope are available for all. On this 30th anniversary, let's remember the lessons from 1992 to forge a better and more prosperous Los Angeles for everyone who calls this city home,'' he added.
Councilmember Herb Wesson on Friday will give opening remarks for a virtual screening of the 1994 documentary ``The Fire This Time,'' which chronicles Los Angeles leading up to and during the riots. The screening is organized by the Los Angeles Public Library and will begin at 12:45 p.m., followed by a panel discussion at 3:15 p.m. People may RSVP here.
Also Friday, at 4 p.m., community leaders will come together in Koreatown for an event to mark the 30th anniversary. The event is hosted by Chung Joe and Song, along with James An of the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles, the Koreatown Youth and Community Center's Steve Kang, the Los Angeles Urban League's Michael Lawson and the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles' Rev. ``J'' Edgar Boyd.
The free, outdoor event at Liberty Park, 3700 Wilshire Blvd., is aimed at bringing together Angelenos, along with Black and Asian musicians, cultural performers and spiritual leaders to assist in healing and reflection.
