The 1992 Los Angeles Riots: The History of the Civil Disturbances across LA after the Beating of Rodney King by Charles River Editors

Author:Charles River Editors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charles River Editors
Published: 2021-08-12T16:00:00+00:00

20 minutes later, officers from the Southwest Division surrounded a Latino man named Franklin Benavidez, who was reportedly in the midst of a gas station robbery. The cops claimed that the suspect had aimed his weapon at them, forcing them to discharge their weapons and hit him twice in the chest. Whether Benavidez was armed remains a matter of dispute since gunshot residue tests were never conducted, but the cops were vindicated by the inquest verdict.

The riots rapidly spread to adjacent neighborhoods and cities in LA County like a fast-acting plague, affecting Pico-Union, South Central, and the Westside, as well as the intersection of North Alvarado and Beverly Boulevard near Filipinotown. They also spread to Compton, Inglewood, Hollywood, Lynwood, and Pasadena. A May 1992 LA Times article titled “Looting and Fires Ravage LA” painted a vivid picture of the pandemonium that had erupted in these parts: “Looters pilfered merchandise from mini-malls and swap meets throughout [the] combat zones...At some sites in the LA Basin, looting was so intense that gridlock snarled parking lots and streets as looters attempted to drive off with their goods. As they casually carted off everything from guns to diapers, some expressed fury over the King verdicts, but others went about their work in high spirits, seeming to enjoy the anarchy of the moment.”

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