Danver Steven L. (Edited). Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (ENG)
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observed that there was no pol ice presence anywhere nearby. Many others pulled
out of cars and beaten at the same corner were Asian or Latino, rescued by African
American residents of the area. A large portion of those throwing rocks and beat-
ing motorists in the area were flashing gang signs. Sixty percent of residents in the
area owned their own homes, but some 40,000 teens aged 16–19 were out of
school and out of work.
The next three days were not marked by political protest nor acts of rage, but by
looting in areas where police presence had been withdrawn or was stretched thin.
More than half the residents in the affected areas were Latino, as were a majority
of the l ooters; most of those young single men only recently arrived in the city.
Rodney Ki ng was not the issue after the first hours on Apr il 29; a white and a
Latino looter, attempting to rob a grocery store, told the African American owner,
“F—Rodney King.” The owner, with a .357 Magnum, wounded the white robber,
who was carrying a rifle.
A few business owners defended their premises. Richard Ree, owner of Califor-
nia Market, armed family and employees and held off looters on April 30. Art
Washington, who had a pest control business on Western Avenue at 20t h Street,
held off wo uld-be looters, shoutin g “I worked for that. D on’t burn down none of
my business. I worked too hard for this! You call this black power?” Looters did
invade and torch the Watts Labor Community Action Center, built after the 1965
Watts riots.
Four thousand California National Guard troops , 4,500 federal troops, includ-
ing 1,500 mar ines, and 1,000 fe deral law enforcement officers, were sent in to
Los Angeles to restore a semblance of peace. A curfew imposed on May 1 was
lifted the night of May 4. There were 54 confirmed deaths—26 African American,
14 Latino, nine white, and two Asian, with three bodies too badly burned for iden-
tification. At least 2,328 were treated for injuries, 862 structures damaged by fire,
with a total of $900 million in property damage.
Among the first three killed were Dwight (Fishman) Taylor, an African Ameri-
can fis h cutter; Matthew Haines, a whit e mechanic; and Elbert Wilkins, a black
stereo shop owner. Taylor was shot by unknown assailants while walking to a store
near his job at All Seas Fish Market. Wilkins was hit by bullets from a passing car,
talking to friends near his business. Haines was on his way to rescue an African
American family friend w ho worried about viole nce in her neighborhood, when
he was dragged off his motorcycle and shot at point-blank range by a mob in Long
Beach. Haines’s father told a Los Angeles TV station “if this had been a declared
war, my son would have signed up” on the same side as the people who shot him.
One of the jurors in the trial of the police officers said, “I can’t believe all this is
a reaction to what we did.” Mayor Tom Bradley announced, with evident anger,
“Today, the jury told the world that what we all saw with our own eyes was not a
1098 Los Angeles Uprising (1992)
crime.” The jury h ad spen t the trial in a quiet courtro om, pouring over details of
each police officer’s testimony. To most people on the street, that was not the
point. Everyone in t he poorer areas of t he city knew of someone mistreated by
police, from outright shooting to being handled roughly after a traffic stop. So
did many African Americans from prosperous neighborhoods, and more than a
few Latinos. Generally, charges against officers involved had been dismissed for
lack of convincing evidence, while the city paid between $3.7 million and $13 mil-
lion a year in civil damages. This time, the police had been caught on tape; every-
one expected that for once, they would be convicted.
The death of Latasha Harlins, a high school student with ambitions to become a
prosecuting attorney, added to the sense of injustice and futility. She had been shot
in the back of the head by the checkout clerk in a corner store, where the security
camera showed that Soon Ja Du initiated a confrontation, mistakenly thinking
Harlins intended to steal a bottle of orange juice. Harlins had walked away from
the conflict, without the orange juice, when she was shot. A jury convicted Du of
voluntary manslaughter, but on November 11, 1991, Judge Joyce Ann Karlin
imposed five years probation, suggesting that Du did not mean to kill Harlins, con-
tradicting the jury’s verdict.
Dallas, Texas, police chief William Rathburn, a former L.A. assistant chief, had
publicly called the beating of King “gross criminal m isconduct.” LAPD officer
Tom Sullivan said “This isn’t just a case of excessive force. It’s a case of mass stu-
pidity.” By March 10, 1992, 86 percent of those contacted for a Los Angeles Times
poll had seen the tape, and 92 perce nt thought excessive force had b een used. In
mid-April, 81 percent in another survey believed the four officers to be guilty of
criminal assault. Since jury selection generally excludes anyone with a well-
formed opinion on guilt or innocence, the jury would inevitably have been drawn
from the small minority disposed to think the police may have acted appropriately.
—Charles Rosenberg
See also all entries under Stono Rebellion (1739); New York Slave Insurrection (1741);
Antebellum Supp ressed Slave Revolts (1800s–1850s); Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831 );
New Orleans Riot (1866); New Orleans Race Riot (1900); Atlanta Race Riot (1906);
Springfield Race Riot (1908); Houston Riot (1917); Red Summer (1919); Tulsa Race Riot
(1921); Civil Rights Movement (1953–196 8); Watts Riot (1965); Detroit Riots (1967).
Further Reading
Cannon, Lou. Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles
and the LAPD. New York: Times Boo ks, 1997.
Hunt, Darnell M. Screening the Los Angeles “Riots”: Race, Seeing and Resistance.New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Los Angeles Uprising (1992) 1099
Jacobs , Rona ld N. Race, Media and the C risis of Civil Society: From the Watts Riots to
Rodney King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Klein, Norman M. The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory.
New York: Verso, 1998.
Koon, Stac ey C. Presumed Guilty: The Tragedy of the Rodney King Affair. Washington,
DC: Regnery Gareway, 1992.
Los Angeles Times staff. Understanding the Riots: Los Angeles before and after the Rod-
ney King Case. Los Angeles: Los Angeles Times, 1992.
1100 Los Angeles Uprising (1992)
Denny, Reginald (1953–)
Until April 29, 1992, Reginald Denny, a 33-year-old truck driver for Transit Mixed
Concrete, was unknown to the wor ld at la rge or the media. He w as driving an
18-wheeler down Normandie Avenue, on his way to make a routine delivery, when
he ran into one of the more violent responses to the news that four Los A ngeles
police officers had been acquitted on all charges in the widely publicized beating
of Rodney King. Denny had not even heard of the verdict, and he did not represent
the police, but his truck was a convenient target for inchoate rage. The fact that he
had the pale complexion referred to in American history as “white,” as did all four
police officers on trial, while King, and the members of the spontaneous mob
forming where Normand ie crossed Florence, had the dark complexion of African
descent, undoubtedly contributed to make him a target.
Another African American man watched a live report on TV of several men
pulling Denny out of his truck, throwing a cinderblock at his head, kicking and
beating him. Bobby Green, 29 years old and a fellow trucker, raced to the scene,
where he found three others responding to help D enny: Lei Yuille; T. J. Murphy,
a 30-year-old, unemployed aerospace engineer; a nd Terri Barnett, a nutrition
counselor. None of them knew Denny, or anyone in the mob attacking him.
Together, they got Denny back in his truck, and drove him to a hospital.
Denny went out of his way to heal the wounds of the uprising in which he was
nearly killed. During a break in his testimony at the trial of Damian Monroe Wil-
liams a nd Henry Keith Watson, two of his assailants, Denny warmly embraced
Georgianna Williams, Damian’s mother, who had told a reporter after her son’s
arrest that she wanted to invite Denny over for dinner. Denny also greeted
Watson’s parents, Joyce and Henry Watson, who told him “God bless you.” After
the trial, Denny said that Watson, convicted of a misdemeanor, had “been through
quite enough” sitting in jail for 17 months awaiting trial. Denny pointedly
reminded reporters that most of his rescuers, as well as the doctors who t reated
him, were African American. On another occasion, Denny appeared on the Phil
Donahue show to meet and shake hands with Watson.
Denny’s skull was fractured in 91 places, inflicting brain damage that required
years of therapy. His speech was impaired, as was his ability to walk. He filed a
suit against the City of Los Angeles, but it failed, like that of other drivers beaten
by the same mob. Ward McConnell, an assistant city attorney, explained that
1101
“There’s just no duty on the part of the government to provide police protection, or
any particular degree of police protection,” which would provide a legal basis for
civil damages. Denny moved to Arizona in 1993, where he became an independent
mechanic repairing boat motors. He has declined requests for interviews and other
media contact. Friends reported that his recovery was slow, but steady, and by
2007, he was able to start driving again.
—Charles Rosenberg
Further Reading
Hunt, Darnell M. Screening the Lo s Angeles “Riots”: Race, Seeing and Resista nce.New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Klein, Norman M. The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory.
New York: Verso, 1998.
Los Angeles Times staff. Understanding the Riots: Los Angeles before and after the Rod-
ney King Case. Los Angeles: Los Angeles Times, 1992.
King, Rodney (1965–)
Rodney Glen King, known to family and friends by his middle name, was born
April 4, 1965, in Sacramento, California, moving with his parents to Los Angeles
County. He played baseball in school, but his greatest passion was fishing with his
father. From the time he was in fourth grade, he worked alongside his father, who
had contracts to clean buildings at night. In junior high school, Glen King had his
own cleaning contracts. Since the work was largely 5:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., he often
came to school after four hours’ sleep. He was remembered by teachers as barely
able to read, with a shaky memory, and a soft-spoken student. In a city known
for violent, ruthless, and well-armed gang federations, family and friends consid-
ered him meek and gentle. Like his father, he had a problem with alcoholism,
and his aunt Angela said he had a stubborn streak if provoked. He dropped out of
John Muir High School six months before graduation, taking a construction job.
Joining the Plasterers a nd Laborers Union, he took enriched construction
classes at Pasadena City College, and married in 1984. He separate d from his
wife in 1987, after an uncontested battery charge, and remarried in 198 8. In
1989, King was convicted of an impulsive second-degree robbery of a corner
store, which did not accept food stamps. He originally intended to buy a pack-
age of bubble gum. His probation o ffice r wrote that the danger King posed to
the community was not that he would steal and rob, but that he had an explosive
temper. A model prisoner, King was paroled in 1990, obtaining a construction
1102 Los Angeles Uprising (1992)
job at Dodger Stadium, where he was punctual and well liked. He continued to
drink, which was a violation of his parole conditions, his favorite brand being
Olde English 800.
On March 2, 1991, Kin g was wat ching a basketball game at a f riend’s ho me,
and drinking. After the game ended, they to ok a drive with a third man who had
been watching the game. King drove at speeds estimated to be over 80 miles per
hour on the freeway, passing a state highway patrol car. He later recalled that when
the patrol turned its lights on, signaling for him to pull over, he was afraid that an
arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol would send him back to prison on
a parole violation, and he had a sense that if he kept driving, the problem would go
away. Instead, it became one of the most high-profile police brutality cases of the
20th century.
King eventually stopped near Hansen Dam Park, in the Lake View Terrace area.
He had inconsistent and fragmentary memories of what happened next—being
both intoxicated and subjected to repeated baton blows that left him feeling “like
a crushed can.” King suffered a broken cheekbone, fractures on the right side of
his face, a lacerated forehead, and a fracture of his right leg, from approximate ly
56 distinct baton blows. King eventually won a $3.8 million damage claim against
the city. When protest against acquittal of the police officers who beat him degen-
erated into random killing and looting, King emerged to call for peace, pointing
with evident emotion to the widely publicized death of a security guard, and asking
“Can we get along?”
—Charles Rosenberg
Further Reading
Cannon, Lou. Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles
and the LAPD. New York: Times Boo ks, 1997.
Koon, Stacey C. Presumed Guilty: The Tragedy of the R odney King Affair. Washington,
DC: Regnery Gareway, 1992.
Los Angeles Times staff. Understanding the Riots: Los Angeles before and after the Rodney
King Case. Los Angeles: Los Angeles Times, 1992.
Los Angeles Police Department
Up to 1991, when four Los Angeles police officers were caught on videotape beat-
ing Rodney King, the city’s police had a history ranging from extreme corruption
to models of civic reform and modern methods. The department hired an African
American officer in 1886, sharply restricted opportunities for dark-skinned
Los Angeles Uprising (1992) 1103
officers in the 1920s, and opened a strictly segregated “black watch” in 1940,
when two African American officers qualified for the rank of lieutenant—which
would have put them in position to supervise “white” officers. In 1922–1923 , the
police chief was Louis Oakes, a secret member of the Ku Klux Klan who protected
gambling and bootlegging operations, while fixing parking ticket s was standard
procedure. He was replaced by August Vollmer, a criminology professor from
the University of California at Berkeley. Vollmer emphasized police e ducati on
and enlightened enforcement p olicies, personally led a raid against gamblers
protected by corrupt city officers, and ordered another raid against bootleggers
protected by corrupt federal officers. He was forced out after a year.
Civil service protection for police chiefs, intended to protect the department
from political manipulation, left the chief accountable to nobody, including the
mayor and city council. During World War II, many experienced officers enlisted
in the armed forc es; to replace them, educational and psyc hological standards
were lowered, putting “badge-happy,” inexperienced men in uniform. During that
time, brutality replaced corruption as the most common complaint against the
police. In 1949, a major general from the Marine Corps, William Worton, was
hired as chief. In his 13-month tenure, he adopted the military command approach
he was familiar with, which gave the force some appearance of an occupying
army, de-emphasizing attention to the social setting in which it worked, which
Vollmer had initiated. Worton instituted an Internal Affairs Division to handle
complaints, which most officers preferred to an outside civilian review process.
From the 1890s to the 1950s, and again in the 1990s, the number of officers was
kept relatively small to keep taxes low, while funding telephones, call boxes, sub-
stations, bicycles, motorcycles, helicopters, and other technology to stretch the
efficiency of a “thin blue line” of police on duty. In 197 8, community polic ing
was ended on the ground that it spread officers too thinly over too la rge an area.
Residents of high crime areas like South Central Los Angeles were supportive of
police, voting for ballot measures to fund more officers and equipment, which
were voted down in wealthier communities. However, it was commonly under-
stood that young black men doing nothing illegal were likely to find themselves
stopped on suspicion and treated roughly, as were off-duty nonwhite police offi-
cers, state senators, business owners, professionals, and retired baseball players,
sometimes with young children in their car. Young A frican American men, inno-
cent of any crime, routinely complained of being stopped by police and
“proned”—ordered to lie flat on the ground. Operation Hammer, initiated in
1988, took hundreds of gang members off the street, but it also increased the rate
of teens who simply were in the wrong place at the wrong time being roughed
up, provoking simmering resentment. Cliff Russ, of the Police Protective League,
summarized the c limate with the observation “I don’t t hink Rodney King was
1104 Los Angeles Uprising (1992)
beaten because of his race. But I also don’t think what happened to King would
have happened to a white man from Encino.”
—Charles Rosenberg
Further Reading
Cannon, Lou. Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles
and the LAPD. New York: Times Boo ks, 1997.
Hunt, Darnell M. Screening the Los Angele s “R iots”: Race, Seeing and Resistance .
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Jacobs, Ronald N. Race, Media and the Crisis of Civil Society: From the Watts Riots to
Rodney King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Klein, Norman M. The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory.
New York: Verso, 1998.
Koon, Stacey C. Presumed Guilty: The Tragedy of the R odney King Affair. Washington,
DC: Regnery Gareway, 1992.
Los Angeles Times staff. Understanding the Riots: Los Angeles before and after the Rodney
King Case. Los Angeles: Los Angeles Times, 1992.
Williams, Damian Monroe (1973–)
Four individuals among the band of young men attacking truck driver Reginald
Denny at the corner of Florence and Normandie, April 29, 1992, were identified
from news videotape of the attack, arrested, and indicted. The one facing the most
serious charges was Damian Monroe Williams, born March 17, 1973, who had
appeared on video news footage throwing a cinderblock at Denny’s head, then
doing a football-style victory dance. Henry Keith Watson went to trial with him,
while Gary Williams offered a guilty plea, and Antoine Miller was granted a
separate trial. A jury found Damian Williams not guilty of attempted murder,
assault and aggravated mayhem, convicting him of simple mayhem and four mis-
demeanors. Williams served four years of a 10-year sentence before being paroled.
Watson was convicted of a single misdemeanor assault charge.
News coverage and court records identify Williams as a member of the 71
Hustler s, a street gang that acted as a feeder into the Eight Trey Ga ngster Crips .
He had eight juvenile arrests for theft and burglary, but had never been convicted.
Friends recalled Williams as generous to young children and devoted in caring for
an older brother who had been badly beaten in a robbery. Among his friends were
people classified as “white,” but on the day the verdicts were announced, he was
prominent in a mob attacking a nyone “white”—or, for that matter, Latino or
Los Angeles Uprising (1992) 1105
Asian—as i nstant revenge for the acquittal of t he four o fficers charged with the
beating of Rodney King.
Williams was a high school football star, before dropping out of 10th grade. He
tried out for the Los Angeles Mustangs, a semipro football team, the previous year,
but had missed practice often and been dropped from the roster. He was a father at
age 16. From testimony collected after the events, Williams may have been moti vated
to take a more active role by the taunts of a young woman at an earlier incident at Flor-
ence and Halldale. Police intervened when a youth with a bat began breaking win-
dows on passing cars, and Williams’s half brother, Mark Jackson, was among those
arrested. Watching as Williams did nothing to prev ent it, a girl called him “pussy.”
He was convicted in 2003 of the second-degree murder of Grover Tinner, at a
house in the 1700 block of West Gage Avenue, which police said was “used by
people selling and using narcotics.” After initially reporting that Williams had
fired a fatal shot at Tinner—a n account challe nged by Tinner’s sister—Williams
was charged along with Tyrone David Killingsworth, who, according to the indict-
ment, actually pulled the trigger. Between his arrest in July 2001 and his indict-
ment in September, a coalition of community and religious leaders demanded
Williams’s release, saying he was being targeted by police because of his earlier
involvement in the Reginald Denny case. Killingsworth was convicted of
second-degree murder and sentenced to 110 years, plus 20 years on another
charge. Williams was convicted on the grounds that he participated in a crime that
resulted in a homicide. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison, plus 21 for a stolen
firearm. As of 2007, he was confined at the Pelican Bay State Prison.
—Charles Rosenberg
Further Reading
Hunt, Darnell M. Screening the Lo s Angeles “Riots”: Race, Seeing and Resista nce.New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Jacobs , Rona ld N. Race, Media and the C risis of Civil Society: From the Watts Riots to
Rodney King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Progress Report of the Presidential Task Force
on Los Angeles Recovery (1992)
Reproduced below is the initial progress report of the task force of cabinet undersecretaries and
other federal officials appointed b y President George H . W. Bush to asses s how the federal
government could best assist the re covery process in Los Angele s in the first weeks following
the 1992 riots. Released barely two weeks after the end of the riots, this report mainly describes
conditions in the riot zone immedi ately after the disorders ended and the first steps taken by
federal, state, and local officials to begin the economic recovery of the affected areas.
1106 Los Angeles Uprising (1992)
MEMBERS OF THE TASK FORCE:
David T. Kearns, Co-chairman
Deputy Secretary
U.S. Department of Education
Washington, D.C.
Alfred DelliBovi, Co-chairman
Deputy Secretary
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Washington, D.C.
Robert E. Grady
Deputy Director-designate
Office of Management and Budget
Executive Office of the President
Washington, D.C.
Delbert Spurlock
Deputy Secretary
U.S. Department of Labor
Washington, D.C.
Arnold Tompkins
Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Washington, D.C.
Robert S. Mueller, III.
Assistant Attorney General
Criminal Division
U.S. Department of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Oscar Wright
Regional Administrator
Small Business Administration
San Francisco, California
Linda Peterson
Regional Administrator
Office of Personnel Management
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles Uprising (1992) 1107