Did anybody witness the LA riots in '92? (LA peeps please get in here)

[Woodrow]

my cousin marquis got his teeth knocked out durin this shit... at 1 of the toys r us stores.. i was with with him and like 10 of his homies...they 15-17..im the youngest 12..i dont know how we ended up at toys r us.. but we ran in thru the backdoor as they was recievin stock or whatever.. i didnt know they was finna start lootin, so im jus in the there..

they runnin im back by the tyco playin wit a display..sumthin told me to look, this nigga rydin down the aisle on a murray 10speed, with 2 my pet monster dolls and some more shit..he was finna make it back out the back door on the ramp...he was like come on t come on t.. i ran behind him.. some how i beat him outside.. im near a disel.. then i see this nigga comin like he was pee-herman feet on the side of the bike..gettin ready to jump and run ..out the door..with all that shit.. im jus lookin heart thumpin..

 he damn near out the door..1 of the black truck drivers blind sided him..nigga was in the air 4 a hour.,..it seemed..and all i saw was him lookin dead in my eyes as he literally bit the rail that goes up the ramp.. nigga teeth out of there... all i heard was loud ass mariah carey like note..

i jus caught out runnin...im like fuck that nigga.. kuz his folks r meaner than the boogyman ..and i get blamed 4 his fuck ups( im the nigga who is always darin niggas and shit)..and all they need to do was find out i was wit him..and im up shit creek..so i jus left..

he was the only 1 who attempted to make it out the back..the other dudes went out the front..and nuthin happen.. now he walkin around with a metal plate 4 a gumline...

LOL!

[R-Tistic]

Damn I wish somebody had hit me up on AIM about this thread because I haven't been on here too much since I got into the swing of school.

(Warning....long, and if you aren't from LA you might not know what I am talkin about)
But yeah....92, I was in 2nd grade, I remember it vividly. I was goin to the doctor's office in Santa Monica with my mom, but I remember we drove all the way there and they said they had closed because of somethin. The verdict hadn't been read yet though. When we were drivin back, I remember we were somewhere in West LA, probably La Cienega, and they were readin it and my mom started cryin. To people who didn't grow up in LA or understand how long bullshit like this had been goin on, they wouldn't understand why she was cryin about it. I was livin in Gardena back then too, just moved from Inglewood. Back then, comin from West LA/Beverly Hills, we would take La Cienega to Olympic to La Brea on down and make it Crenshaw, because that was before the 105 was built. You couldn't just take La Cienega to the 405 to 105 to Crenshaw, since I live right off Crenshaw and 135th. We were on La Brea, and I donno how to explain it, but we just felt a weird vibe in the air. We got word on the radio that people had started to riot and my mom was just like ............. ..........about two weeks before, I was with my dad and we visited his friends in Baldwin Hills, and for some reason, I remember us going to the shopping center on La Brea right by Rodeo, to their McDonalds. So goin down La Brea, I remember lookin on the right side, and I was like "mommy!!!!!!!!!!! They are setting everything on fire!!!!!!!!!!" and she started cryin and we were basically stuck in traffic for a minute. I guess it was probably the dudes from the Jungles since that was the closest gangbangers and dudes who would act wild in that area, which was pretty decent other than the Jungles themselves. I remember she finally made it to the long stretch of La Brea past Rodeo and Jefferson that's like a Freeway, and we ended up just goin all the way around Inglewood to get back home because we didn't have cell phones and we heard them on the radio sayin what was bein fugg'd up and what wasn't.

I know school was cancelled for the next few days, but I couldn't enjoy the time because me and my dad were constantly watchin the TV to see if the rioters were gonna make it to Gardena. Where I stay is basically borderline to South Central, about 5 min from Raymond Crips hood (where they filmed Friday) and a few miles west of Compton, but my actual neighborhood is decent even though it's gang turf. The thing I remember is that the LAPD pretty much couldn't do shit in LA, but the other cities police had their cities on LOCK. I know the beach cities weren't lettin anything serious go down, and even Inglewood didn't get anything destroyed. Most of the rioters were targeting the businesses that were not black owned, and that is where a lot of jokes started to come from. If you remember in Menace II society I think, or maybe Don't be a menace to SC.....when they had the liquor store that had "Black owned business" then showed Koreans workin. Durin the riots, many many many asian stores had bought these kind of signs hopin that the blacks wouldn't burn down their shops, because they really tried not to destroy black businesses. The riots weren't just about police brutality, but also about the silent but obvious race wars going on between blacks and other races.

One thing that the news probably wouldn't tell you, and that you wouldn't expect to hear, is that there was even more police brutality during these riots, but ALL you saw was the wild ass gangbangers that were tearin up things. I heard some people say that the police would get at ANYBODY who was young and black, some would just physically abuse em, and I even heard a report that they killed one dude that they said was shooting at them, but since it went on durin such a hectic time, nobody paid any attention or remembered it.

I also remember that in 93, my school was about to cancel classes because they had the re-trial, and they felt that if Stacey Koon and those dudes had been found "Not guilty" again, somethin woulda popped off once again.

If anything positive came from the riots, it was definitely all of the gang truces that happened shortly after. Many gangs realized that the world was much bigger than the small world of warfare that they knew of, and that they the real enemies were the ones who were holdin them back and not helpin to stop them from killin each other. Even though most gang truces didn't last too long, LA definitely saw a sharp decline in violence statistically. Being that I was only in 2nd grade, I have heard this from gangbangers who were my age at the time, because I definitely didn't know much about gangs back then.

[R-Tistic]

This is one of those topics that you post something, then think about it some more and remember a whole lot more about it....

Also...I remember a lot of the things that happened after the 3 days of destruction. The clean up process was damn near amazing. Many of the local churches formed groups to re-construct LA. The main church was First AME on Adams in L.A. My dad knows the pastor because he went to our college, and I remember my dad was very active in helping with him. Many people donated money to re-build the city, especially the rich and famous stars like Magic Johnson, and even many white celebrities helped out. My dad was interviewed on CNN for being one of those who was part of the project.

Although the riots definitely had a very strong effect on LA and caused much change, the riots themselves were very unorganized and you can tell that many people were in it just to enjoy actin an idiot. Just as the report that Twista posted said, many of the rioters felt anonymous because it was so many other people doin the same thing. I am 100% sure that there were gangbangers who were inside their house, probably high and just watchin TV, and saw what was goin on and was like "cuzz, that's bullshit that the cops got off. But ey, them niggas is tearin up shit out there, lets go do the same shit!"

Even the coverage of the riots was very biased and racist. I definitely recognize that there was a lot goin on that was completely stupid, ignorant, and racist. But at the same time, the media played into this and chose to televise this, and this only. They never showed the protestors who walked around with signs, and those who were outside of the LAPD precincts showing verbal outrage. Just like with 9-11, they showed the negative images OVER AND OVER....I remember seein Reginald Denny get hit in the head OVER AND OVER throughout that whole weekend. I know that violence sells and I understand why they showed everything that they did. But it was obvious that they were trying to sell it to white America and those who weren't in LA like this....."The cops may have taken it too far when they beat up this guy, but he was on drugs and he ran away and was fighting them. But when the cops got off, it just shows you how these idiots in LA need to get beat like this. They are not any better because they are burning up places and killing innocent people because of this." And overall...they tried to make America forget that Rodney King ever got beat...they wanted them to remember that the black youth is completely fucked up. That "fucked up" image of us still lives in everybody's head to this day.

[Kill]

^^ thanks alot, that could be quite helpful. props man

[Ozir]

Good read R-Tistic... props!

I agree with a lot of what you said.

Peace!