The West Las Vegas riots were sparked on April 29, 1992, after the Rodney King verdict, where all four white LAPD officers were acquitted for the beating of motorist Rodney King in Los Angeles, California. After the Los Angeles riots were sparked, Black residents of West Las Vegas started to loot and burned several stores. Gun battles had started with snipers at intersections and a white motorist was pulled from his vehicle and beaten. [1]
The violence occurred just 7 miles away from the Las Vegas Strip. Las Vegas police officers placed buses under Interstate 15 to keep rioters from crossing out of West Las Vegas and into the downtown area. After the riots, one person was killed, $6 million in property was damaged, and the tensions with the police lasted the next 18 days. [1]
In the broader context of racism against Black Americans and racism in the United States, mass racial violence in the United States consists of ethnic conflicts and race riots, along with such events as:
Rodney Glen King was an African American man who was a victim of police brutality. On March 3, 1991, he was beaten by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) during his arrest, after a high speed pursuit for driving while intoxicated on the I-210. An uninvolved resident, George Holliday, saw and filmed the incident from his nearby balcony and sent the footage to local news station KTLA. The footage showed the unarmed King on the ground being beaten after initially evading arrest. The incident was covered by news media around the world and caused a public furor.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,967 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-largest municipal police department in the United States, after the New York City Police Department and the Chicago Police Department.
The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion or Watts Uprising, took place in the Watts neighborhood and its surrounding areas of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965.
A Los Angeles Police Department C.R.A.S.H. initiative that began in April 1987, Operation Hammer was a large scale attempt to crack down on gang violence in Los Angeles, California. A year later, the LA Times reported a double-digit drop in gang violence in parts of the city. After a group of people at a birthday party were shot down on their front lawn in a drive-by shooting, Chief of Police Daryl F. Gates responded with a roundup of gang members. At the height of this operation in April 1988, 1,453 people were arrested by one thousand police officers in South Central Los Angeles in a single weekend.
Daryl Francis Gates was the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) from 1978 to 1992. His length of tenure in this position was second only to that of William H. Parker. Gates is co-credited with the creation of SWAT teams with LAPD's John Nelson, who others claim was the originator of SWAT in 1965. Gates also co-founded D.A.R.E.
Reginald Oliver Denny is a former construction truck driver who was pulled from his truck and severely beaten during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. His attackers, a group of black men who came to be known as the "L.A. Four", targeted Denny because he was white. The attack was captured on video by a news helicopter and broadcast live on U.S. national television.
The 1992 Los Angeles riots, were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, United States, during April and May 1992. Unrest began in South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after a jury acquitted four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) charged with using excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King. The incident had been videotaped by George Holliday, who was a bystander to the incident, and was heavily broadcast in news and media outlets.
Stacey Cornell Koon is an American convicted criminal and former sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department. He is one of the four police officers who were responsible for beating Rodney King in 1991. He was sentenced to 2+1⁄2 years in federal prison in 1993 for his role in the beating.
Willie L. Williams was the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) from 1992 to 1997, taking over after chief Daryl Gates' resignation following the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Williams was the first African-American Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department and the first African-American Chief of the LAPD. During his term as Chief of the LAPD, he tried to create a positive image of the department and close the rift created between the police and black neighborhoods by the violent arrest of Rodney King in 1991.
Crime in Los Angeles has varied throughout time, reaching peaks between the 1970s and 1990s. Since the early 2020s, crime has increased in Los Angeles.
This article lists examples of the ongoing influence on popular culture of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Riot is a 1997 American television film starring Luke Perry and Mario Van Peebles. It was written and directed by four writers and directors of four different racial groups prominent in Los Angeles. The title "Riot" refers to the Los Angeles riots of 1992 that were sparked by the beating of Rodney King, and the subsequent acquittal of the four police officers who beat him.
"April 29, 1992 (Miami)" is a song written by American rock band Sublime in 1996 from their eponymous album Sublime. The song title refers to the date of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, of which news spread throughout the United States following the acquittal of four police officers accused in the videotaped beating of Rodney King.
Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982–1992 is a 2017 American documentary film directed by John Ridley about the decade preceding and including the 1992 Los Angeles riots. It was produced by Lincoln Square Productions, a subsidiary of ABC News, and was released in theaters in Los Angeles and New York on April 21, 2017. A shorter version aired on ABC on April 28, 2017. A rebroadcast of the film took place on June 16, 2020. The film has received critical acclaim.
LA 92 is a 2017 American documentary film about the 1992 Los Angeles riots, directed by Daniel Lindsay and T. J. Martin. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21, 2017, opened in theaters on April 28, 2017 and aired on National Geographic Channel on April 30, 2017.
Mass rioting and looting occurred in Chicago, Illinois in the immediate aftermath of the Chicago Bulls winning six NBA championships in the 1990s.
The 1987 Tampa riots were two riots in Tampa, Florida, that occurred in February and April 1987 that started after two African Americans died in encounters with the police. The years 1986 and 1987 would be a time of racial tension in Tampa as well.
Rooftop Koreans or Roof Koreans refer to the Korean American business owners and residents during the 1992 Los Angeles riots who armed themselves and took to the rooftops of local businesses to defend themselves. The unrest in urban areas was sparked by the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers in the beating of Rodney King and resulted in widespread violence and arson throughout the city.
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