LA protests far different from 1992 Rodney King riots

The images of cars set ablaze, protesters tossing rocks at police and officers firing nonlethal rounds and tear gas at protesters hearkens back to the last time a president sent the National Guard to respond to violence on Los Angeles streets.

However, the unrest during several days of protests over immigration enforcement is far different in scale from the 1992 riots that followed the acquittal of white police officers who were videotaped beating Black motorist Rodney King.

Immigration Raids-Rodney King Riots — A California Highway Patrol officer stands guard April 30, 1992, at Ninth Street and Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles as smoke rises from a fire further down the street.
DAVID LONGSTREATH, Associated Press

President George H.W. Bush used the Insurrection Act to call in the National Guard after requests from Mayor Tom Bradley and Gov. Pete Wilson.

After the current protests began Friday over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of 4,100 National Guard troops and 700 Marines despite strident opposition from Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Trump cited a legal provision to mobilize federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit Monday saying Trump had overstepped his authority.

Outrage over the verdicts on April 29, 1992, led to nearly a week of widespread violence that was one of the deadliest riots in American history. Hundreds of businesses were looted. Entire blocks of homes and stores were torched.

More than 60 people died in shootings and other violence, mostly in South Los Angeles, an area with a heavily Black population at the time.

Unlike the 1992 riots, protests in the past week mainly were peaceful and confined to a roughly five-block stretch of downtown LA, a tiny patch in the sprawling city of nearly 4 million people. No one has died. There’s been vandalism and some cars set on fire but no homes or buildings were burned.

At least 50 people were arrested for everything from failing to follow orders to leave to looting, assault on a police officer and attempted murder for tossing a Molotov cocktail.

Several officers had minor injuries and protesters and some journalists were struck by some of the more than 600 rubber bullets and other “less-lethal” munitions fired by police.

The 1992 uprising took many by surprise, including the Los Angeles Police Department, but the King verdict was a catalyst for racial tensions that built up in the city for years.

In addition to frustration with their treatment by police, some directed their anger at Korean merchants who owned many of the local stores. Black residents felt the owners treated them more like shoplifters than shoppers. As looting and fires spread toward Koreatown, some merchants protected their stores with shotguns and rifles.