What Are Your Memories of the L.A. Riots, 20 Years Later?

April 29 marks the 20th anniversary of the 1992 L.A. Riots. The widely televised upheaval, also referred to as the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest, was sparked by the acquittal of four LAPD officers—three white and one Latino—who were accused of brutally beating an African American man and Altadena resident, Rodney King, in 1991.

Over the next several days, Los Angeles exploded into a frenzy of violence, looting, arson and murder that began in what was then predominantly black South-Central L.A (now named South L.A., a predominantly Latino area). According to one of the most reliable estimates, the rioting claimed 53 lives, left thousands injured and reportedly damaged property worth $1 billion.

The office of Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who represented South-Central L.A., burned down during the riots. Waters defended the loss of her office building as “one of the victims of the rebellion,” which, in turn, she described in a May 10, 1992 Los Angeles Times article as "a spontaneous reaction to a lot of injustice and a lot of alienation and frustration."

For those of you who lived in Altadena or elsewhere in Southern California we want to know what do you remember most about those times?  How did you feel?  Was there tension in Altadena?

We asked a couple of long-time residents for their thoughts and memories. Here are their responses.

Town Council member Greg Middleton, a decades long resident in town, said he remembers things feeling tense even in Altadena:

Tensions were high all over, sort of like what just happened in Florida with the killing of the kid down there but Altadena and Pasadena was not hit as bad as in LA. Most of us watched things disrupt on the news with the looting and setting of fires but very few things like that happened locally. Everyone was very upset but I do not remember any acts of violence here in Altadena.

On the day when the violence broke out I was actually out fishing with a friend on a lake up the I-5. As we were coming back into town you could see all the fires looming from the LA area. When we got home it was all over the news nationally and locally.

Middleton shared some more of his thoughts about the .

Lisa Hastings, who moved to Altadena in November of 1992, experienced the riots while a student at Cal State L.A.  Her thoughts:

I was a student at Cal State L.A. attending class and someone told me that the police officers in the Rodney King case had been found not guilty. I was in disbelief. I could not believe that after seeing that video of the beating of Rodney King that the officers were acquited. Soon after the verdict,  rioting broke out. I remember seeing other students at Cal State L.A. crowded around a television set watching the news of the rioting. It was so surreal and again, I was in total disbelief.

Also, in addition to being a student, I worked in a small office in Pasadena.  Pasadena businesses shut down and the streets were deserted. I did not go to work for several days. It was a scary time. I remember going to the bank and taking out a lot of cash because no one knew if the banks would close or how long the unrest would last or if it would spread to the Pasadena area. I then went to the market and bought as much food as I could afford. The market was full of people stockpiling food and there were long lines at the check out.  Many shelves in the market were empty and there were shortages.

I remember spending several days at home afraid. I took advantage of the time to get in some extra studying. News coverage of the riots pre-empted the regular television programming and engendered even more fear in people.  The brutality of the beatings during the riots, the looting, fires, and general mayhem kept many people holed up at home.

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The aftermath of the riots was shocking. I remember driving Pico Boulevard to visit family in Santa Monica. Rows upon rows of businesses were burned out and boarded up. It was surreal. Although the catalyst for the rioting was the verdict, many people did not realize that the looting during the riots had nothing to do with the verdict or race issues as it was carried out by opportunists of all ethnic groups

Altadena resident and Patch reader Doris Finch was grateful that no serious incidents of looting and violence reached Altadena.

I remember thinking, yes, it could happen here, but somehow Altadena is different.  I hope the center holds, that things do not fall apart.  And they didn't.

Outside of Altadena things went differently.  Eagle Rock Patch has featured the below account longtime Eagle Rock resident and photojournalist Henk Friezer. His photographs of the second day of rioting in South-Central L.A. offer a glimpse of the carnage that swept the area. Some 3,600 fires destroyed 1,100 buildings, according to one report, including the John Muir Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, whose gutted remains Friezer immortalized in an award-winning photograph that drove the famous choreographer and entertainer Debbie Allen to tears.

In 1992, I was photographer of the now-defunct Northeast Newspapers, which published the Eagle Rock Sentinel, Highland Park News-Herald, South Pasadena Journal, and Northeast Star Review. After the Rodney King verdict was announced, we knew there would be trouble. We saw signs of it locally—there were police everywhere.

Despite the pleas of my wife, I decided to drive around to document any incidents in the Northeast area that was my beat. Everywhere I went, I heard sirens from police cars and fire trucks. My first encounter with rioting was on Eagle Rock Boulevard, where firefighters were putting out a small trash fire. A few blocks away, some police cruisers were stationed, while others had pulled over some drivers.

A curfew had gone into effect. My press pass allowed me access to local streets. There were few minor incidents that night—nothing compared to the explosion that hit the southern section of the city. The next day, I decided to drive down to the devastated area of the city that had been hit the hardest.

Nothing prepared me for what I saw. Whole blocks were leveled by fire and destroyed by vandals. As I drove around, some people cursed at me and others threw rocks, although I had nothing to do with the cause of their anger. I continued to shoot the ruins and remnants of businesses that only a few days ago flourished. Dazed residents wandered the streets to survey the damage. I carefully kept my distance and kept the engine of my car running as I photographed the scenes.

A few days later, I went back to the area at the request of one of my clients, the Los Angeles Public Library. They wanted me to photograph the John Muir Branch Library on Vermont Avenue, which was completely destroyed. The City librarian at the time, Elizabeth Martinez, and choreographer Debbie Allen walked around the debris, overcome by the disaster. Ms. Allen was truly overwhelmed as she shed tears looking at the charred books. She later became a major benefactor in helping rebuild and restock the new library.

Back in my own area of Northeast L.A., there were some minor signs of what had transpired. But nothing compared with the damage I witnessed in South-Central L.A.

We want to know your memories from that time: where were you during those times?  Did you witness rioting?  How did you feel about what was happening? And what lessons have we learned since then?  Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.