[RAlossi]

I was only 7 years old, living in El Monte when the riots happened, April 29, 1992.

What were your experiences? What has changed since then? What hasn't, and what still needs to? Hopefully this will spark some meaningful debate.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

I was 22, living in Huntington Park. I was heading home from class at East L.A. College when I heard the officers were acquitted. I was pissed, everybody was pissed. I can't explain it, but I just knew the shit was about to go down, so I got home as quickly as possible.

Good thing I did. Things went down real fast. People often talk about Florence and Normandie as the flashpoint, but that was just one flashpoint. The truth was, there were dozens of flashpoints. A widespread riot doesn't have just one flashpoint. The people were pissed, and it went down all over South L.A.

Downtown L.A. had one of the biggest flashpoints. Protesters surrounded Parker Center, preventing anybody from entering or leaving. Eventually, they would set fires, overturn cars and destroy LAPD guard shacks that evening. There was some serious damage done to the civic center area.

To live near South L.A. was an eerie thing that week. Fires were everywhere, esp. at the beginning you could see new columns of smoke appear each time a new fire was set. The Harbor Fwy was closed down. Flight paths were diverted because people were taking shots at the planes.

By the end of it, we had armored vehicles and military jeeps w. machine gun turrets on our major intersections. Crazy days.

[SD_Phil]

^ I was 11. I specifically remember driving around south la with my family and seeind the national guard on the corners of intersections with rifles and thinking WTF!

Lots of burned out buildings too. You could see that smoke from FAR away. Interesting times in a way.

[jessie_sanchez]

I was 6 but remember this day very vividly. I remember not being allowed to go outside because of fears that the riots would erupt in our own neighborhood just as they did over and over again in other more unfortunate parts of town. Curfew began as soon as I got home from school. I was forced to stay indoors on a beautiful spring day...confined to my room for my own safety.

It was scary...even for a 6 year old who didn't really understand what the newscasters were saying...in fact the shock and awe could have been acomplished even with the tv set on "mute" for the images of hate and violence spoke for themselves.

Truly a dark day in US history.

April 1992.
Civil Unrest in Los Angeles, CA.

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