We are fast approaching the 20th anniversary of the 1992 L.A. riots. The riots began on the afternoon of April 29th 1992, following the acquittal of the four white officers charged with using excessive in detaining and arresting Rodney King, an African American man, following a traffic stop. The incident was videotaped by an observer and that recording is now a part of the legend and lore of Los Angeles. The two factors most often cited in the explosion of violence were the socioeconomic conditions in South East Los Angeles and the toxic relationship between the police and the populace of that area.
What has changed since the 1990s is the theory and practice of policing within the LAPD. At the outset of the riots, then police Chief Daryl Gates’ force of 3000 had more of a “siege mentality”, they were unprepared and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the backlash. Today’s LAPD under Chief Charlie Beck, a police inspector during 1992, is now nearly 10,000 strong with more focus on community efforts for crime prevention rather than “chasing the radio”. There is an emphasis by the LAPD to erase the enmity of the past. It seems that the attitude of the general public towards the police department has improved since the riots and according to the LA Times, 70% of people living in Los Angeles approve of the LAPD.
What hasn’t changed is the socioeconomic climate of South East LA. Things have not been helped by the global economic climate. The high school graduation rates of the South East area go well below fifty percent and studies have linked low graduation rates to high unemployment rates. LAUSD’s shrinking budget can be attributed as one of the causes of the decreasing graduation rate.
South East L.A. hasn’t changed much since the Rodney King beating and the L.A. riots but the LAPD has.