I meant to get around to posting an article on my thoughts about the 20 year anniversary of the LA Riots, but, work and life interfered with my writing time. Today, I had some free time so I've decided to do the post, it is especially relevant to talk about the riots today as the LA Times just reported that Rodney King was found dead in his home a few hours ago.
I was in the third grade when the riots occurred. My parents were divorced, every other weekend my Dad would pick up me and my sister from Thousand Oaks and take us to Long Beach. Some times, we would take the 101 to the 605 freeway to Long Beach. If you know anything about the geography of Los Angeles, these routes go through some of the areas hardest hit areas of the riots.
For 7 days the city of Los Angeles consumed itself. In 1993, a year after the riots the murder rate in the city was 21.1 per 100,000 this was the height of the crack epidemic. As a point of contrast, the murder rate of the city in 2008 was 9.6 per 100,000 less than half that of 1993.
The riots were an accident of history, they were nothing more than the perfect combination of an aggressive out of touch LAPD, a depressed post cold war economy and an idiot drivers piss poor decision. In 2002 the LA Times ran a 10 year retrospective on the riots. Many of the people interviewed were certain that a riot could happen again. Another 10 years down the road and I don't think that anymore. I live downtown, such a thought to my 3rd grade self would be nearly impossible. The city is on an upward path, I'm glad to be here.
No comments:
Post a Comment