Tracking the Escalation of the L.A. Riots

Joel Anderson: “The Watts Riots were a key event for us to understand—in the larger context of L.A., but also because they were a factor in the decisions made by some of the key figures in 1992. Police Chief Darryl Gates built his plan for a post-verdict response around what he learned from developing the LAPD’s strategy during the Watts Riots in 1965. (Although police failed to keep the violence under control, Gates’ profile grew.) This compilation of LA Times coverage from that time was a valuable resource.”

JA: “This article helped give more context to policing in Los Angeles in 1965 and in 1992, and what had (and hadn’t) changed in the years between. How could so little progress have been made over three decades? This story helped us to make the connection between these events.”

JA: “I spoke with Tim Goldman, an Air Force veteran who ended up at the center of the events, for this episode of Slow Burn. Goldman was 32 at the time and assumed the police officers would be convicted of beating Rodney King. When he heard the verdict, he was gutted. He found himself drawn into the streets with friends that afternoon. And he brought a camera. ‘My instinct was to grab the camera. Fully charged. Super pack battery on it. And I ran and jumped in [the] truck,’ he told me. In this story from 2017, he talks about what it was like being there on the first day of the riots and the days that followed, and how he felt ‘ostracized’ by the Black community for his recordings of violence.”

JA: “Larry Tarvin and Reginald Denny were two white truck drivers who happened to drive through the intersection of Florence and Normandie, which had become Ground Zero for some of the boldest and angriest agitators that night. Zoey Tur was a helicopter pilot who ran a freelance news service, shooting aerial footage for TV stations. This is some of the footage she filmed that night—including the beatings of Tarvin and Denny. Her footage shows the impact of the riots across LA—the chaos and fire and smoke—and how quickly things escalated.”

JA: “About a year after the beating, Denny spoke to GMA about the experience and his health (at the time, he couldn’t drive anymore). Denny has rarely spoken publicly about his plight and it was valuable to hear his perspective about that night.”

JA: “For the 20th anniversary of the riots, PBS interviewed Kiki Watson, one of the four men charged with beating Denny and four others. He talks about what happened that night as a culmination of the King verdict and the treatment of Black men in America. ‘I don’t know Mr. Denny. He just represented white America at the time—so it was just random, senseless violence … Anybody who came to that intersection who wasn’t Black, they were assaulted.’”

JA: “When I spoke with Watson this year, he told me, ‘I just got swept up into the moment. Before I know it, shit, I was hooking and jabbing and sticking and moving like everybody else.’ This New York Times’ article offers some context around the ‘mob mentality’ and why some mass gatherings turn violent. It lined up with what we heard from Watson and others as we explored the reasons that things turned so violent at Florence and Normandie.”

JA: “On the 25th anniversary of the riots, NPR’s Here & Now aired a segment in which they interviewed the four Black men who saved Denny. They talked about why they decided to intervene, at risk to their own safety.”

Listen to the episode now.