1992 Civil UnrestThe 1992 Civil Unrest Resulted in $1 Billion Property Damage
Not since the 1965 Watts riots in south-central Los Angeles has the Department been confronted with the magnitude of violence that erupted on April 29, 1992, just hours after a Simi Valley jury acquitted four LAPD officers in the Rodney King trial.
Fifty-two people lost their lives when violent mobs raged through widely separated areas of the City. Rioters pulled motorists from their cars and beat them, attacked police, smashed shop windows, looted gun, and liquor stores of their stock then set them afire.
When it was over, some 2,500 people had been injured and an estimated $1 billion in property had been damaged.