LA Riots in Koreatown.

[8200rpm]

They were risking their lives to suppress a riot and defend their livelihood, not prevent shoe theft.

+1,000,000 That pretty much sums it up. :clapping:

These are first generation Korean immigrants. It wasn't as if they can have their entire inventory and equipment looted and burned down, and just go back to work on Monday to punch the time clock. It was a choice between protecting their livelihood, or becoming homeless with your wife and kids next month. Insurance? You think they had insurance running a store in the ghettos that made 15 cents on the dollar? What planet are you from? Palos Verdes?

Let's not forget that the city was rampant with low life scum taking shots at responding firefighters. One firefighter was shot in the face. No police, no fire department, no ambulance, no 911. Some of you are either French or lived in politically correct, morally superior California a little too long.

[Diabolus]

+1,000,000 That pretty much sums it up. :clapping:

These are first generation Korean immigrants. It wasn't as if they can have their entire inventory and equipment looted and burned down, and just go back to work on Monday to punch the time clock. It was a choice between protecting their livelihood, or becoming homeless with your wife and kids next month. Insurance? You think they had insurance running a store in the ghettos that made 15 cents on the dollar? What planet are you from? Palos Verdes?

Let's not forget that the city was rampant with low life scum taking shots at responding firefighters. One firefighter was shot in the face. No police, no fire department, no ambulance, no 911. Some of you are either French or lived in politically correct, morally superior California a little too long.

I'm not sure if this is directed at me or not, but I actually agree with someone defending their property in these situations. Granted, it takes a bit of reading but I hope this clears it up for ya.

[jcaoloveshine]

in my hall there are two of my friends who help with their parents stores on the weekends (hard enough to go through college as it is, but they work 8 hour shifts on the weekends) and one of them said his parents were in the la riots and that at the time they were unarmed and their store was looted and his mom was knocked unconscious while his dad was completely helpless. now they keep a shotgun and handgun in their new store (which is also in a bad neighborhood and gets items openly shoplifted from at least once a week) and i certainly would not hold it against them if a serious riot like that happened again and they felt compelled to defend what was theirs.

[Linh]

As for insurance you should have saw what the insurance companies did to the San Diego fire victims and the Katrina victims.

No they were not defending shoes they were defending their business and their family. For most people they don't give a crap about their job since they can get another one so they care less but for these business owners they invested everything into their business.

So I don't feel sorry for any looters getting shot in any riots or during katrina. They knew what they were doing when they left their house that day except for the old lady.

[dfletcher]

I still can hear my BH & Hollywood friends saying "I have to wait? But I need the gun tonight - what do I do about TONIGHT?"

And no, you can't "borrow" one of mine, thank you .......

[Pvt. Cowboy]

+1,000,000 It was a choice between protecting their livelihood, or becoming homeless with your wife and kids next month. Insurance? You think they had insurance running a store in the ghettos that made 15 cents on the dollar? What planet are you from? Palos Verdes?

You said it.

I'm still pissed about 'Rebuild LA' and the stupid Christopher Commission. It all amounted to nothing more than kissing the butts of angry community leaders that represented the looters. I hate Warren Christopher.

That video from the original post that started this thread was probably early on the first day of the riots, seeing as the TV news critters were still aloof enough to go out trying to interview looters as they were committing crimes. Their involvement pretty much stopped when the KABC news van got torched and the reporters nearly killed. When the rioters started shooting at the reporters, there only seemed to be helicopter video on the TV after that. There was almost no telling what was really going on as the riot area started expanding to the West over into Baja Beverly Hills and even over to the East in Orange County area where the 605 and 105 meet in Norwalk/Cerritos.

[Linh]

I still can hear my BH & Hollywood friends saying "I have to wait? But I need the gun tonight - what do I do about TONIGHT?"

And no, you can't "borrow" one of mine, thank you .......

Yep heard stories just like that.

People that were anti gun didn't even realize that there was a 10 day wait lol.

[Pvt. Cowboy]

Yep heard stories just like that.

People that were anti gun didn't even realize that there was a 10 day wait lol.

I think it was 15 days at that time.

Martin B. Retting gun store in Culver City was cleared out of the C&Rs on the first day. They were telling people there who wanted guns and ammo that there's a 15 day wait on firearms, so some people were just buying ammo and hoping they'd get a gun that would shoot it. One worker there told me that they had to shoo away people who were hanging around outside asking other people if they had any guns at home that they wanted to sell.

When the riots were over, gun sales skyrocketed amongst the smarter people. The oblivious people were like this one loopy dingbat I worked with who was full of White Guilt Syndrome. She posted a flyer in the breakroom at work that was some kind of 'Rebuild LA Walk-A-Thon in Marina Del Rey' asking people to sponsor her for $10 for such and such distance she ran with proceeds going to rebuild the burnt out liquor stores and whatever. She saw me looking at her totally empty sheet in the breakroom and asked me if I would sponsor her and I think I blurted out something like "Do what now? ****ing HELL no!" and that pretty much ended my cordial working relationship with her. Fortunately, one of the managers yanked it down later and said that there would be no fund raising of any kind without expressed permission.

[tyrist]

Did everyone ever read an official number killed in the LA riots. I know the police laid out quite a few people. The Coroner could'nt keep up.

[Pvt. Cowboy]

Did everyone ever read an official number killed in the LA riots. I know the police laid out quite a few people. The Coroner could'nt keep up.

I think the number 54 comes to mind. Lots and lots more wounded.

[trinydex]

I made a post some time ago about my own '92 LA Riot experiences. I thought I made it pretty clear that I didn't see the police for two days until I saw them hiding behind the National Guard and Marines on the third day. What they seemed to be doing in those two days was to be gathering together at the edges of the riot zone trying to prevent the spread by stifling the flow of traffic in and out of the affected areas. When they finally got backup from the Feds, they started moving in.

When civil chaos erupts like what happened back then, you are completely on your own. Though it seems like just the opposite when you're pulled over for a traffic violation, there really aren't that many cops in greater Los Angeles never mind how over-policed civil libertarians claim it to be.

As far as I remember, those Korean store owners never had a lick of legal trouble. The Koreans knew what they were up against after the Latasha Harlins/Soon Ja Du incident which happened about the same time as the Rodney King beating tape release. Racial tension in those days was pretty thick ... in the media, anyway.

does anyone know if there's any truth to the allegations that much of lapd was "covering" beverly hills instead of "covering" the riots?



and to people that said the store owner wasn't justified. why?

[duenor]

You guys who say, "They weren't justified" and "You can't justify shooting someone over shoes" are missing the entire point.

Two guys can stop a riot dead in its tracks if you stop it early enough. If you wait until they are through your windows and going through your cash register, it's too late. All the way up until the car full of thugs pulled up, the Koreans were firing warning shots. Notice that when the thugs pulled up the Koreans immediate changed their stances to combat stances, as opposed to firing with one hand out, old dueling style.

The Koreans were absolutely in the right. As someone noted before, "reasonableness" is different during a riot. When the police are conspicuously absent or unwilling to act, when the NG has been issued guns with no ammo (and yes, we knew about it.. it was on the news that none of the NG were actually armed until several days later), and when the rioters were not content to simply take stuff but were actually killing and raping as well...

In that situation, anyone who comes at me and ignores orders to leave becomes a de facto legitimate threat to my life. Even if he is unarmed, he is the first trickle of a swarm has the potential to kill me. Thus, he must be stopped, deterred... and the swarm headed off in the direction of least resistance.

Mark this well: there will be a large disaster coming in the very near future, and in that disaster there will be chaos all over Los Angeles.

Be prepared with food, water, shelter supplies, and hygiene supplies. And, be ready with arms and armor. The police will do nothing, the NG will be too long in coming, and all the anti-gun bills in the world won't stop the guy who's going to kill you for what you've got.

[trinydex]

The touchstone of self-defense is reasonableness. What is reasonable changes a lot in a riot, but you generally can't use lethal force to protect property as a categorical rule.

http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=309954

If you’re a savvy business owner you would have sufficient insurance to cover the loss, so why jeopardize your life to protect the goods?

Some say it’s a matter of principle and they have the right to protect their property from these criminals. I would agree with this as well, though if you were my friend I would advise you to get home and protect what really matters.

whoa whoa whoa, isn't that little presumtuous? they must be so unsavvy when you really have to question if there IS insurance offered in shady neighborhoods that are known to be high risk areas for business. this is assuming that a mom and pop operation can cover such expense. this is also assuming that insurance companies are so beautiful and magnanimus that they cover 100% of everything when it's more like 60% or less and you gotta fight them every inch. not even fire and flood insurance on your own home cover 100%. what makes you think someone watching their entire life's livelihood go up in smoke and out in looter hands is something tolerable?

[Slowshooter]

I wonder if we watched the same video. I viewed an innocent older lady that was panicking, the Reporter and the Cameraman. I am sure there are dozens of other people in the range of one of those bullets that stayed home to protect themselves. To be killed by the owners of a shoe store indiscriminately shooting at people for stealing shoes would be a travesty.

The area shown in the video is between 8th and 9th street and Western Ave.(west side of the Ave.)

To the north, there was Boy's Market(supermarket), and the shoe store that was getting looted was in SE corner. IIRC it was Paylesshoes, but the reporter mentioned Ken's shoes which was another chain store, IIRC. In the beginning of the video, the looters were exiting the shoe store through rear entryway located on the west, which faces the strip mall where the Koreans with guns were. (The strip mall was located on the SW corner).

IIRC the shoes store was later torched, and when I went back 2 years ago there were bunch of Korean restaurants now. Boy's Market was long gone, and it was a Korean shopping mall of some sort. The strip mall where 2 Koreans were firing their weapon had a gunshop, but they moved to 5th and Western just before the riot, to the west of California Market(Ka-ju Market) where the famous photo of people standing on rooftop with carbines were taken.

Trinydex:
does anyone know if there's any truth to the allegations that much of lapd was "covering" beverly hills instead of "covering" the riots?

There were some accusations like that. Some 100 protestors were immediately taken care of when they tried to loot BH. But I don't recall them being LAPD or BHPD. But as explained by others, it was already difficult to go into the city without Feds backing them up.

[trinydex]

They are shooting at people to protect shoes. What if they miss and hit someone who is innocent?

I don't know... its one thing to defend your property because someone is trying to burn it down, but to shoot at people looting shoes is bizarre.

so the story is different if it's a bag of rice when everyone is hungry? or a fist full of diamonds yesterday, or a case of water when the zombies come? stuff is stuff... stealing is stealing, a riot is a riot, looters are looters, defense is defense.