Tag Archives: 1992 LA Riots

Remembering the 1992 Los Angeles Riots

photo by waltarrrr

April 29 — the day the 1992 Los Angeles Riots began, and what I remember, or what I think I remember. I discovered earlier today that April 29 is also the birthday of the late film director Fred Zinnemann, who made the film “Julia” in 1977.

That film, one of my favorites (which starred Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards and Maximilian Schell), is based on a short story called “Pentimento” by playwright Lillian Hellman. The word pentimento means “an alteration in a painting, evidenced by traces of previous work, showing that the artist has changed his mind as to the composition during the process of painting.”

In that movie it refers to the unreliability of memory. Those Rodney King riots happened now 20 years ago, but I’d like to think that what I remember about that time is accurate.

I was on vacation in Hawaii the morning of the 29th, not happy that I had to return to L.A. that afternoon. Specifically, I was in Kihei, Maui. My best friend and sometimes partner Jeff King had been killed in a car accident the month before, and this was my first time getting away from all that in a real, physical sense.

I had to go to work the next morning and this was a flight that would get to Los Angeles late, around 11 p.m. As we stood in line waiting to board (this was very pre-9/11, way before TSA) I heard somebody say something like “they let those cops off. They’re already rioting in L.A.”

I took this as misinformed bravado. There were many younger people on this plane; perhaps it was still spring break in places, I don’t know. I mean, how could any jury let the cops off, we had all seen the videotape. It was just unthinkable.

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I did notice a quite messy but still quite attractive straight couple in the line. Both extremely blond and tan and I thought to myself, those two are high. Hanging on to each other for dear life, obviously very much in love or lust, the type you might tell to please get a room.

Get a room they did. In fact, they barricaded themselves in one of the two toilets reserved for the hoi polloi. It may have been the case that there were only two bathrooms on the entire plane, and they were using one for their mile-high club activities. Don’t forget that 1992 was long before the internet or common cell phone usage. I don’t recall getting any other L.A. Riot information on the flight back; the attendants were incensed at this couple and trying to break into this bathroom for what seemed like hours.

The couple never did come out, to my knowledge. Continue reading

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