06/30/92
Notes on the riot (from someone who was there [me] ):
Those bleeding heart, socially conscious crap artists who got on TV and whined about urban plight and the anger of the L.A. riots weren’t in the same riot I was. While they were watching it from the safety of their high-fenced, double gated, guard dogged hilltop fortresses, I was careening through trashy back alleys in the Wilshire District at 50 miles per hour in my heavy metal ’76 Pontiac urban guerilla war wagon, trying to get home from work without having to kill some moron with my trusty dumpsterware gun.
The riot wasn’t about anger. It was about glee, abandonment, madness. L.A. is a repressive city. There are so many rules. So many constraints. So many hassles. $50 fine for parking here, $75 fine for parking there. $100 fine for cruising twice down the same street in a six hour period. $300 fine for driving a politically incorrect car. No public restrooms. You have to buy something before you can get a key to the restrooms, and even then you have to pass the dress code. Restroom tokens for certified customers bearing receipts ONLY! Take a number. Move along. Gimme your money and then get out of my face. Get out of here, ya bum! You’re ruining my ambiance!
When the system of rules broke down after the Rodney King/four- cops-on-a-stick verdict, there was glee in the city. And many a greed-mongering, restroom-hoarding merchant of overpriced horseshit got exactly what he/she/it deserved.
Oh, it was anger at first. When the verdict was first announced, this rackety, clackety greed machine city hushed a moment in disbelief and astonishment. The city drew in a breath . . . and held it. Then, the rage came. And when the city’s number one gang, the L.A.P.D, showed themselves for the cowardly thugs many of them really are, the rage turned to glee. L.A.P.D. has been terrorizing the people here for years. Now, the system was down and the enforcers ran away. It’s payback time.
I found it interesting to note that 90% of the people the police arrested were curfew violators and peaceful demonstrators. And this only after the riots were over and the National Guard was well established in the driveways of the enemy. Before the guard came, you couldn’t get arrested for shooting at people on national TV in a parking lot 30 feet from a patrol car full of cops watching people smash pawn shop windows. But after the Marines got here, L.A.P.D. cracked the whip on old black men trying to get milk at the grocery store.
I saw them. I saw the cops four to a car in roving packs of three car caravans. I saw their faces, their happy, boys-out-on-the-town, gonna-kick-some-ass-tonight faces (after the guard came). There was excitement in their faces after the guard arrived. I couldn’t believe it. After the glee of the mad people, there was sadness on everyone’s face — except for the police. It was like the city had gone on a wild drunk, debauched itself, and was now suffering a hangover. And then these uniformed thugs come crashing into the party after the party was all over. I was disgusted.
I had mixed feelings about this riot as I stood on the rooftop of my apartment building and watched building after building erupt in flame closer and closer to my own apartment while salivating TV helicopters swarmed overhead. I was safe on my little island in this black neighborhood, but it wasn’t safe to send my half oriental children to school because they were a target race, even before the riot. But when I saw the cop caravans full of giddy guys on a get-even machismo shopping spree, all I could think of was the line from that old Bogart movie, “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!” as it translated into the current situation; "Propable Cause? We don't need no stinkin' probable causes!""
I have since revised my anger towards the cops who started this riot, but I will never forget the bloodlust I have seen in their eyes. Don’t get me wrong about the braindead creepos the cops should have been going after. If some of them accidentally got arrested during the “crime sweeps”, great! Ship the shits off to some abandoned penal colony in Siberia and never let them back into our country. And those overweight welfare walruses in brand new clothes with jewelry and Sony Walkmans hanging off them whinning on national TV about the interruption of postal service made me want to vomit. Stop giving those pigs free food just because the dumb shits burned down their own grocery stores! Jesus! Just how stupid is America? Pretty stupid! Real stupid. More stupid than I ever, ever, ever imagined.
It was a wild party. I say let’s do it again. Only this time, let’s burn down the right part of town.
Tags: Los Angeles, Los Angeles riot, riot of '92, civil unrest, burning down the city, wilding, crime spree, marquisdejolie, glee club, madness, repressive city, Rodney King, police brutality, a crooked system, the system is down, greed machine
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