The Los Angeles riots erupted after the Rodney King verdict

On April 29, 1992, a jury acquitted four Los Angeles Police Department officers of charges stemming from the videotaped beating of Rodney King, an unarmed Black motorist stopped after a freeway chase. The footage, recorded by a bystander a year earlier, had circulated nationally and seemed to many to leave little doubt about excessive force.

Within hours of the verdict, unrest spread across South Central Los Angeles and beyond. Fires, looting, and violence engulfed neighbourhoods as overwhelmed police pulled back, and the National Guard, and later federal troops, were deployed to restore order.

Six days of upheaval left more than 60 people dead and roughly $1 billion in property destroyed.

By the time the burning stopped, thousands had been arrested and thousands of buildings damaged or razed. The episode forced a national reckoning over policing, race, and inequality, and reshaped how Americans debated justice and accountability in the decades that followed.