From personal knowledge, the watts riots were started by a protection gang,.
The buildings were premarked for those that paid and not to be burned and vandalized and those that wouldn't pay that were to be burned and vandalized (files and records destroyed).
After they were started it got out of hand and the black gangs started hitting all the businesses.
One building I rebuilt wasn't supposed to be hit and the owner was screaming his head off, “I paid, I paid I wasn't supposed to be harmed.
He showed me on the wall of the alley where his building was marked to be not hit and 2 other ones on the same block that had been marked and destroyed,.
Thanks for sharing the personal experience. I vaguely recall coming across a Congressional or California Congressional investigation into the roots of the Watts riots that had some information identifying some of the forces behind it. I’d need to refresh my memory on the details but off the top of my head, I came across it while researching the history of the Los Angeles CP and what became the nucleus of the LA branch of the BPP there a few years later.