[FlyVet]

What I found comical about the riots was that the majority of the looters were Hispanic. What was rather ironic was that large numbers of them were turned into the police when their neighbors (also Hispanic) saw them storing their loot in their apartments

A lot of the rioters were just using Rodney King as an excuse to loot. I remember a rather infamous Ann Landers column from back then. A white girl wrote in that she and her boyfriend were caught up in the middle of the riot, saw people looting an appliance store, got caught up in the excitement, so they joined in and grabbed themselves a TV. She asked Ann, "Do you think we did anything wrong?" Yes, Martha, there are some really, really stupid people out there. Get used to it.

[lelio]

She asked Ann, "Do you think we did anything wrong?" Yes, Martha, there are some really, really stupid people out there.

She should of written to the local liberal paper and the answer would be "If you didn't pick up one with the Energy Star label, yes"

[John Robertson]

Two things: many people forget, because it was shown so seldom or they missed it altogether, what the FULL videotape showed: an escalation in the action that led to the cops' action--refusal, resistance, fighting back...it's a whole different visual story than the 8-second clip we all saw endlessly of the mean cops wailing away on poor rodney.

A white friend of mine played for the Rams then (LA Rams, then), and one of his black teammates, seeing all the mayhem and looting--and the fact that the cops were doing nothing to stop it--hopped in his car to go pick himself up some electronics. The man who became a looter was making $900,000 a year at th time.