1992 LA Riots: Worse Case Scenario

Not to pop any bubbles, but as a St. Louisan, I've gotta interject that there's not a lot of racial tension here. Or in East St. Louis, either. There might be a small flare-up if the rest of the nation is tense, but the "St. Louis is destroyed" of xdavex's scenario is a pretty massive exaggeration. Not ASB territory, but just highly, highly unlikely.

The majority of violent crime here (and across the river) is black-on-black, and the whites stay out of black neighborhoods...as do more affluent blacks.

May I suggest, as a likely alternative, Bronzeville & Cabrini-Green, two infamous (and massive) housing projects in Chicago? Together they represented one of the biggest powderkegs in the U.S. for potential race riots.
 
May I suggest, as a likely alternative, Bronzeville & Cabrini-Green, two infamous (and massive) housing projects in Chicago? Together they represented one of the biggest powderkegs in the U.S. for potential race riots.

Cabrini Green also played a role in the FH comic "Give me liberty".
 
-Day 5: NATO and some UN countries offer to assist as property damage now estimated to top $800 billion. Regular Army units brought in to secure food/water in most severely affected areas as NG secure city blocks in some cities one by one or even house-to-house in many cases. Some NG camps overrun by people who think they are treated unfairly because of skin/socioeconomic status. LA is locked down, with Marines making houshold food deliveries, and any non Marines found outside are arrested. Miami is declared all clear at 12:00 AM, after a huge shootout ending in 238 Army deaths and 394 rioter deaths.
LA Deaths: 2
Miami Deaths: 632

Fascinating TL but I don't think a bunch of gang members along with looters could kill that many well-armed professional Army soldiers. I mean it's not like they are as well-armed as the insurgents in Iraq-the best they have are handguns and maybe a few assault rifles.
 
A Suggested Correction.

Actually there were no militias in 1992. There were white supremacist groups, but the Militia Movement, the Special Forces Underground, et al., were a response to the massacre of the Branch Davidians outside of Waco, Texas in 1993. And the militia groups I was in contact with when they were active basically saw the white supremacists as as a bunch of reprehensible trash to be avoided. Tim McVeigh was actually thrown out of a Michigan Militia meeting. And the Special Forces Underground, the fellows who published THE RESISTER, went as far as to refer to the Klan, the Neo-Nazis, etc., as targets.
 
A Timeline of events:

April 29, 1992

3:15 PM - Four white LAPD officers are acquitted in Simi Valley, California, in the beating of motorist Rodney King, setting off a vast chain reaction in Los Angeles.

4:00 PM - The crowd outside the Simi Valley Courthouse in Ventura County swells to over 1000, all of them enraged. A small number of counter protesters begin to arrive - fights brew between them.

4:00 to 5:30 PM - Community leaders urge calm, but already know that they are fighting a losing battle.

5:20 PM - Two dozen LAPD officers confront a growing mob at the corner of Florence and Normandie in South Central Los Angeles, but the mob, which numbers more than 400, is very hostile. A cop is hit in the head with an aluminum baseball bat by a rioter - the rioter is promptly shot dead by police. That man, Rick Harrias, is the first death of the riots.

6:00 PM - Badly outnumbered and with the extremely hostile crowd having grown to over 3,000, police evacuate the corner. Local cars are stopped, and a bunch of the drivers in them are badly beaten. Three of these people late die of their injuries. Several good samaritans stop further beatings. A news helicopter looks on at the scene until fired upon by a rioter.

6:10 PM - LAPD Chief Darryl Gates orders all officers to report for duty and requests assistance. His call is echoed by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.

6:15 PM - Police begin arriving at a command post at 54th Street and Arlington Avenue.

6:30 PM - Looting at rioting begin in earnest across South Central, Inglewood, Watts and Compton as people stream out of their houses into the streets.

7:00 PM - The First fire calls are received by the LAFD. They respond to a grocery store fire on Vermont Avenue, where a gangbanger opens fire on fireman with a submachine gun. Five firefighters are hit, one fatally. After a similar incident off Western Avenue, LAFD stop responding to calls without police escorts. he fire calls become too numerous for the LAFD to handle.

8:00 PM - The Los Angeles Unified School District closes all schools in the South Central Area.

8:05 PM - Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley calls a state of emergency. Shortly thereafter, California Governor Pete Wilson activates the California National Guard to respond to the Riots.

8:15 PM - A massive shootout between LAPD and CHP officers breaks out at the Nickerson Gardens housing project. The shootout grows to include more than 200 officers and 75 gangbangers. Eleven gangbangers, three cops and four civilians are killed in the fight, which also results in more than 150 injuries.

8:22 PM - In an infamous incident, a crowd of local residents get into a fight at a police roadblock. An arrested rioter fights with police. This handcuffed female rioter is thrown to the ground and promptly shot in the head by an LAPD officer - unbeknownst to him, a news cameraman caught that live. It's on local TV stations before 9:00 PM.

8:35 PM - An AK-47 wielding gunman and two buddies get into a fight with a group of Korean store owners in Koreatown. All three gunmen are shot dead by the store owners, but two store owners are killed and eight woundered in the mess.

8:52 PM - A black subway motorman in East LA is shot in the head after an argument with a Hispanic rider. The act is caught by on video by a Canadian tourist who was filming his trip to LA.

9:00 PM - Bus service to effected areas is shut down at Bradley's request.

9:05 PM - The CHP closes the Harbor Freeway (I-110) south of the 101 Freeway, and closes many off-ramps into the area.

9:20 PM - The demonstrations at Parker Center and in Beverly Hills turn violent. At Parker Center, a Molotov Cocktail hits a police officer in the face, horribly burning him across more than 60% of his body - he dies two weeks later. Cars are torched in the area.

9:34 PM - A firebomb rips through a store on Rodeo Drive, killing two shopkeepers and seriously injuring 16 others.

10:30 PM - The LAPD abandons most of South Central, except for their command center, which overloaded with calls. Even with CHP reinformcements, and soon after reinforcements flown from Yuma, Arizona, they cannot hope to hang on to the mess.

11:15 PM - Groups of local shopkeepers arm themselves with heavy artillery at local gun stores and go and defend their properties.

Toll so far:

Deaths: 46 (9 police)
Injuires: 400+
Gunshot Wounds: 250+
Fire Calls: 1,200+

April 30, 1992

1:00 AM - A curfew is set up in the areas effected by the riots. At 4:00 AM, Bradley extends it to the entire city. the LAPD realizes, however that they cannot control the effected areas without state and federal help.

Midnight to 4:00 AM
- 60 fire calls an hour come in to the LAFD, which is far more than they can handle. They are forced to pick and choose which fires they can get escorts to. Much of South Central is burning to the ground uncontrollably.

4:00 AM - people start waking up to the news about the gruesome killing Los Angeles, and riots begin firing off in Harlem in New York as well as in Miami, Philadelphia, Norfolk, St. Petersburg, Cleveland, Detroit and Raleigh. Police, however, very quickly respond to reports of rioting. In most of these, however, the response isn't fast enough.

5:20 AM - A mob from Inglewood rolls up La Cienega, ransacking everything they can. One group sets fire to a pair of oil wells at Baldwin Hills Oil Field. The mob reaches all the way to Beverly Hills, Hollywood and Bel Air.

6:00 AM - 5,000 National Guard troops are in place at local armories, and orders are coming down the pike. But the riots have spread in numbers across the city from Long Beach to the Hills, and sporadic violence in the Valley.

6:15 AM - Four NYPD cops are killed when a stolen 18-wheeler plows into their responding police SUV. A following cop gives chase, and the chase ends when the truck T-Bones a New York Bus on 116th Street, killing 15 transit riders and injuring 27. Both suspects climb out and are promptly shot dead by NYPD officers.

7:00 AM - Chicago's infamous Bronzeville and Cabrini-Green Housing projects are soon the scenes of massive protests. Illinois Governor Jim Edgar and his Illinois counterpart Evan Bayh doesn't waste any time and call up their National Guards. This doesn't stop rioting from breaking out in Indianapolis and Chicago, however.

9:00 AM - Riots break out in East St. Louis and Houston. Again, police repsonse is swift but as enraged protesters roll out onto the streets, the police find it anywhere from hard to impossible to keep order.

11:00 AM - Rioters in Las Vegas throw a firebomb through the window of a police station, killing two cops and injuring 23. The suspects get a mere two miles before their car is run off the road by Nevada State Police troopers.

11:14 AM - A News chopper from a LA TV station is hit by sniper fire and crashes into a neighborhood in Compton, killing all four on board and two people on the ground.

11:30 AM - After knowledge of the chopper downing hits LA, the FAA only allows takeoffs and landings into LAX from over the Ocean. Navy Frigate USS Vandegrift, acting on its own accord, sails to the area beneath the LAX approaches to ensure the safety of aircraft.

12:26 PM - In one of the ugliest incidents of the Riots, an insane white supremacist, James Von Brunn, breaks into a school in Overtown in Miami and shoots at everything he can with a pair of automatic pistols. Police rapidly respond and von Brunn is shot dead at 1:10 PM. But his rampage claims the lives of thirteen children and one teacher.

1:00 PM - The National Guard is activated in Florida, New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan and Washington. President Bush, after pleading by Governors Wilson of California and Cuomo of New York, orders several units of the Army to alert, including the 82nd Airborne.

1:45 PM - Two Chicago police officers are brutally beaten to death while their views are caught on camera by a CNN news chopper, which is promptly sprayed with gunfire. The battle goes out live, causing nations around the world to start considering travel advisories.

2:00 PM - Frightened Los Angeles residents flee the city, most headed for the San Fernando Valley. Others go towards San Bernardino and Orange County. Looting continues almost uncontrolled. Police and National Guard are getting more and more anxious, which results by the end of the day in four accidental shootings by the California National Guard.

2:21 PM - A prayer service at the Crenshaw Christian Center is hit by a bomb, which kills 25 and injures more than 700.

4:00 PM - President Bush addresses the Nation, calling for the massive violence to cease, and saying that he will take a very hard line with the rioters. Switching tones, he then says that he has instructed the Justice Department to re-open the Rodney King case.

5:00 PM - Several Governors Make statements calling for calm, and saying that they will promise enough law enforcement to stop the rioting. Governor Edgar makes a bad comment when he says he will "crush the protesters".

5:22 PM - A group of Canadian tourists in New York are beaten by a crowd of over 120 rioters. Two 14-year-old twin girls are kidnapped form the group. They are found the next day, both of them having been raped and murdered.

5:56 PM - Rodney King holds a press conference in downtown Los Angeles, using his infamous line "Can't we all just get along?"

7:30 PM - Canada orders its civilians out of the effected cities, including New York and Los Angeles, as the news of the tourists attacked in New York reaches Ottawa.

8:42 PM - A KLM Flight 1522, a passenger flight out of Los Angeles to Amsterdam, flying a brand-new Boeing 747-400, collides with a civilian Beechcraft Super King Air over Jefferson Park and crashes just South of the City Center on the 101 Freeway, killing all 424 people on the 747, all eight aboard the King Air and 36 on the ground in the worst aviation disaster in US history.

9:00 PM - In repsonse to the disaster, LAX shuts down completely. Inbound Air Traffic quickly diverts to other civilian airports, as well as Camp Pendleton and Naval Air Station El Toro.

All Day - All over the country, people leave the rioting cities, and those who can't stock up on food, gasoline and supplies. Government offices are closed in all the rioting cities, and police have resorted to barricading many places. Many banks hire armed guards. Dozens of sporting events are cancelled as the riots spread. The NBA calls a halt to its playoffs, as does the NHL.

In LA, Korean shop owners organize militias to protect their businesses. Battles with Black and Hispanic gangbangers make this a highly dangerous business. In LA, mob rule is exploding as outnumbered, overworked and frustrated police, state troops and California NG both start cracking and getting more troubled. Dozens of hospitals have to turn away patients because they have not got the staff or room to cope. The situation has gotten incredibly desperate in LA, and is getting ugly in New York, Chicago, Miami, St. Petersburg, St. Louis, Detroit and Cleveland.

Toll So Far:

Los Angeles Deaths: 716 (41 police, 4 National Guard, including deaths in Flight 1522 disaster)
New York Deaths: 55
Miami Deaths: 67
Chicago Deaths: 24
St. Petersburg Deaths: 30
Deaths in other cities: 71

Police Fatalities (total): 58
Foreign National Fatalities (total): 347 (counting Flight 1522 crash)

Damage: $25 Billion+

OOC: More to come.
 
Yikes. That's not pleasant.

What about Atlanta? There was some knock-on violence there in OTL, although I don't think it was severe.

Given how bad the riots are getting, I wonder when the gloves will come off and we get the 20th Century equivalent of "a whiff of grapeshot."
 
What about a Kent-State like massacre? Where Nationalguardsmen shoot some protesters?

I wondered why they didn't do that in OTL. Surely shoot-on-sight orders against rioters would probably have crushed it brutally in a day or so. Instead a whole bunch of Korean-Americans had to fend for themselves alone and lost millions in damages. Thanks a lot Bush Sr., Pete Wilson, Chief Darryl Gates, etc. :mad:
 
My Prediction:

IC: Perot wins in '92, he proves to be grossly unequal to the task of bringing the couuntry together. So in '96 Jake Featherston, Jr. comes out of nowhere (actually, Virginia) at the head of the brand-new Freedom Party. He sweeps to victory by a landslide by promising whites that he will "tell what's what to the blacks and hispanics." Result: with Freedom Party majorities and Reform Party minorities in Congress -- Dems and Repubs become the parties of racial minorities *only* -- apartheid more strict than Jim Crow takes root in the entire US of A.:eek:

OOC: I an NOT having this Featherston become another Hitler!:mad:
 
Burning cities, heavily armed street gangs and racial militias duking it out, criminals using the chaos as a chance to go looting and settle old scores, and several tens of thousands of people killed in a nation-wide orgy of violence before Bush declares martial law and the military restores order. Race relations will be very bad for a long time.
 

CalBear

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Uh...

Hate to mess up the party, but you HAD the worst case. The violence wasn't going to get any worse. The UNITED STATES MARINES, active duty forces, mind you, were brought in and replaced the LAPD in the intersections where the unrest was occurring. Things calmed down damned quick once the Humvees and SAWs came out. Game over.

The violence, as has been pointed out, was limited to a few blocks in South Central L.A. The media covered it like it was Normandy and gave it a life of its own. The media tends to do that (see Loma Prieta & Northridge earthquakes, Hurricane Katrina for examples).

The Crips & Bloods had NO interest in strapping on "The Proud", or even the LAPD in a stand-up fight. Unlike some poster here, the gangs understand firepower and what side it fell down on. The gangs were involved in the rioting in any case, it was bad for business. Can't sell drugs when people are afraid to drive down the street.
 
Maybe...but some might be crazy enough to try, even in OTL...and once the first Guardsman/Soldier/Marine dies...

Even in OTL as the Guard departed, gang members were chanting gang songs to the departing guardsmen...
 
Okay...

The riots were a reaction to an event. Said reaction was not an organized move but a riot. Picture a bar brawl, its dirty, violent, and chaos. Now take that bar brawl and have one guy stand up and shout "Let's go take over city hall!" Some guys may go, but when you organize, you calm down. When you are calm you go "this is stupid."

The 92 riots where mostly blacks robbing stores in their own areas, or hispanic regions. Sure some white guys got pulled from cars and beaten but on the whole the gang bangers cracked some skulls, robbed a store, and then went home. The wall of cops kept the people rioting contained. If someone or some gang tried to expand it the instant upper middle class white people started getting hurt... dear god would they be sorry.

Got to remeber at its core every single community has a racist, "us and them" undertone. White people have the nice houses, and they have ready access to cops.
 
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