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.