Worst Possible 1992 Los Angeles Riots?

Have people react more violently to the beating of the truck driver. Especially if he gets killed.

That would be one possible action to get a bigger, more guttural response to the riots. As for the guys in the North Hollywood shootout, having more of those guys out would cause a bigger body count, but not much more than that. To get worse riots, you need to expand the number of people involved. Roughly 30,000 people were arrested in the riots, though there were many more involved. If you can get White Los Angelinos to be as angry about it as the blakc and hispanic communities, you'd have the riot spread all the way across Los Angeles. Damage from the riots in 1992 was largely confined to an area stretching from Long Beach up the Harbor Freeway towards downtown Los Angeles. To make it worse, you have to get rioting in the Valley, Orange County and the inland areas.
 
Okay, so now we know that several possible events could make the 1992 Rodney King Riots turn more violent. To make it easier here they are on a short list:

- False, exaggerated reports via radio or television
- More violent police
- Better organization between gangs and others against police
- Worse reactions to initial video
- Larger, more influential gangs directly against the police actions
- Involvement of more neighborhoods in Los Angeles
- Natural disaster occurs during unrest (unlikely but possible)

There are probably a few more that are not listed there. What I sort of want is to make a collaborative timeline with you guys about the incident. Not unlike the "50 Years" stuff we see, but yet a little different. Instead of just putting ideas out there try and justify the events with at least a sentence or two. Hopefully all of us can make this as plausible but insane as we can. Anyone can join, but if your idea is rejected by me or others don't take it personally, this is just a game (of sorts)

Oh and bold the events that you put in yourself so that it's easier to see. Also, for the most eventful days, maybe put the approximate time next to the date.

Rodney King Riots said:
March 3, 1991 - Truck Driver Rodney King is pulled over by the California Highway Patrol and beaten by five officers with police batons. Most of this is caught on camera by a bystander.

April 29, 1992 - The jury acquitted all four officers of assault and acquitted three of the four of using excessive force. The jury could not agree on a verdict for the fourth officer charged with using excessive force. This evening the riots began.
 
- False, exaggerated reports via radio or television
- More violent police
- Better organization between gangs and others against police
- Worse reactions to initial video
- Larger, more influential gangs directly against the police actions
- Involvement of more neighborhoods in Los Angeles
- Natural disaster occurs during unrest (unlikely but possible)

1) The exaggerated reports would be a big deal in getting a major response. There are two potential avenues that can be run with - either white Los Angeles residents great really angry and the join the rights, or they get very freaked out and start defending themselves with guns, as shop owners did in Koreatown.

2) More violent police wouldn't need much. Just one case of a cop doing something really stupid, caught by the news media would be enough.

3) This wouldn't do much. The police were well-organized, and they got thousands of reinforcements from the CHP within 24 hours of the riots kicking off. Better organization among rioters would likely just cause more reinforcements, not bigger riots.

4) I don't know the reactions could get worse. You had people during the riots saying "If they ever do that to my boy, I'm a put a hit out on them." Between this and what happened to Latasha Harlins (16-year-old girl shot dead by a Korean store owner in 1991, store owner never went to jail), the black residents of Los Angeles were as angry as they could possibly get.

5) See #3. Against National Guard troops and Marines, the gangs haven't got the ability to make more problems than they did. Early on, against LAPD officers, one could have the gangs cause many more dead and injured police, but once the troops are out, this is largely irrelevant, because gangsters, as dangerous as they are, have nothing on armed troops.

6) This is the biggie. The bigger the riots, the bigger the mess is going to be. IOTL, the rioting was largely confined to an area running from Long Beach north towards downtown LA, and west of the beach - Venice, Santa Monica, Marina del Ray and several other seaside neighborhoods were largely spared, and the Valley and the eastern parts of metro LA, as well as Orange County, were quiet. Make that mess spread across that distance, and you've made one helluva huge riot.

7) LA is relatively immune from natural disasters aside from earthquakes and forest fires. One option you could have is to have screwups cause more problems - a stolen truck is hit by a freight train and causes a derailment spilling toxic chemicals or causing big explosions, for example, or a freaked-out pilot in a smaller plane is hit by an airliner going in or out of LAX causing it to crash. (That happened in an LA suburb in August 1986, when a Aeromexico DC-9 and a private Piper Cherokee collided over Torrance, CA, and both planes crashed, killing 82 people.) Have the latter happen between a heavily-loaded 747 and a business jet early in the riots and you not only add hundreds to the body count, you'd likely set at lot of areas on fire as a result, just when the LAFD is stretched to the limit trying to stop rioter-started fires.
 
Here's one way to make the riots worse:

The cops kill Rodney King (accidentially) during their beating of him. The Los Angeles DA, after seeing the videotape, goes for second-degree murder.

When they are acquitted, all hell breaks loose...

Plus, have some of the things suggested by TheMann happen.
 
I was in middle school when the riots happened. It was badass seeing a tank with National Guardsmen keeping watch to make sure none of that shit happened in my city.
 
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