UNDERSTANDING THE RIOTS / PART 3 : WITNESS TO RAGE : MEAN STREETS : ‘The homies, they went out looting.’

Most of the time I was at home. I don’t really believe it was right tearing up our neighborhood. And now we ain’t got nowhere to go. I think the verdict was wrong. But what we did, it wasn’t right. Now we ain’t got nowhere to go shopping. You can’t get no gas in the neighborhood around Slauson and Arlington.

We were just hanging outside in our neighborhood, Arlington when we heard the verdict and everyone said it’s f---ed up. I felt like, “Damn, everybody’s seeing it on the news, seeing how they beat him. And now they say they not guilty.”

Like in our neighborhood the police stay harassing you, pulling you over, hitting you and s---. Like in my neighborhood, on Tuesday it’s crash night. If they catch you outside they’ll probably take you to jail. So on Tuesday nights you have to stay in the house. You know, don’t be hanging out or whatever.

So after the verdict, we was watching that thing on the news where the tramps was beating up on the white people and stuff. So we were watching it on the news. And all the homies, we start meeting up and riding around, going down Crenshaw and stuff, you know. Just riding around. And I went home. And the homies, they went out looting and stuff. It was stupid to me. They looted my job. Now I ain’t got no way to work.

I had a job on Crenshaw, by the Rolling Hills mall. People should have rallied. You know, went to the City Hall or stuff like that. But I don’t think they should have tore up our neighborhood the way they did.

You can’t even get no fast food around here. You know, I guess, they said, like you got to bang and get it over with. Because, I mean, you going to die. If you live by the sword, you going to die by the sword. And they been thieving all their life and this is an opportunity they ain’t going to sit back.

Two of my friends got killed lately in that watch . . . you remember that watch store in Hollywood, that watch company. That was two of my homeboys.

There ain’t nothing to do really around here. So you be hanging, playing basketball or whatever. The white man don’t understand that.

There used to be money in the dope gang, money in robbery. Everybody that’s doing robbery now they going to jail. That ain’t nobody really in the dope gang ‘cause there ain’t that many people smoking dope no more. Everybody’s just getting locked up.

My neighborhood, it needs places for the kids to go to. Places for the little ones . . . you know, your kid coming up to go to. I think.

Now we need a gang of s---. We need groceries stores, gas stations, clothing stores, shoe store. They burnt all that s--- down. Now we ain’t got nothing.