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Los Angeles riots remembered

The Sorbornne Market at 4600 S. Vermont Ave. on the night of April 29, 1992, the day the riots erupted.

The Sorbornne Market at 4600 S. Vermont Ave. on the night of April 29, 1992, the day the riots erupted.  (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

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On April 29, 1992, a jury in Ventura County acquitted four LAPD officers of beating Rodney G. King. The beating, caught on amateur videotape, sparked a national debate about police brutality and racial injustice. After the verdict, angry crowds gathered on street corners across Los Angeles. The intersection of Florence and Normandie in South L.A. became the flash point, but it was a scene eerily repeated in many parts of the city in the hours that followed.

Prayer

Sandra Evers-Manley, president of Beverly Hills-Hollywood chapter of NAACP, appears to be praying as building burns the first night of the riots.   (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

Second day

A passerby gets a glimpse of the burned-out and vandalized shell of the J.J. Newberry store on the morning of April 30, the day after the L.A. riots, at the corner of Vermont near 59th Street.  (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

Florence and Normandie scene

Rioters at the corner of Florence and Normandie on the first day of civil unrest.  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Sign

A shopping mall at the intersection of La Brea and Pico is engulfed in flames.  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

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