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25 years later | Images of the riots

A looter wheels a shopping cart full of diapers past a burning market on April 30, 2992.
(Kirk McKoy / 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.

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This March 3, 1991, image taken from video by George Holliday in Lake View Terrace shows the Rodney King beating.

Members of the jury that found four Los Angeles police officers not guilty in the Rodney King assault case file aboard a Ventura County Sheriff's Department bus outside the Simi Valley courthouse, April 29, 1992.

A tear gave witness to the reaction of the Rev. Cecil L. Murray, pastor of the 8,000 member First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, as the verdicts were announced.

Protestors after the verdict in Los Angeles.

A rioter attacks a car at Florence and Normandie avenues after the April 29, 1992, verdict.

A female motorist stumbles as she gets out of her car which was pelted with rocks at Florence and Normandie.

A young boy in the crosswalk has just thrown a rock at the photographer's car as others run around the intersection of Florence and Normandie outside Tom's Liquor and Deli. The store was later looted.

Rioters at Florence and Normandie.
(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Rioters at Florence and Normandie.

Police officer uses his baton on a protester at the corner of First Street and Broadway.

An LAPD car is set on fire and overturned by a roving crowd which was originally pretesting outside Parker Center.

A protestor outside Parker Center in Los Angeles.

The skeleton of a burned car sits at the intersection of Florence and Normandie.

Midtown showing plumes of smoke from the numerous building fires in the city on April 30, 1992.

Fires rage on both sides of Western Avenue along Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood on April 30, 1992.

Looting went on openly as rioting widened in Los Angeles on April 30, 1992. Two men carry booty from an electronics store at Broadway and 47th Street.

Western Beauty Supply was just one of many businesses looted in the area of Venice Boulevard and Western Avenue.

An LAPD officer falls while chasing a suspected looter on Vermont near Martin Luther King Boulevard on April 30, 1992. The man was caught and subdued soon after.

Los Angeles County sheriffs deputies keep watch on a group of people arrested after a store on Martin Luther King Boulevard was looted on April 30, 1992.

Korean store owners defend their property as gunfire breaks out in Koreatown
(Hyungwon Kang / Los Angeles Times)

Korean storeo owners defend their property as gunfire breaks out in Koreatown at Western Avenue and 5th Street on April 30, 1992.

National Guard troops patrol near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Vermont Avenue as a mini mart burns May 1, 1992.

LAPD beating victim Rodney King meets the press outside his lawyer's office in Beverly Hills to call for an end to the violence.

LAPD officers act as crossing guards at 50th Place and Vermont Avenue on May 4, 1992 for a student on his way to Audubon Junior High School, one of the campuses closed by the violence.
(Ken Lubas / Los Angeles Times)

LAPD officers act as crossing guards at 50th Place and Vermont Avenue on May 4, 1992 for a student on his way to Audubon Junior High School, one of the campuses closed by the violence.

At Vermont Avenue and 27th Street, Tom Sedry and Arturo Pallacios were among those helping to clean up a building in which space had been shared by a discount store and the Exposition Park Church of the Nazarene. Many were members of the congregation, but many others simply wanted to help

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