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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Action & Adventure
- Subject: Action
- Published: 02/23/2022
Jim Experiences the Hollywood Riots
Born 1959, M, from Grizzly Flats/CA, United States.jpeg)
Jim experiences the Hollywood riots
It was a beautiful sunny California day. Wednesday April 29, 1992. Jim had the day off and was walking home after just seeing a movie at the Mann Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
As he was walking by all the shops, restaurants, homeless kids, tourists and drug dealers, Jim glanced over and saw the front page of the newspaper, inside the vending machine. It stated that the three police officers in the Rodney King beating case had been found not guilty. Jim didn’t think much of it at the time except, REALLY? and proceeded to his apartment on Yucca Street.
Jim got home and fired up a fatty. After getting good and stoned, he turned on the TV and was watching some of the stupid shows that get on air. Suddenly, the program was cut off and all the channels were suddenly inundated by the rioting that had started in South Central Los Angeles, due to the Rodney King not guilty verdict. Jim was not really amazed or surprised because, he had seen quite a lot of weird, violent and strange things happen while living in Los Angeles and south central was not known for it’s peace and love.
The newscasters were showing (mostly African Americans and Mexicans) smashing windows to stores and running down the street with televisions on their shoulders. Stereos, clothes and anything else they could carry. The Asian store owners had gotten on the rooftops of their buildings with rifles and were shooting the African Americans looting their stores. Jim found this alarming but, hell, that’s south central L.A. for you.
The news went on and on and the riots started to move like a huge storm as it grew bigger and bigger. It was noted the residents of Beverly Hills had already barricaded their streets just in case the rioters decided that, 'hmm.. maybe Beverly Hills would be a good place to riot and loot.' It seemed very fitting. A bunch of rich old a-holes with tires, old refrigerators, old cars, trash cans, whatever they could get their hands on, barricading the roads into their sacred Beverly Hills. Defending their ill-gotten wealth.
Jim had never liked Beverly Hills and could never understand why anybody rich would ever want to live in such a dump. It is a hideous place. Gaudy homes with really no hills and worse homes in the flats. If you’re rich, there are much nicer places to live in. Malibu, the Hollywood hills, or Jim’s favorite, Pacific Palisades.
Fascinated, Jim kept watching the television reporters as they kept reporting, and the riots kept growing. By this time it had gotten pretty out-of-control. The L.A.P.D were running for cover. Overwhelmed, unprepared and outnumbered. While Daryl Gates put the finishing touches on his career by promptly attending a fundraiser.
It was kind of weird to see the Asian shop owners on their roofs shooting rifles at all the black people. This all being televised live. Then, the news said something that perked his ears up, “the rioters seem to be heading towards Hollywood Boulevard, destroying and looting as they go. The police are unable to stop them.”
Since Jim lived only one block away from Hollywood Boulevard he immediately got up off of his couch and said to himself “I've got to see this.” He thought of taking a camera but, didn’t want to take a chance. Evidence, you know. Jim didn’t want to get beaten senseless and then get his camera stolen.
Jim imagined himself dying in the street. “Better leave it.” He thought.
He ran out of his apartment and raced down the stairs. He went out the side door and started walking briskly towards Hollywood Boulevard. It was around 6:00 PM. It didn’t get dark until around 8;00 PM.
When Jim arrived on the boulevard, the last of the shop owners were closing up their accordion gates, getting ready to leave, looking very scared. Fleeing from the coming storm.
The last ones were fumbling with their locks, looking around, paranoid at the on coming storm. Then, they disappeared.
Hollywood blvd seemed like a ghost town. All that was needed were some tumbleweeds blowing down the street.
Everything was extremely quiet. This was really unusual because LA is a city of constant noise.
As Jim look down towards Cahuenga Boulevard in the distance he saw this tiny mass of people moving towards him. It seemed surreal to him. He heard them yelling in the distance as the mass got bigger and bigger and bigger. Like a herd of well, crazed people. It started with only a few sprinting past, like a swarm of bees, until, the entire length of Hollywood Boulevard was completely filled with hundreds of people destroying and looting as far as Jim could see. Jim leaned against a lamp post and watched the insanity unfold.
Growing up in San Diego Jim had never seen anything quite like it. He had never seen hundreds of people unified in their concentrated effort to loot and steal. He had never seen such a unification of American citizens in any way. It’s a shame that it was a unification to destroy and loot anything they could get their hands on, and not to peacefully protest in the streets. It shut down Los Angeles. They were coming together but, not in the way John Lennon would have wanted them to. Also, the thing that stood out in his mind was the look in their eyes. That crazed insanity like Hannibal Lecter when he gets loose in “Silence of the Lambs”.
Jim would see one or two people start to pull at an accordion gate and like flies drawn to shit, others would join in until, heaving and hoeing like slaves on a ship rowing, those accordion gates finally gave way. Then the crazed lunatics would make their way into the stores.
Jim watched the people, grateful for the lamp post protecting him from the onset of the storm, Like a lost ship at sea. Almost all of the rioters were white and Mexican now. The black people had all disappeared. As the rioters flew by him, they had this crazy insane look in their eyes. A wild look saying, hey, everything on Hollywood Boulevard is for free!!!
In all his life, Jim had never seen this breakdown in society and as if the stealing wasn’t bad enough, some idiots, after they would burglarize the stores, set them on fire. People ran by him carrying all they could. Huge piles of leather jackets, between their arms. Lingerie from Frederick’s of Hollywood, jeans, stereos, televisions, musical instruments, anything they could carry. Running, running away with their loot, with big smiles on their faces.
Then, the news copters came in. They were in the sky for about maybe 10 to 15 minutes, and then they vanished as the police helicopters showed up. But the people ignored them and kept right on looting and burning, while Jim watched the scene, like a Hollywood movie, unfold.
Suddenly, down the street, this line of armored vehicles were moving in from Cahuenga Boulevard on one side, and Highland Avenue on the other. The National Guard had arrived. They were closing in slowly and announcing, “Please disperse. There is a curfew in effect. Anyone found outside will be arrested. Return to your homes.” Jim kept watching as they got closer and closer.
He could see the line of armored vehicles moving closer and the helmeted soldiers with their machine guns. He wondered, “where in the hell did they come from? When the people saw them moving towards them, they started disappearing like rats trying to get off a sinking ship. Or, cockroaches when you shine a light on them. Except, the cockroaches were running away with as much loot as they could carry. They scurried off in all directions. Arms filled with merchandise.
Jim turned around and Thought, “Time to go!” then started to walk back to his apartment. He watched as the people disappeared into the different apartment buildings that were all around and behind Hollywood Boulevard. As he got closer to his apartment, the wanna be cop/manager was standing out on his balcony screaming at people. “I know you! I know where you live!!” Jim thought to himself, “what an ass hole. Who does he think he is?” The Manager/cop wannabe was a real piece of work. Jim couldn’t really judge the people doing the stealing, because he thought “I’m not a judge.” But didn’t like the manager at all.
But, he did wonder why they were doing it. What motivated them to do such a thing? Why was he the only one watching it being done, besides the National Guard and the news people. Jim wondered why he wasn’t inclined to join in and, why so many others like him did not riot. Did not steal. Did not join in the carnage.
After Jim got back to his apartment he thought to himself, “holy shit. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. What a trip!”
Well, in about a half hour it was dark and it had gotten pretty bad. The smoke was just careening into his apartment building. He could barely breathe. So, he decided to get in his car and visit his family in San Diego. Seemed like a good time to get away for awhile.
He went down into the garage, got in his car and took off. The streets were empty. Jim just barely made it out before they shut the roads and freeways down. Jim drove the 90 minute drive to his sisters house.
He stayed in San Diego for a week until the smoke left and the fire department and private citizens cleaned up the mess. Accordion gates were easy to break through. After they rebuilt the blvd. which took years, the owners replaced them with steel slide down gates. When they lifted the curfew, he returned to Hollywood.
For months after, people were selling clothes everywhere on the street. These two black guys came up to Jim one day and said “ hey man you want to buy some shirts?” Jim replied, “those aren’t from the riots are they?” They said, ”hell no man, we’re just a couple of guys trying to make an honest living.” In all honesty, Jim did buy two shirts knowing that they were probably from the riots but, it left a bad taste in his mouth. Especially when he heard how much the store owners had lost, so, he declined all other offers.
All in all as many as 2,383 people were reported injured. Estimates of the material losses vary between about $800 million and $1 billion. That was way bigger than the watts riots of 1965. It was an incredibly sad experience that Jim, the police, fire department and many others will never forget.
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