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Our helicopter whirled in a tight circle over Florence and Normandie in South Central Los Angeles. Pilot Mike Smith kept the ship at an almost constant bank. I was in the left seat next to the pilot and had a clear view of the rampaging clutter on the street below. Cameraman Martin Cancer, strapped in a shoulder harness, was hanging out of the helicopter. He had opened the left side door, placed his mini-cam on his shoulder and was recording the helter-skelter action. This was the early evening of April 29, 1992.
The Los Angeles Riots were erupting below us. We had begun to get reports of scattered violence shortly after we had watched on television the barbaric video tape of motorists being ripped out of their cars, hammered, pounded and chased by rock-throwing men on the ground. The image of a man, later identified as Reginald Denny, being pulled from his truck by thugs, still burned in my mind. My memory was seared by the vivid imprint of the motionless, beaten man lying on the ground, being kicked and brutalized. I was still filled with rage at the sight of one of the assailants picking up a large piece of cinder-block and throwing it at his apparently lifeless body, smashing him in the head.
Then, after the savage beating, the attacker appeared to do a dance, raise his hands towards the helicopter overhead and flashed a gang sign. Then, to my utter disbelief, another person on the street reached into the pocket of the fallen driver and stole his wallet. This was my television memory; now I was seeing first hand what was really happening. I peered through my side-window as the copter continued to circle in a steep bank. I could see that traffic was moving through the intersection below us.
I watched as various cars whipped in a U-turn around to avoid the ominous chaos ahead. There were clusters of people milling around. They were throwing rocks and bottles at the passing cars. There were no police officers around, just an unruly mob venting hate on innocent motorists who happened to find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Other figures on the street were darting in and out of a liquor store at the corner, taking what they wanted. The looting, the beating and the hysteria was going on right below me.
My mind went back 27 years to when I covered the Watts riots in 1965. I tried to draw up similarities that might help my reports on what was going on below. I remember telling myself that the big difference was that in Watts, they had fires. It wasnt long after, that I noticed white smoke beginning to build in the street at the corner. A single overturned car had just been torched and it was beginning to smoke and burn. Within moments, I could see more smoke pouring out of the front windows of the liquor store where looters were still running wild.
It was a light smoke, wispy and barely visible from 700 feet above. As we circled, Martin, peering into the viewfinder of his Sony camera, shouted over the radio communications system, I think that liquor store is on fire. Our pilot nodded and refocused the flight circle to the smoking corner building below. Things began to develop in a chaotic and rapid manner. An appliance store just east of Normandie, a short distance from the liquor store, showed the tell-tale light, white smoke.
It wasnt long before that first liquor store had large flames shooting out the doors and windows. The overturned car continued to burn. The appliance store seethed with heavy white smoke that slowly turned to rolling black clouds fed by billowing flames eating their way through the collapsing roof. My thoughts flashed back to 1965. I remember being in the newsroom watching pilot-reporter Larry Scheer in the KTLA Telecopter broadcasting the first fire pictures from Watts. My reaction tonight was the same that this was more than a quarter of a century ago, I cant believe that this is happening, but I am afraid it is going to get worse.
The light of dusk was now completely gone, the sky was black and the lights of South Central Los Angeles sparkled below. By this time, the station had pre-empted all programs and was in full riot coverage. Hal Fishman, Larry McCormick and Jann Carl were at the anchor desks, Ron Olson was in the middle of the rioting crowd outside police headquarters at Parker Center, Steve Lentz and Marta Waller were covering other parts of the city as the riots seemed to spread. The fires were breaking out over a widespread area below our helicopter. The dark plumes of smoke were ominously spreading to different spots of the city. New fires exploded on Manchester, Vermont, Figueroa, Martin Luther King Jr. , Crenshaw, Jefferson, Rodeo and Century Blvd.
Our pilot broke off from our tight flying circle as new flare-ups were spotted. He pulled the stick in one direction and cut a diagonal path across the sky to the next erupting blaze. Each one was a startling surprise. The numbers of separate fires grew from five or six to a dozen, to two dozen. They were now breaking out over a wide part of the city.
This was not Watts of 1965 where the fires were started in a relatively small geographical district. These conflagrations were not limited to Watts and South Central Los Angeles. Roaring, billowing, intense flames were burning in all directions. The targets were varied, but very much the same. Supermarkets, Thirty Drug Stores, Chief Auto Parts, Liquor Stores, Swap Meets, Korean businesses, restaurants and mini-malls miles apart ignited under the arsonists torch. Often, our copter would arrive when a fire was just starting.
We watched countless buildings where the light wisps of smoke were smoldering, where they turned to a heavier smoke, then went gray, then black, then erupted into consuming flames of intense orange. It didnt take long. One building would have flames rolling through the roof, then the fire would spread to a structure next door. Many-mini malls were completely wiped out when fire exploded in one of the stores, then raced through the common attic that other adjacent businesses shared. Firemen could not respond to many of these early fires because snipers were shooting at them. Later police escorts went in with the fire fighters to protect them from the snipers.
KTLA remained on the air for hours. At one point our helicopter had to leave the riot zone, race back to the airport, make a fuel stop, then head back to continue our reporting. Countless times during the night, I kept repeating to myself, I cant believe that this is happening. I have lived all of my life in Los Angeles. I know it well. So many places I grew up with, were burning.
It was heart rending to be over my city as these buildings were melted down into charred ashes. So many new buildings had been built in the last few years, a hopeful sign that, at last, something was happening; a new shopping center here, a new mini mall there, an old building rehabilitated across the street with a new business opening up inside. All the progress since the fires of Watts lost in the heat of this night. I kept remembering the stories we did in Watts after the 1965 riots. I vividly recall the twisted, shattered buildings that had burned to the ground. One by one, clean up crews had come in, leveled the structures, hauled away the debris, leaving nothing but vacant, weed-filled lots.
Those lots had remained vacant for years after the tragedy of Watts, a wounded community with no places of business, just block after block of vacant lots. It was so sad, I felt so sad. Here, tonight, each one of these fires was burning up, not only the buildings, but the jobs and futures...
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Research essay sample on Central Los Angeles South Central Los
