Los Angeles Riot 20 Years Later

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As do mine.

Watching the Denney beating on television, crying at the horrendous-ness of it.
Driving down to get a friend out from Culver City, just after the Denney beating.
Speeding at close to 100 MPH through Los Angeles freeways near curfew, and the freeways being very close to empty. Several times CHP passed me on the freeway on the way.
Watching palm trees on fire lighting up the night.
Placing a matress in front of the picture window so if anything was thrown in, the flying gas would be contained.

Yes, I remember it. I was in a bad part of town during it, and was, for the very first time in my life, scared because of my skin color. The ONLY other time that ever happened was when I was in Mississippi hanging with an African American friend of mine in a small town.

Yes, I remember.

I remember going to the airport several days later, to travel to Seattle to see my mom. Driving by burnt out homes; graffiti; crime scene tape. Driving past smoldering homes.

Yes, I remember.

I can't forget.

Best-
Herding Cats
 
I remember it well also. We were living in a duplex in Venice Beach and I had a 3 week old baby and a 4 yr old son. My husband was in London on business at the time. I was house sitting so I knew none of the neighbors at all. I was pretty much being held hostage in the duplex, too afraid to go outside. There were fires on the block, and screams and lots of gunfire. My son was really afraid and cried a lot because of the sirens and the screaming and the gunfire right outside. People were throwing things at our front porch, which would crash and make a sound like breaking glass---then I would be afraid the windows were broken. But they were not, it was just people throwing bottles and ceramic planters at the front walls.

I had friends who offered to help but they were stuck much like I was. One friends husband came and brought us milk and bread and checked on us.

On the third day my husband came home and picked us up and we went to a friends house in Ventura County. I slept 14 hours when we arrived there.

My husband ended up flying home early but he lost his job for doing so. It was a terrible time for us.
 
katydid23 said:
I remember it well also. We were living in a duplex in Venice Beach and I had a 3 week old baby and a 4 yr old son. My husband was in London on business at the time. I was house sitting so I knew none of the neighbors at all. I was pretty much being held hostage in the duplex, too afraid to go outside. There were fires on the block, and screams and lots of gunfire. My son was really afraid and cried a lot because of the sirens and the screaming and the gunfire right outside. People were throwing things at our front porch, which would crash and make a sound like breaking glass---then I would be afraid the windows were broken. But they were not, it was just people throwing bottles and ceramic planters at the front walls.

I had friends who offered to help but they were stuck much like I was. One friends husband came and brought us milk and bread and checked on us.

On the third day my husband came home and picked us up and we went to a friends house in Ventura County. I slept 14 hours when we arrived there.

My husband ended up flying home early but he lost his job for doing so. It was a terrible time for us.
Click to expand...

Katy, I am so sorry. I was your neighbor 20 years ago and we would have gladly taken in you and the children. As it was, we had friends from the Oakwood neighborhood come stay with us because we were closer to the Marina.

For those who don't know LA, Venice is at the beach and a good 10 to 12 miles from the scenes you saw on TV. All the news helicopters and reporters were covering the bigger rioting closer to downtown. In Venice, we could hear rioting at the beach and see the glow of fires, but none of the TV stations were covering our part of town and we had no idea what was going on near by.

The next day we learned the looting had finally run out of steam less than a block from our house.

Again, Katy, I wish I could have helped.
 
Nova said:
Katy, I am so sorry. I was your neighbor 20 years ago and we would have gladly taken in you and the children. As it was, we had friends from the Oakwood neighborhood come stay with us because we were closer to the Marina.

For those who don't know LA, Venice is at the beach and a good 10 to 12 miles from the scenes you saw on TV. All the news helicopters and reporters were covering the bigger rioting closer to downtown. In Venice, we could hear rioting at the beach and see the glow of fires, but none of the TV stations were covering our part of town and we had no idea what was going on near by.

The next day we learned the looting had finally run out of steam less than a block from our house.

Again, Katy, I wish I could have helped.
Click to expand...


Small world. I was a neighbor of you and Katy at the time, too. Right there on Harding. Scary days and nights. Nova, when we were kids we used to sneak up to the pools at the top of the Marina City Club and try to act like we fit in until we got busted lol
 
Nova said:
Katy, I am so sorry. I was your neighbor 20 years ago and we would have gladly taken in you and the children. As it was, we had friends from the Oakwood neighborhood come stay with us because we were closer to the Marina.

For those who don't know LA, Venice is at the beach and a good 10 to 12 miles from the scenes you saw on TV. All the news helicopters and reporters were covering the bigger rioting closer to downtown. In Venice, we could hear rioting at the beach and see the glow of fires, but none of the TV stations were covering our part of town and we had no idea what was going on near by.

The next day we learned the looting had finally run out of steam less than a block from our house.

Again, Katy, I wish I could have helped.
Click to expand...

Thank You, Nova. I wish I had WS forum at the time, believe me, I would have put the word out for help.

We were in Oakwood at the time. So it was very scary. We were tucked away in an area of Oakwood where some residents were angry about the gentrification of the neighborhood. [ we were right by Broadway elementary school] So the newer remodeled buildings were firebombed. We were next door to one that had pipe bombs thrown in the front window, but nobody was home. Luckily the neighbors put the small fire out with a hose.

A lot of the locals would come back home to our street after their looting and protesting and whoop and holler and party in the street. No cops came anywhere near that neighborhood at all. So I did feel very isolated.

Immediately after the riots we moved out of Oakwood, and found a great little cottage in the Venice canals. It was heavenly, so something good did come out of it. :angel:
 
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