A Closer look into the Crisis of the

LA Riots of 1992
BRETT BENSON
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Executive Summary:
On April 3rd, a jury announced that they had acquitted four policemen of the beating of
Rodney King a year earlier. This lead to the worst rioting of that generation. The LAPD
did a terrible job of quelling the riots and saw 58 civilians dead with nearly one billion
dollars-worth of property damages.

The methods used by the police station were ineffective. Their three phrases were: 1.
Denial Shifting Blame and Evading Responsibilities, 2. Diminishing, Making Excuses
and Justifying and 3. Repair: Compensation, Corrective Action and Apology. During
phase 1, the police chief claimed that it was not a huge deal at the beginning of the day.
During phase 2, he began explaining why his men could not stop the marauders. During
phase 3, the mayor asked for an official investigation that led to Chief Gates retirement
and changes in the police department.
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Table of Contents
Introduction ... 3
Methods ... 3/4
Results and Discussions ..... 5
Conclusion and Recommendation ...... 4/5
Work Cited ... 6
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Introduction
Background

On March 3, 1991, video footage of a group of LAPD officers beating a man with
nightsticks and kicking him as other officers look on appeared and went viral. The
man was named Rodney King and he was a convict on parole driving under the influence.
He tried to evade the cops and when they caught him tried to resist arrest but only the
beating was caught on video. While he did resist arrest, the police beat him while he was
caught and defenseless for several minutes while members from the crowd can be heard
yelling at the police to stop (Los Angeles Times Staff).

On April 29th at 3:15 pm of 1992, the four officers in the trial of the beating are acquitted
of the March 3rd beating because the jurors were not convinced that a 81-second
videotape of the incident represented the entire story. A little over 2 hours later, the first
report of trouble was reported. That trouble was at Florence and Normandie Avenues.
The cops come, but do little and leave. They do not return for almost three hours
leading to an escalation throughout the city (Los Angeles Times Staff).

Over the next few days, the LAPD tried and failed to quell the rioting. Their efforts, or
lack thereof, lead to 58 deaths and nearly one billion dollars-worth of property damages.
After taking a closer look at the police response to the crisis, it was clear that they did a
poor job of handling this crisis that led to the resignation of the current police chief.

Purpose

The purpose of this white paper is to investigate the communication and events that took
place during the Rodney King riots and analyze it.

Objectives

The objectives of this paper are the following:

1) How the LAPD handled the LA riots

2) How Police Chief Daryl Gates responded to the press
3) What changed as a result of these riots
4) What the public opinion was regarding these riots

Methods
There were numerous methods to analyze but I chose a framework that best reflected this
crisis. While I looked through many specific frameworks in the scholarly article Crisis
Communication in Higher Education: The use of Negotiation As a Strategy to Manage
Crisis, I mixed a few of the different frameworks to create one that well represented this
crisis.
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Phases:

1. Denial, shifting blame, evasion of responsibility

2. Diminishing, making excuses and justifying
3. Repair: Compensation, corrective action and apology

Much of the information of the phases came from various articles including New York
Times articles and United Press International achieves among other sources.

Results/Discussions
The results I acquired can be categorized in the categories listed above.

Phase 1: Denial, shifting blame, evasion of responsibility

It is clear that while Police Chief Daryl Gates believes that his department responded
beautifully to the rioting, the much larger opinion, shared by the mayor and public, was
that the police chief let his pride and honor get in the way of effectively handling the
crisis (Ryan). The failure to quell the very first reports of unrest at Florence and
Normandie Avenues shows that while the station claims that they prepared for the
possibility of riots, they either were untruthful or had abysmal execution of those plans.

Furthermore, Chief Gates claimed that Officer Mike Moulins orders to have his men pull
out from the riot because of inferior numbers was perhaps good judgement. Gates
maintained that they should have no blame or any responsibility. The most responsibility
that he took was to say that while it may have been a good call to pull out that was still
the biggest glitch Ive seen (Ryan).

Phase 2: Diminishing, making excuses and justifying

Midway through the rioting, it became clear that the situation was well out of control for
the LAPD. Rather than accepting the blame, Gates called the marauders gang members
and drunks who were just waiting for the opportunity. It is clear that Gates is doing his
best job to show the world that this is not his fault or the LAPDs fault. Furthermore, he
provided documentation of emergency-preparedness training tailored to each of the four
police bureaus that was reviewed by officers because he believed that his men would be
acquitted by the jury and he believed some people would lash out. He did ask his officers
to review these documents quietly because he did not want a self-fulfilling prophecy
(Ryan).

How Gates tells it, he makes you want to believe that the Police department had very few
options and the ones that they did have, they executed however Mayor Tom Bradley
believes that Gates left is personal ego get in the way of requesting federal troops
sooner. With more men at his disposal he could have done more. One of his strongest
arguments for his men pulling out was that his men were outnumbered. With the
National guard there, he could have had more even numbers. The fact that the national
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guard wasnt called earlier was a huge topic of debate among citizens viewing these riots
from their homes. It took the Mayor asking for assistance from the National Guard to get
more men to help tame the riots.

When asked on a CBS News program whether he had abandoned his post to attend the
fundraiser he said frankly, I had a commitment. We were not in a full-scale riot at the
time. He attended the affair for only a few minutes before returning to the crisis and
continually growing unrest. His answer continues to create an air of professionalism
while dealing with this issue (Ryan).

Repair: Compensation, corrective action, and apology

The aftermath of the riots saw the Police Department arrest nearly 16,000 people for
rioting. This was one of many actions that they took to try and throw their crisis
communication into good light. Among that, a number of changes came to the police
department including: the forced retirement of Chief Gates and the addition of more
officers of different ethnic backgrounds. These steps were taken by the California
government along with a new rule that made police chiefs have to be reelected every 5
years and set a limit on their tenure as to not allow someone like Gates to stay in office
for decades. The repair came from the government rather than directly from the police
station.

Police Chief Gates is the biggest reason that the LAPD lost control of the situation and he
never officially apologized because to this day, I believe that he believes that he did the
right things and there was nothing further that could have been done to quell the riots.

Conclusion/ Recommendation
Over the last decades, we have seen a slight decrease in police brutality with the major
exceptions to a few large and publicized innocents. By following the three phases I
selected, I was able to analyze this crisis communication and how poorly it was handled.
By changing many of the norms in the LAPD after the crisis, the California government
communicated that they did not find the results of the crisis appealing. They wanted
change and made that happen (Taylor). Although nothing they did will ever fix what
happened, or bring back the 58 people that were killed, the California government went
in the right steps to help ensure that this would never happen again in their state and no
riot like that has happened since. The LAPDs sole purpose is to keep order and protect
its city. During this conflict, they succeeded in neither of those endeavors and for that it
tried to change. It arrested thousands of people after and made them pay for what they
did. Hopefully their crisis communication can serve as an example of what not to do or
future generations and police departments around the nation.
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Works Cited

Benjamin, Playthell. "Rodney King Verdict Sparks LA Riots: From the Archive, 1 May

1992." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 01 May 2013. Web. 08 Apr.

2017.

Domanick, Joe. "Daryl Gates' Downfall." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 18 Apr.

2010. Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

Fritsch, Jane. "RIOTS IN LOS ANGELES: The Mayor; Los Angeles Mayor Criticizes

Chief for Slow Action on Riot." The New York Times. The New York Times, 03

May 1992. Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

Los Angeles Times Staff. "The L.A. Riots: 24 Years later." Los Angeles Times. Los

Angeles Times, 28 Apr. 2016. Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

Meyer, Greg. "How the Rodney King Riot Changed the LAPD." Police Magazine. N.p.,

n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

Mydans, Seth. "RIOT IN LOS ANGLES: Pocket of Tension; A Target of Rioters,

Koreatown Is Bitter, Armed and Determined." The New York Times. The New

York Times, 02 May 1992. Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

Ryan, Dollie F. "Gates: LAPD Responded 'beautifully' to Riots." UPI. UPI, 08 May 1992.

Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

Streetgangs. "Live: LAPD Chief Daryl Gates during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots."

YouTube. YouTube, 18 Dec. 2009. Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

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Taylor, Marisa. "Rodney King Case Changed Perceptions of Police Brutality." ABC

News. ABC News Network, 17 June 2012. Web. 08 Apr. 2017.