the following is a cnn special report. >> welcome to south central los angeles. >> you probably think you know the story. >> can't we all get along? >> the war will continue. >> building after building has been torched. >> rodney king! >> what if i told you there's so much more that you need to know? >> it has been characterized as

something that involved the black community and no one else. >> i just wish that she would have never went to that store. >> we didn't understand each other. korean americans didn't know the racial history. >> a history we can't afford to repeat. >> if you told me i'd be back poyears later and still talk about that day i wouldn't have believed it. tonight a cnn special report "the fire still burns 30 years after the l.a. riots." good evening. i'm van jones. 30 years ago back in april '92 i was just a law student. i was interning in san francisco. i was trying to find my way. but for the beating of rodney king and the up risings that came after that trial i probably wouldn't be sitting in front of you today. the first time i went to jail

was in the aftermath of that moment, and my perspective has never been the same since. much more importantly those five days of civil unrest permanently impacted our politics, our justice system and our culture. so we're going to go back to the moment that first sparked this nationwide conversation. >> drive-by shooting at 2800. >> south central los angeles was experiencing absolute crisis. we had crack cocaine, the crypts, the bloods. 1990 we had 1,000 homicides. people were panicked, and people in south l.a. wanted to see the police come in. >> they will kill you in an instant. your life and the life of any innocent citizen means absolutely nothing to them. they're just vicious little animals. >> they killing everybody.

they just blasted, you know what i mean? >> you're up against the rotten little cowards who shoot innocent people. >> these are little terrorists, and we've got to do something about them. >> in order to really touch this problem you've got to deal with jobs. you've got to deal with education. you've got to deal with decent housing. >> you always have police stops. pull you on the side, make you get out of the car, make your children get out of the car. they're just very disrespectful. lapd was always an intimidation factor. you knew that you had limits and bounds because these guys basically would kill you. >> the academy was like a marine corp kind of boot camp. it was very, very strenuous both academically, physically and everything. and the wash out rate was very high. there were so few police, there were like 6,000 or 6,200, 6,400.

and the crime was so high you spent all your time just going from call to call to call. we didn't have radios when we got out of the car, so if you were in the projects and something went sideways, somebody shot at you, you were on your own. >> los angeles police call their gang sweep technique "the hammer." >> what's operation hammer? >> operation hammer was you sweep into neighborhoods, make lots of arrests and then leave. >> every weekend they would just have the mass arrests of black and brown youth. and the police chief at the time had no regard for the residents of south l.a. >> last year testifying before congress he had this to say about casual drug users. >> casual users ought to be taken out and shot. >> we would go out on a two or three-day weekend with 600, 800,

1,000 officers and just blanket a whole part of the city and make arrests. most of the arrests didn't result in felony complaints, felony charges, people going to court. so in hindsight it may have made the community feel good, but it really didn't change the dynamic on the street. >> in those days lapd's reputation was frightening. if i'm in a community where i got 1,000 cops coming at me and everybody is getting arrested for jaywalking, that doesn't feel good. >> i do think l.a.'s posture was aggressive, but i think there was reason for it because there was such a low number of police and there was so much crime. you have to take control. >> this is the gravity with which we had to live under with lapd. they intimidated and basically brutalized the people who lived in the community.

i remember on the news where they'd actually gone into a community, take this big battering ram, knock the door down, knocked half the house down. >> there was a controversial raid that you were a part of. >> yes. >> at 39th and dalton. >> yes. >> in that raid i don't think a lot of rules were followed. >> that raid was the result of a hispanic family that lived between two small apartment units and their house had been shot up, the family had been threatened. so we ended up putting together a task force and doing search warrants, and that got totally out of control. and the officers clearly damaged the homes, damaged the property. they did what they should not have done. >> police officers smashed toilets to shards, tore up family photos. police officers ripped apart mattresses. the red cross had to come in afterwards because some families had been made homeless by police

activity. this isn't gang members coming in and destroying the houses. it's the police. >> well, i wasn't out there. i went out there early the next morning with a sergeant who worked for me. i saw all the damage, and i said, whoa, wait a minute, something went really, really badly wrong out here. >> you got charged i guess vandalism. >> yes. >> what was the final resolution of that? >> we were acquitted. >> we the jury in the above entitled clause find the defendant not guilty. >> what does that say to the community? >> well, it says that the police can do anything they want. ♪ >> we're outraged. we're disgusted. >> you can only oppress and suppress people for so long. and eventually that lid is going

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♪ if you had a magic wand and you could wave it. i thought i would have been beaten almost to death at night, i don't think i would have been that frightened to stop the car soon. then again i'm almost glad that what happened happened to expose the city of los angeles and the way that they train police officers. >> we're southbound. appears to be three male blacks and a white hyundai i believe.

>> he already got a couple swings at the right side of my face. he seen my rollover. i'm just rolling over waiting to die now at this point. >> it was a monster in this lake, but nobody couldn't get a good picture. every other year someone saw the lochness brothers. got beat by the police, they called me the "n" word. no evidence, and now we got the evidence. we caught the lochness monster. >> this city will not tolerate that kind of conduct by its police officers. >> what i saw made me sick. there's no way in my view to explain that away. it's outrageous. >> the very people that are yelling and screaming for our

guilt are the very ones that have brought the situation about the way it is. in '82 when they had the choke hold into place and the police was talking about a moratorium. >> the lapd's force policy had gone from just grunting and grabbing to what you see in the video which is stand back, use your baton as an impact weapon. >> the city council and community at large made this decision on their own and they battled with it. and the result is rodney king. >> the lapd use these and they serve as like a laptop in the car. the shorthand for a domestic violence incident involving an african many couple was nhi, no humans involved. to me that was one indicator this was a culture gone awry. >> the los angeles police department released a transcript of messages sent on the

computers installed in police cars. officers had an exchange of activities that occurred before the rodney king accident began. another replied sounds almost as exciting as our last call. first officer, ha, ha, ha, let me guess who be the parties. >> does stacey koon, the man, feel that it's right to or wrong to use slurs as you've said have been used by you in your manuscript? >> in stress related incidents such as shooting, such as use of forces a means of psychological release absolute no problem at all. >> so it's not wrong to say -- >> not in the context of a stress related incident.

>> were there any kind of racial comments made at all? >> oh, racial, no. >> they took me to task. see it's all about race. you need to do this, you have to emphasize that. i said, well, i'd like to make this is a broader calling. there are other people being disadvantaged and being the victims of police brutality. >> as time has gone on do you see the racial aspect of it differently now? >> i knew the racial aspect of it then, but i decided that i could be inflammatory. i knew that there was a lot of tension. the african american community was particularly behind him getting justice. >> what i felt about that time was that it -- this was a moment for black people, that there was an opportunity to have a conversation not just about injustice in general but about the particular fear that i had as a black man just trying to get through life. >> all along i've understood that my role in rodney king's case was to try and diffuse

problematic things that could happen that would bring more pain and suffering to black people from cops, particularly. i wanted just to kind of dumb things down a little bit even though passions were running high. >> if we can't talk about race in the context of this beating when can we talk about it? >> you want the issue right to be where you want it tee because when you look in the mirror you see yourself as a black man, but there's a broader spectrum out there. and i wanted to send the message it wasn't just how these cops treat black people. i wanted to give a general sense of peace and that white people could understand this. >> i just don't understand how someone could murder someone and walk free. how is that justice? ♪ this is how it feels to know you have a wealth plan that covers everything that's important to you. this is what it's like to have a dedicated fidelity advisor

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♪ >> this grainy security camera videotape graphically depicts the last few moments of latasha har lnz life. >> it's important to regard the latasha har lnz case as part of the king period in the sense that the tension between korean americans and african americans in l.a. largely had its flash points in stores. >> i hope all of them go back to where they belong so we can have our community back. >> they have not treated black customers friendly. they've not treated them with respect. >> six deaths among black customers and korean shop keepers. the girl became involved in an

over the counter fight with a korean grocer after he grabbed the girl's backpack thinking she had tried to steal some orange juice. har lnz punched the grocer two times. du retaliated at first by throwing a chair then grabbing a gun. when the teenager put the juice on the counter du pushed it away, har lnz turned and was shot once in the back of the head. ♪ >> i just wish that she would have never went to that store because that's something that we talked about. that's something that we talked about in our household, that these particular group of people

don't like us, don't like african americans. so why continue to go there? and this is what happened. she got killed. >> he was a korean grocer in los angeles. now she's an alleged criminal facing a first degree murder charge. >> i can remember using those same words that now is kind of like a national chant, black lives matter. it's like, you know, we cry for everyone. who cries for the fact that our children are being murdered? >> i mean, if you look at the tape it was the heat of the moment. >> but at the time as a child i just remember going this is a bad, bad thing. and it's going to be a problem. >> there has always been ethnic

tension among the korean store owners in black communities here. but now it's at a boiling point. >> the first thing they do they go oh, it's a -- they're going to steal. >> my parents immigration story, they both came from south korea. they were both here trying to achieve this american dream, and dad had started to do that. so he bought his gas station was in l.a., he sold it later and bought another one in compton and he bought another and another and another. and i call it his empire of gas stations. >> the majority of korean immigrants who came during the '70s were known as a new urban immigrants. they were highly educated. they're middle class, urban background. but language barrier, cultural differences and unable to transfer your skill from korea to the united states. their only option was to open up small businesses.

and they found out in many south central los angeles there were a lot of business opportunities. >> they would say things to me like you [ bleep ] chink, you d damn cap, you oriental. when i was younger i was definitely racist. we didn't understand each other. african americans didn't know korean culture. they just knew there were these people coming in and opening businesses in their communities and being rude. >> blacks claim koreans are able to get government help like small business loans while they cannot. blacks claim they're often disrespected by korean merchants. koreans say they work hard and often say blacks do not. >> korean americans didn't know the history, the racial history. they didn't know any of this stuff. we're viewed as this model minority. if you see us this way it pits

us against other communities of color, so it's this interethnic strife. but why is there -- who's putting us there? why are you telling me that i'm model? model to what? turns out model as in you're approximation to whiteness, to being this perfect american. >> i actually attended natasha's funeral services. i was part of the bka, black korean alliance, and we issued the statement. >> as a regional minority in this country we have and will continue to support each other in our struggle towards equality. >> that we don't want this particular case to exaggerate, explode into major, major racial tensions between the two communities. >> this store will never reopen, not in this community. >> it is perhaps the most talked

about legal decision in l.a.'s history. korean grocer su ja du received probation, community service and a suspended sentence for killing ninth grader latasha harlens after a fight about a $1.70 orange juice. >> it felt radically unjust this girl who we'd all seen die, that the person who killed her would get off with essentially probation. >> after the verdict harlin's family was asked if this will lead to violence. >> i sure damn hope so, that there would be all the hell in the black community that will stand up and see this insanity for what it is. black people once again being unjustly treated -- >> chanting harlin must go angry protesters stormed through security check points at the courthouse in compton.

>> i think judges make tough calls every day. >> was that a tough call? >> it was a call -- i won't -- i give a lot of thought to any decision i make, and that was no exception. >> we're not just going to stand outside. we're going upstairs. because when you kill our children you come inside our house. >> was this a time for revolt? >> it felt like a mule had kicked me in my stomach. i mean, i felt it physically. no. nope. no way. but then helen went from no to know. with freestyle libre 2, now she knows what activity helps lower her glucose. and can see what works best for her. take the mystery out of your glucose levels, and lower your a1c.

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♪ how are you feeling today? >> he's very nervous about it and certainly feels that he's protected, though. >> so even though this incident happened in the heart of los angeles where the trial did not happen in los angeles at all. >> yeah, a fateful decision for sure. the judge moved it out of los angeles to ventura. ventura county jury is a very different jury than a downtown jury. >> different in what way? >> well, a more middle class and more white jury. >> seamy valley is a city where it is known that a lot of los angeles police officers reside. and so the jury pool would

obviously be pro-police. >> i wrote the motion to get the case moved out of l.a. county. and the point was it had become a referendum on the lapd. if you think the lapd are racist and treat blacks badly you'll vote guilty. nobody wanted to point out that, hey, we've got to get the case out of l.a. county because we're going to get a predominantly black jury in downtown l.a. >> those blows from officer powell and officer wen's batons continue and continue for no just reason. >> rodney king rose to his feet in a violent charge of power. >> there's a lot of things you don't see first when you look at the tape, and there's a lot of things you see only after examination. >> do you think there is a danger in showing the video so many times, that initial

response every has gets sort of washed out? >> that was the point. >> can you make a determination now where that blow appeared to land at 40024? >> the point was to do it frame-by-frame and show them no, it's not what it appears to be. it's not just two guys out of control with a stick in their hands. >> after seven days of deliberations the jury in the los angeles police beating trial has reached a verdict. >> we, the jury, in the above entitled action find the defendant stacey koon not guilty. not guilty, timothy e. winne. not guilty find the defendant theodore -- >> when that verdict came out it was like painful, physically painful. it felt like a mule had kicked me in my stomach. it was unbelievable. and the next day i couldn't go

to court. i had two court appearances, i won't forget. and i called the court and told them i couldn't come today because i didn't think i could talk to white folks that day. and i got white friends that still have -- but it just, i can't talk to y'all today. there's something about that put down that you ain't human, you're not worthy of justice. it's three-fifths. it's the -- your life don't matter. >> your life doesn't matter. >> your life doesn't matter. black lives don't matter. >> we, the jury, in the above entitled action find the defendant not guilty -- >> everybody was glued to their tvs on this, waiting for the verdicts. we thought something was going to happen. after the verdict was out i was in shock. the plaque community was upset. >> we had undeniable, undisputable facts on the film.

the jury can't see this? >> people here are expressing anger, outrage, and there's a real sense of fear this could lead to unrest because of the verdicts. >> it's over, you know? they can do whatever they want now. >> the next person should be a white person and see what happens then. >> it sends a bad message. it's says it's okay to go ahead and beat somebody when they're done and kick the crap out of them and it's okay. >> did most police officers think that was a good verdict or bad verdict from your point of view? >> i think a lot of police officers would not say it, but to each other what they said was, oh, my god, those guys were clowns. if you can't control somebody four officers there, i mean he was a big guy, okay, but still you just call for more people. and i think most officers felt that it was wrong. >> there was definitely a sense at the headquarters a lot of

police officers seemed relieved and pleased. from that moment on you could feel tensions starting to build, protesters started to arrive. the day went south fairly quickly after that. >> we've got about 100 officers here. there are more units and there are several helicopters. the crowd is angry, there's no doubt about it. >> i thought that lapd was completely -- i hate to say the word -- but smoking crack, the command staff. because they were all thinking that, oh, you know, the black community loves us. well, that wasn't the case, was it? it caught them totally by surprise. >> it is off to jail. the man accused of committing the most shocking crime of the entire riot. >> you're saying even 30 years later you saw an innocent white person you would go and do the

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♪ i didn't wake up on the morning of april 29th and decide to wreak havoc on the city. it was just something that happened. [ chanting "no justice no peace" ] >> my job was to get reaction from the community. here i am on the phone and describing the scene and what's

happening. as i was standing there there was a guy very nicely dressed and came up to me about here and saw me, and he said what the hell are you doing here? >> help! >> if i'd turn i would have got that bottle here. but it sent me here. the feet or fists or whatever were pounding me in the face. >> okay. >> we're looking ahead and we can see three separate fires. it does look like another one of those corner liquor stores. >> the police were down here and the people were down there, so i walked from 73rd and walked across florence until i got to 71st. the police were trying to make an arrest of a young kid.

and then you could see there was a confrontation. >> you need to be ashamed of yourself. >> people, they were upset about them arresting the kid, but they also were upset because of the verdict. people were really pissed off. >> look at that. terrible. and there's no police presence down here. >> i got swept up into the emotion. >> the nation watch as a helicopter television camera recorded the savage beating of rejinal daily, a truck driver pulled from his vehicle by several men in south central los angeles. henry watson, arrested in the beating and charged with attempted murder and torture. >> what was going through your mind? >> nothing, no rational thought. just, you know, hooking and jabbing. it's chaos.

>> why should rejinal. >> he was a victim of circumstance. i lost count. one ass whopping as opposed to countless lost lives. >> how does a veteran home owning father wind up doing that? >> because i'm a black man in america madder than a mother [ bleep ]. so if you can't understand that i don't know what to tell you. >> you're saying even 30 years later if you saw an innocent white person who wasn't a police officer or hadn't killed anybody, you would go and do the same thing? >> yes. yes. black people die for the same thing on a regular basis. >> these are guys that obviously intentionally beat up and almost

killed a man for absolutely no reason. i'm sure a lot of people who are black thought, gee, this white guy gets beat up by some black guys and they go to jail. four cops beat up a black guy for no reason and they got off scot-free. >> it's true that the two tapes are juks tuposed against each other. but the king tape registered so strongly with people i think precisely because it did seem to validate an argument that had been ignored for decades. i don't think there was a built-up feeling among whites that they were likely to be beaten as they drove through intersections. >> but i do think that there is some fear that exists in the white community about black violence. to the extent that the rodney

king tape validated some fears in the black community about the police, there's a way that the fears in the white community about those folks in the inner city were validated by that tape. >> in that sense they may both prey on deep fears. ♪ >> they tried desperately to save their businesses. many sat on rooftops armed with guns. >> this is all still the same. >> the gas station was looted. they took some cars and bashed in the garage bay doors, and mom lost thousands and thousands of dollars of products and things that -- these things you can't replace. >> many volunteers began to come to korea town and began to patrol and on the rooftop and

warning shots don't come near the store. if there were lapd present there were no need or necessity. but lapd decided to abandon the community. >> i was standing inside the lobby with some members of the police commission. sometime early in the evening they began to look for gates who was missing. turned out later he was at a fund-raiser for police reform. >> the los angeles police departments are not in evidence here at all, so they apparently have decided it's best to allow whatever is happening to happen. >> everything so unfair. we built it up and just one day it's gone.

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didn't think anything was gonna happen. >> the one thing i did notice was there was a much bigger show of force than was usually the case, and that they were in riot gear. >> april 29th, la went up in flames. then, we had protests all across the country, including here in san francisco. young lawyer. i was still in law school. my boss, eva patterson, she told me a protest is going on. it is good to have legal observers there. have you ever been a legal observerer at protest? i said, no, ma'am. she said go down there. >> i had been to marches and rallies. it was a friday night, i was going to go do this thing and then go home. >> we did not make it home. we did not make it home, not that night. >> this is really where i think things started getting heated. the route was supposed to keep

going down church street. this intersection is where that police' presence really started closing in. as we were heading up market street, i saw there were a whole hell of a lot of cops up there and that is ultimately where we got stopped and arrested. >> we were done for. they brought out the big plastic bag, and they poured out plastic handcuffs on the ground. and then, they brought the city bu buses -- empty city buses. i remember, i asked asked one of the police officers, i am a law student, this is a problem, the police not letting us have our rights. it was that unlawful arrest that i actually got paid for getting arrested. so, when they grabbed me and they grabbed you, it just shattered my whole world because i was like, nobody's safe.

>> reporter: and now that crime has become priority for the voters, looking tough has become a political priority. >> three strikes you are out is the toughest, most sweeping crime reform in california' history. >> misguided on every level. and part of a broader, i think, really sad reaction to the king' beating and the aftermath and the riots. the way out of this problem was longer sentences and more aggressive policing. the american people have been waiting a long time for this day.

>> if the bill did nothing else, other than create 100,000 hard-prison spots -- if it did nothing more than that -- nothing -- it would have some impact on crime. >> los angeles is experiencing an increase in crime. it is dangerous when politicians seize on that as part of their campaign to get elected, seize on people's fears, and then put forward very bad policies. and those policies usually hurt black and brown communities, and usually involve an increase in arrests. i see los angeles poised to repeat some of the mistakes that were made in the early '90s. >> it is terrorism on the streets. it's got to stop. >> the criminals who are destroying our city -- it is

time for it to come to an end. >> make the street safe. tough laws on punishment. smart laws on prevention. >> we will ramp up enforcement, deploy more officers on the streets. >> what is the better way? >> one of the things that has developed over the last three decades are real, proven strategies that have been researched and tested and documented as ways of reducing crime. we have a gang reduction youth development program. we have community-intervention workers and many of those intervention workers were gang-involved in their younger years. and now, they serve as peacemakers. they work with police departments, but one of the reasons why a lot of crimes, especially violent crimes, go unsolved in inner city areas is because the relationship between the police and community is not there. >> around america, the police are not doing their job. morale is zero. zero. >> why? >> because they don't feel like if they do their job, they will get any support and any

criticism of the police is gonna result in being assigned to the desk, getting a complaint, potentially losing your job. >> reporter: you could understand this -- what i would call -- an overreaction. in other words, you have police officers -- the vast majority of them are doing the right thing, from their point of view. they might -- they might make a mistake. but then, when some people get hammered, everybody takes a big step back and says this is an unfair system. but the same thing is happening at the community level, where the vast majority of people in black-and-brown communities are doing the right thing. there is an overreaction from the system against a few. and now, everybody from that side pulls back and says it is an unfair system. >> yeah. i mean, that's pretty much the way it is. what -- what could make a difference? >> more effective communication. the quality of your training and the kind of training you have. and not just the kind of training where you call the officers in and say, okay, we're

going to talk to you today about unconscious bias. what works is training and really good supervision. >> reporter: here we are, 30 years later. what do you think has changed since the beating of rodney king? >> some surface things have changed. new police chief was acquired here in la. mayors have changed. but the infrastructure of this white-privilege racism and a belief that black people are subhuman and less than the majority, the core hasn't changed that much, in my opinion. the same conditions are -- are still here. nothing's changed. i been saying the stame thing fr 30 years. history repeats itself and

nothing has went anywhere. the elements are still the same. >> which elements? >> the police departments, the racism, the drugs, the gangs. it -- take your pick. it's worse. >> george floyd! >> we have pick black lives matter protest movement. this time, they chose to protect in affluent, wealthy, white neighborhood. they chose beverly hills, santa monica, hollywood. i think they were saying we are not going to burn our own communities anymore. white america must take responsibility, and join the movement to wipe out racial discrimination. >> reporter: in what ways do you think that we have made some progress since the days of rodney king? >> well, we're more sensitive to issues of police' brutality.

>> i can't breathe. >> george floyd is the example. if there hadn't been a video of what happened to george floyd, i don't think so. >> we, the jury, in the above-entitled manner as to count one, unintentional second degree murder find the defendant guilty. >> that is a form of pacification. that is a diversion. they don't always sacrifice one so that the rest of these [ bleep ] can continue to do what the [ bleep ] they doing and that is what is going on. it is all talk. >> reporter: it is hard to keep hope. um, it is. i just feel like i don't have the right to give up hope, given what my parents went through, my grandparents went through, my great-grandparents went through, and they managed to get better. >> and born and raised in tennessee. >> okay. some rock-hard black folks down there with some generational hate. >> what you call hate, i call pain.

and pain can be healed. hate can't be celebrated but pain can be healed. >> black lives, they matter here! >> black lives, they matter here! this is cnn breaking news. hello, and welcome to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. i'm nick watt in los angeles. russia is increasingly targeting vital-supply lines for ukrainian troops, as it ramps up its assault on the east. you are looking at a railway bridge that was blown up on friday. we have geolocated, and verified the authenticity of the video. it's near the done everdonetsk region.