Los Angeles riots: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist recalls “Rodney King’s Rule Like an Earthquake”

Sandy Banks was in the Los Angeles Times newsroom when the guilty verdict against four white police officers accused of beating black driver Rodney King was returned.

The tremor, after seven days of deliberations in the courtroom in Simi Valley – a very white neighborhood 30 miles northwest of the city to where the trial was moved at the request of the defendants – was extremely intense, she says, felt like an earthquake.

One of the few black journalists in the newspaper, Banks stood up and was stunned by tears. When the editors began distributing assignments quickly, the banks told them that they did not want any of them. She wanted to go and join the people who are already throwing stones.

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“It was my first time covering a story in which I just felt that I was outside the body of a journalist, and only in my own body. White journalists everywhere were startled, but they were also very uncomfortable.

“The only thing I will always remember, is a white reporter … She just stopped me in the hall and hugged me and said,” I am very sorry. I’m so sorry’. And for me, it was like, here is someone I understand. She apologizes on behalf of these jurors in Simi Valley, and she understood the personal blow she was. “

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A National Guard member stands near a burning building during the Los Angeles riots. In April 1992, after a jury cleared police officers involved in beating Rodney King, riots erupted throughout south-central Los Angeles, killing 55 people and injuring 2,000 others, and causing more than $ 1 billion in Damage

Corbis via Getty Images

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Smoke billowing from burning buildings during the Los Angeles riots

Corbis via Getty Images

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Car burning as thieves take to the streets at the intersection of Florence and Normandy Avenues, April 29, 1992, this intersection is a flashpoint of riots in Los Angeles

WireImage

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Rodney King Root. Mother and child Amid chaos, business burns, pedestrians watching raging fires, pedestrians walking the street drinking 40 ounces at the intersection of Pico Boulevard Street and Hayworth Street in West Hollywood, the sky is black with daylight smoke on April 30, 1992 Los Angeles California.

Getty Images

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Korean grocer Sun Ja Doo shot Latasha Harlins deadly after a fight at Sun’s Shop. 1992

Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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The Harlins family

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Rodney King Root. View of a homeless person sleeping at a bus stop on Wilshire Street in Westwood, graffiti saying FUCK THE POLICE, as well as writings referring to Rodney King and Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old girl was shot in the store by a Korean shopkeeper after 13 Days of beating on Rodney’s video King was murdered on suspicion of stealing orange juice even though the girl had money in her hand to pay. The jury recommended a prison sentence of up to 16 years for manslaughter, but the judge sentenced the store owner instead to 5 years in prison on probation. When the riots erupted, Korean companies were targeted early to be looted and burned in response. Graffiti stayed at the bus stop after the Rodney King riots on the night of May 2 in Los Angeles, California

Getty Images

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Los Angeles Police Officer Lawrence Powell (left), one of the four accused in the Rodney King case, awaits the start of his hearing on May 15, 1992 in Los Angeles, California. Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled in favor of Powell’s second trial on brutal charges.

French Press Agency via Getty Images

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Former Los Angeles police sergeant. Stacy Conn smile at a press conference August 04, 1993 after being sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Kuhn and former police officer Lawrence Powell were convicted of violating Rodney King’s civil rights. Powell was also sentenced to two and a half years.

French Press Agency via Getty Images

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Rodney King arrived at the Isoon Library to sign copies of his new book, “Riots at home: My journey from rebellion to salvation”, on April 30, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. King is known to be a victim of a brutal beating by the police in Los Angeles. It has been 20 years since Rodney King’s reign sparked the disgraceful spark of Los Angeles.

Getty Images

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A National Guard member stands near a burning building during the Los Angeles riots. In April 1992, after a jury cleared police officers involved in beating Rodney King, riots erupted throughout south-central Los Angeles, killing 55 people and injuring 2,000 others, and causing more than $ 1 billion in Damage

Corbis via Getty Images

2/10

Smoke billowing from burning buildings during the Los Angeles riots

Corbis via Getty Images

3/10

Car burning as thieves take to the streets at the intersection of Florence and Normandy Avenues, April 29, 1992, this intersection is a flashpoint of riots in Los Angeles

WireImage

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Rodney King Root. Mother and child Amid chaos, business burns, pedestrians watching raging fires, pedestrians walking the street drinking 40 ounces at the intersection of Pico Boulevard Street and Hayworth Street in West Hollywood, the sky is black with daylight smoke on April 30, 1992 Los Angeles California.

Getty Images

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Korean grocer Sun Ja Doo shot Latasha Harlins deadly after a fight at Sun’s Shop. 1992

Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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The Harlins family

7/10

Rodney King Root. View of a homeless person sleeping at a bus stop on Wilshire Street in Westwood, graffiti saying FUCK THE POLICE, as well as writings referring to Rodney King and Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old girl was shot in the store by a Korean shopkeeper after 13 Days of beating on Rodney’s video King was murdered on suspicion of stealing orange juice even though the girl had money in her hand to pay. The jury recommended a prison sentence of up to 16 years for manslaughter, but the judge sentenced the store owner instead to 5 years in prison on probation. When the riots erupted, Korean companies were targeted early to be looted and burned in response. Graffiti stayed at the bus stop after the Rodney King riots on the night of May 2 in Los Angeles, California

Getty Images

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Los Angeles Police Officer Lawrence Powell (left), one of the four accused in the Rodney King case, awaits the start of his hearing on May 15, 1992 in Los Angeles, California. Judge Stanley Weisberg ruled in favor of Powell’s second trial on brutal charges.

French Press Agency via Getty Images

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Former Los Angeles police sergeant. Stacy Conn smile at a press conference August 04, 1993 after being sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Kuhn and former police officer Lawrence Powell were convicted of violating Rodney King’s civil rights. Powell was also sentenced to two and a half years.

French Press Agency via Getty Images

10/10

Rodney King arrived at the Isoon Library to sign copies of his new book, “Riots at home: My journey from rebellion to salvation”, on April 30, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. King is known to be a victim of a brutal beating by the police in Los Angeles. It has been 20 years since Rodney King’s reign sparked the disgraceful spark of Los Angeles.

Getty Images

Banks, 65, says she drove her home that evening to her home in the San Fernando Valley, which is himself more white than it is now, cried with her husband, and tried to focus on her next daughter’s birthday party. They held her over the weekend in a park, overlooking the burning city, while she listened to white, well-intentioned mothers telling how they wished that a video of King Hitting was never released.

It was these statements – not that the women wished that the white officers had not beaten King, but that evidence did not appear and sparked the violence – that helped reinforce Banks’ decision to return to the newsroom and ensure that the story was fully reported.

Sandy Banks’ primary feelings were to go and join the stone throwers. Not done (Courtesy Los Angeles Times)

It was not enough to write about looting and killing. It was also important to focus on the black business owners who suffered, and black schoolchildren, as well as the multi-ethnic force, would likely suffer from the volunteers who appeared to clean up the damage. What picture did you put on the first page – thieves wearing bandana, or people helping each other?

The story was complicated, ugly, painful and complex. Banks and her colleagues won the Pulitzer Prize.

1992 Los Angeles riots: “Please, nothing has changed,” says Henry Keith Watson in 2012

Speaking from Los Angeles where she is still a journalist, she says the riots imposed changes on many institutions, most notably the Los Angeles Police Department, which she said was poorly prepared for what happened, as well as the media, are very white at the time and very white Today.

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She stressed that the police should have prepared for something, as the trial of the four officers – Stacy Con, Lawrence Powell, Timothy Wind and Theodore Presino – is coming to a close.

She says that the black community rioted, not when the king was beaten by the officers on television, but when the system failed to deliver justice. “When we finally realized that we cannot trust the system.”

Banks says that the African-American population of Los Angeles is now about nine percent, after seeing a huge increase in Latin Americans and Asians.

Some things say improved. There is more money, more development, more investment. But accessing good schools and supermarkets with fresh food and affordable health care remains a challenge. Black students performed worse than others.

“In many ways, things have improved. In this sense, the riots were a wake-up call.”

When asked about the coverage of the riots and society now, she chose her words carefully.

“I’ve always seen the riots, as horrific as they were, as a necessary force, because at some point you have to stand up and say” No more. “This is not to reduce deaths and losses, and it was horrific.”

But we have reached that point after decades of ignoring us, denying us the right to vote. So it was necessary. And at some level I felt proud. “

“I know this sounds strange, but it is like when a bully chases you at school all the time, day after day and makes fun of you. Then suddenly you turn it on and hit the crap out of it. And yes, your comment is done. But, you know, it’s no longer bothering you anymore.” This is what I saw. “

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