Retro Friday: April 29, 1992 Edition

20 years ago, I was a freshman at Northwestern University, glued to my TV screen and feeling a bit helpless as I watched the world explode 2,000 miles away. I had already taken a few sociology classes centered on the study of race, class and power, and found myself watching the end result of everything I'd been studying. By the time I had moved to L.A. in 1996, the city had subsequently also suffered a terrible earthquake and was slowly getting its senses back.

Here are some YouTube selections from coverage within the first 24 hours of the riots:



Live coverage from KTLA on April 30, 1992, with the late Hal Fishman and late Larry McCormick in the studio, and Stan Chambers up in the helicopter (!).

"I imagine this looks like London at the Blitz," Fishman says. "It's a tragedy for everyone who is viewing this."



Edward James Olmos, voice of reason, meets with Hal and Larry in the KTLA studio. "It's a very sad time right now," he says. "I made up my mind a couple moments ago, I'm going to be at the First A.M.E. Church with a broom in my hand and start the process of cleaning this place up." Also: "We must understand these are our children. They may be heavily armed but they are children. That's the sadness, we're going to find ourselves in a deep sense of sorrow before this night is over." But when the female anchor refers to it as a "craziness," he takes her to task. "I don't find it to be a craziness at all. I think it's a frustration and an anger."



Arsenio Hall with the Rev. Cecil Murray at the First A.M.E. Church. "You cannot get peace with violence. We are not a violent people. We can't tear up our neighborhood. Nobody cares if we tear down our neighborhood. If we burn down a building, we take jobs from black people. Friends, neighborhoods. Don't burn down the buildings, burn down the ballot boxes."



Talk about strange timing: KNBC interrupts live coverage of the riots to air the final episode of "The Cosby Show." That day, as Jess Marlow notes here, Mayor Tom Bradley urged the city to stay indoors and watch the episode. "We need this time. A little bit of a cooling off period."



From KABC: Live coverage of the Reginald Denny beating.



"Can we all get along?" 20 years later, Rodney King's plea for calm.

Follow the Rodney King Verdict and L.A. Riots in Real Time on Twitter

If you haven't already, start following KNBC 4's Real Time LA Riots Twitter feed as we move closer to the 20th anniversary of the Rodney King verdict. It was April 29, 1992 when the not guilty verdict sparked days of civil unrest in our city. The Twitter feed is following deliberations in real time, as if Twitter had existed during those dark days in 1992. More from KNBC:

How would social media help tell the story of Rodney King and the Los Angeles Riots?

As part of NBC4's 20th anniversary coverage, we've created a Twitter account to remember the Los Angeles Riots in real time.

Each @RealTimeLARiots tweet corresponds to the actual date and time (sometimes down to the minute) of each major event as it unfolded back in 1992.

Currently, the account is chronicling the end of the trial of four police officers accused of beating Rodney King. On April 29 at 3:15 p.m., the verdict will be announced and the account will shift focus to the riots, complete with archive footage, photos and breaking news from around Los Angeles.

Retro Friday: The 1992 L.A. Unrest, 19 Years Later

From KTLA, April 30, 1992



From KNBC, April 30, 1992



Coverage from radio station KJLH, which dropped music programming to focus on calls from community leaders, celebrities and listeners.

Retro Friday: The 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest, 18 Years Later

Can you believe it's been 18 years? It's now astounding to think just how scary this moment was in Los Angeles history. (I was watching from afar, at college in Chicago.) Tanks rolling into the city. Fires. Looting. Ordinary citizens standing on their rooftops with weapons. City-wide curfews.

Here are some news clips from the days after the April 29 spark.