Because this idiot Marquette Frye got drunk, drove and then was beligerant with cops, 30+ people died and the ghetto burned. What a swell specimen of humanity.
I was working a summer job as an apprentice carpenter, before starting college. A black guy a few years older was on the job, too. He was either a journeyman or nearly so. Fairly quiet. It was in conservative Orange County.
Anyway the Monday after the riots rolled around, and at our morning break this guy, normally real quiet, said he had planned to visit his mother in Watts, but "those Ni99ers were shooting Ni99ers."
I will never forget that.