Los Angeles riots remembered

Rioters at the corner of Florence and Normandie on the first day of civil unrest.  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

The Sorbornne Market at 4600 S. Vermont Ave. on the night of April 29, 1992, the day the riots erupted.  (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

Sandra Evers-Manley, president of Beverly Hills-Hollywood chapter of NAACP, appears to be praying as building burns the first night of the riots.   (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

A passerby gets a glimpse of the burned-out and vandalized shell of the J.J. Newberry store on the morning of April 30, the day after the L.A. riots, at the corner of Vermont near 59th Street.  (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

Jenny Kim, 15, participates in a moment of silence during a candlelight vigil Wednesday when about 50 to 100 residents and community leaders gathered in Koreatown to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots. This year’s theme focused on teaching their history to Korean American youth, many of whom were born after the riots, during which tensions between the city’s black and Korean communities exploded.  (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Officer Ted Briseno, left, of the Los Angeles police reacts to his acquittal in the Rodney G. King assault case in a Simi Valley court April 29, 1992. He was on trial with three other LAPD officers in the case 17 years ago today left the city stunned. Crowds gathered angrily on street corners across the city, while thousands more turned to their televisions to watch events unfold. The flash point was a single gritty intersection in South-Central Los Angeles, but it was a scene eerily repeated in many parts of Los Angeles in the hours that followed.  (Reed Saxon / Associated Press)

A mob at the intersection of Florence and Normandie attacked this Latino man as he stepped off the city bus on April 29, 1992. Anyone at the intersection who was not black was attacked during the first few hours.  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

An unidentified Latino man, in the wrong place at the wrong time, was attacked after he disembarked from a bus at the corner of Florence and Normandie avenues two hours after verdicts were reached in the Rodney G. King beating case. He was later led to safety by an unidentified man.  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

An argument between police and civilians erupted before a rock- and brick-throwing incident at the corner of Vermont and 1st Street in Los Angeles on April 30, 1992.  (Aurelio Jose Barrera / Los Angeles Times)

A man with a shopping cart full of diapers passes a market on the second day of the riots on 3rd Street.  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

LAPD officers take cover at the corner of 8th and Kingsley, where two people were shot during the Los Angeles riots.  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

LAPD officer Delwin Fields guards the intersection at Central and 46th Street on April 30, 1992.  (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

Rodney G. King , right, makes his first statement, pleading for an end to the rioting in South Los Angeles.  (David Longstreath / Associated Press)