For Nicole Cuff and her friends, the 1992 Los Angeles riots used to feel like a piece of history, told in old stories by their parents or discussed and analyzed in school.

Recently, though, it’s started to feel much more real to her — like something that could happen again in the near future.

Cuff, a coordinator at an entertainment management company who is half black and half Filipina, said her feelings come in part from several years of headlines, viral videos of police force and Black Lives Matter protests over police shootings of African Americans.

“It evokes some unfelt anger that hasn’t been tapped into,” said Cuff, 26, who has a diverse group of friends who have become much more politically engaged in the last few years. “When nobody pays a price for it … it could set people off.”


Javier Capetillo Jr, 41, left, and his father Javier Capetillo, 66, at Capetillo Boxing Academy in Los Angeles. The senior Capetillo doesn’t believe another riot is possible. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles TImes)

Her view reflects what researchers who study public attitudes about the L.A. riots say is a distinct shift: For the first time since the riots, there is an uptick in the number of Angelenos who fear that another civil disturbance is likely, according to a Loyola Marymount University poll that has been surveying Los Angeles residents every five years since the 1992 disturbances.

Nearly 6 out of 10 Angelenos think another riot is likely in the next five years, increasing for the first time after two decades of steady decline. That’s higher than in any year except for 1997, the first year the survey was conducted, and more than a 10-point jump compared with the 2012 survey.

Young adults ages 18 to 29, who didn’t directly experience the riots, were more likely than older residents to feel another riot was a possibility, with nearly 7 out of 10 saying one was likely, compared with about half of those 45 or older. Those who were unemployed or worked part-time were also more pessimistic, as were black and Latino residents, compared with whites and Asians, the poll found.


Researchers theorized that the turnaround may be linked to several factors, including the more polarized national dialogue on race sparked by police shootings in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere, as well as by the tenor of last year’s presidential election. Moreover, many parts of L.A. still suffer from some of the economic problems and lack of opportunities that fueled anger before the riots.

“Economic disparity continues to increase, and at the end of the day, that is what causes disruption,” said Fernando Guerra, a political science professor who has worked on the survey since its inception. “People are trying to get along and want to get along, but they understand economic tension boils over to political and social tension.”

1 / 42 A shopping mall at the intersection of La Brea and Pico is engulfed in flames. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 42 Rioters at the corner of Florence and Normandie on the first day of civil unrest. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 42 A resident of South Los Angeles vainly attempts to fight a raging fire at 79th Street and Normandie Avenue using a garden hose April 29, 1992. (Los Angeles Times) 4 / 42 Cornelius Pettus, owner of Payless market, tries to douse flames raging through a business next door during the 1992 riots in Los Angeles. (Los Angeles Times) 5 / 42 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) 6 / 42 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) 7 / 42 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) 8 / 42 Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies keep tabs on a group of people arrested after a store on Martin Luther King Boulevard was looted. (Los Angeles Times) 9 / 42 Burned out car on Florence Avenue west of Normandie on April 30, 1992. (Los Angeles Times) 10 / 42 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) 11 / 42 Video shot by George Holliday from his Lake View Terrace apartment shows what appears to be a group of police officers beating a man with nightsticks and kicking him as other officers look on. A copy of the March 3, 1991, videotape was turned over to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division for investigation, said Deputy Police Chief William Booth. (George Holliday / Courtesy of KTLA) 12 / 42 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) 13 / 42 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) 14 / 42 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) 15 / 42 A rioter attacks a car on Florence and Normandie in Los Angeles after the King verdict. (Los Angeles Times) 16 / 42 Demonstrations in front of Parker Center on the first night of unrest. (Los Angeles Times) 17 / 42 Protesters kick in the windshield of a Jaguar parked on Main Street across from City Hall on the first night of the riots. (Los Angeles Times) 18 / 42 A man fends off would-be looters from a liquor store at 3rd and Berendo streets during the second day of rioting. The man, wearing a white glove, was able to keep the mob at bay until police units arrived. (Los Angeles Times) 19 / 42 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) 20 / 42 Plumes of smoke rise from burning buildings in mid-town Los Angeles on April 30, 1992. (Los Angeles Times) 21 / 42 Fires rage on both sides of Western Avenue near Santa Monica Boulevard on the evening of April 30, 1992. (Los Angeles Times) 22 / 42 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) 23 / 42 A young boy helps his father loot the Big 5 Sporting Goods store at Western Avenue and Wilshire Blvd. on May 30, 1992. (Los Angeles Times) 24 / 42 A market at 3rd and Catalina streets is ransacked during the second day of the riots following the King verdict. (Los Angeles Times) 25 / 42 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) 26 / 42 Korean store owners defend their property as gunfire breaks out in Koreatown at Western Avenue and 5th Street on April 30, 1992. (Los Angeles Times) 27 / 42 An LAPD officer chases a suspected looter on Vermont near Martin Luther King Boulevard on April 30, 1992. The man was caught and subdued soon after. (Los Angeles Times) 28 / 42 An LAPD officer falls while chasing a suspected looter on Vermont near Martin Luther King Boulevard on April 30, 1992. The man was caught and subdued soon after. (Los Angeles Times) 29 / 42 Firefighters battle blazes near Broadway and Florence in Los Angeles on the second night of the riots. (Los Angeles Times) 30 / 42 LAPD officer Delwin Fields guards the intersection at Central and 46th Street on April 30, 1992. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 42 A Marine convoy from Camp Pendelton moves up I-5 enroute to Los Angeles on May 1, 1992. (Los Angeles Times) 32 / 42 Tony Meeks, left, loads a pistol to help Norman Simples protect his store at Vermont and Manchester avenues while they wait for help from the National Guard on May 1, 1992. (Los Angeles Times) 33 / 42 Rodney G. King , right, makes his first statement, pleading for an end to the rioting in South Los Angeles. (David Longstreath / Associated Press) 34 / 42 () 35 / 42 Looters, as well as passersby, are seen at a Los Angeles strip mall at the corner of 17th Street and Western Avenue. (Los Angeles Times) 36 / 42 Western Beauty Supply was just one of many businesses looted in the area of Venice Boulevard and Western Avenue. (Los Angeles Times) 37 / 42 CHP officer Hugh Gnecco checks for looters in a Chief Auto Parts store at Washington Boulevard and Western Avenue on May 1, 1992. (Los Angeles Times) 38 / 42 Two men suspected of looting are handcuffed. (Los Angeles Times) 39 / 42 Koreatown residents hoist a fire hose across Western Avenue near 6th Street to fight neighborhood blaze on May 1, 1992. (Los Angeles Times) 40 / 42 Bobby Wade holds a sign asking for peace at the corner of Pico Blvd. and Fairfax on may 1, 1992. (Los Angeles Times) 41 / 42 A National guardsman hunkers down as shots are fired after midnight at Sixth Street and Western Avenue on May 2, 1992. (Los Angeles Times) 42 / 42 National Guard troops stand guard on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles on May 2, 1992. (Los Angeles Times)

Although the city’s unemployment rate last year was about half of what it was in 1992, the median income of Angelenos, when adjusted for inflation, is lower than it was around the time of the riots. Poverty rates still remain high at 22%, comparable with the years preceding the riots.


Jamal Jones, a Leimert Park resident and community leader who grew up spending a lot of time in South L.A., said if the tension revolved around race 25 years ago, lately, it’s been along economic lines related to housing and affordability, with residents feeling the pain across racial groups.

Jones, who is 39, said people like him who remember what it was like around the time of the riots know that the type of civil unrest that took place in 1992 wasn’t ultimately effective in fixing underlying social problems. Those who are younger, he said, might not have the same perspective, and want to act immediately on the news and images they’re seeing.

“We’ve done that, that’s been the strategy for so many years. We’re going to have to mobilize in a different way,” he said. “The young lions are getting all this fuel. We have to be careful, we’ve got to channel that energy in the right direction.”


Despite the increased concern about another riot, the survey found most Angelenos continued to feel optimistic about race relations in the city, with three-quarters of respondents saying different racial and ethnic groups got along well.

Alberto Nava, 38, said he felt both race relations in the city and police treatment of minorities had vastly improved since the time of the riots. But the new political climate and the election of President Trump made it feel like another riot may be brewing, he said. His friend Marco Delgado, 45, with whom he was lunching in East L.A., agreed and said social media had also changed the speed at which people react to high-profile incidents.

“People get emotional quickly after seeing things on social media. It can spark a mob mentality,” Delgado said.

Delgado also said that in the last few years, he’s noticed a change in how his two children, ages 17 and 18, view race relations and politics.


“They are more into politics. Before, when I watched the news or ‘The Daily Show,’ they asked me to change the channel. Now we watch it together and they ask me to record those shows,” he said.

Brianne Gilbert, one of the researchers behind the survey, said the ubiquity of smartphone videos and social media may have made it so that there are many more moments like the videotaped beating of Rodney King.

“That kind of inflection point, that trigger point, those times are coming up sooner, more and more frequently than we’ve seen in the past,” she said. “We’re able to see things on more of an international scale, with social media and the Internet.”

Eighteen-year-old Jose Almanza, a freshman at the University of Southern California, said he sensed that agitation and interest among his friends. They all seem to want to go out to march, whether it’s for women’s rights or Black Lives Matter, he said.


“They blame something, they don’t know what it is exactly,” said Almanza, who grew up in Boyle Heights. “They can’t express it, so they just go out. A lot of people are doing it to be a part of something.”

Guerra, the political science professor, said the recent protest movements and election cycle may have shifted how people view a riot or uprising as a way to voice their discontent.

“Marching and protesting and, if necessary, rioting, is more likely today as a course of action. It almost seems more legitimate as a political strategy than ever before,” he said.


Some Angelenos said time had softened the edges that had led to the anger of 1992.

Tuesday afternoon, Javier Capetillo, 66, sitting on a chair in his East L.A. boxing academy, shook his head no and said in Spanish that he didn’t believe another riot like the ones that happened 25 years ago was possible. Capetillo and his son, Javier Capetillo Jr., lived in South L.A. when the riots broke out.

Capetillo said he remembered the years leading up to the L.A. riots, filled with crime, gang violence and police brutality. The riots, he said, allowed people to express their frustrations.

“People think things through nowadays, and there’s less crime. There was anger towards Hispanics, blacks and cops. But after the riots things got better,” Capetillo said.


Capetillo Jr., 41, a part-owner of his dad’s boxing academy, said he remembered what it was like to be a hot-headed youngster eager to take to the streets, having grown up amid gang violence and racial tensions in South L.A. When the riots broke out, as a 16-year-old, he didn’t think twice before grabbing cans of spray paint and heading to Long Beach with friends to wreak havoc.

“I was angry. I got beat up by a police officer in an alley one time and this was instant gratification,” he said. “But later on I met my mentor who turned out to be a cop. He got me my first job.”

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