Riots erupt­ed in South Cen­tral Los Ange­les Wednes­day after­noon, April 29, 1992, when a jury found four LAPD offi­cers not guilty of assault­ing Rod­ney King. Vio­lence ruled the night and con­tin­ued into Thurs­day morn­ing when I arrived at my office at Lath­am & Watkins on the 43^rdfloor of a down­town sky­scraper. My office win­dow offered an unob­struct­ed view of LA’s south side. I count­ed sev­en­teen spires of smoke curl­ing into the sky from burn­ing build­ings. The con­flict was five miles away, so I thought it posed no risk to our loca­tion. I was wrong.

The event that led to the riots occurred a year ear­li­er, on the night of March 3, 1991. Cal­i­for­nia High­way Patrol offi­cers attempt­ed to stop Rod­ney King for speed­ing. He tried to out­run them. The CHP gave chase and LAPD patrol cars joined the pursuit.

Most of the offi­cers were white. King was black.

The police forced King off the road in the Lake View Ter­race dis­trict. He resist­ed arrest. The LAPD offi­cers tasered him and knocked him to the ground.

At that point a local res­i­dent, George Hol­l­i­day, began film­ing the action with a Sony Handy­cam from his apart­ment bal­cony. The tape begins with King on the ground. He gets up and tries to run. The offi­cers knock him down, cir­cle him, and club him with batons, land­ing 40 to 50 hard blows.

Hol­l­i­day sent the tape to a tele­vi­sion sta­tion. Media out­lets all over the world picked it up and played it repeat­ed­ly. Pho­tos of King’s injuries also went viral.

The dis­trict attor­ney charged four LAPD offi­cers with assault and use of exces­sive force. In response to a change of venue motion, the court moved the case to Simi Val­ley. The jury pool in LA would have includ­ed a large minor­i­ty pop­u­la­tion. Simi Val­ley was a pre­dom­i­nant­ly white community.

The tri­al began in March, 1992, with a jury of nine whites and three minori­ties, no blacks. The pros­e­cu­tion relied heav­i­ly on the tape. Sur­pris­ing­ly, the defense relied on it, too, play­ing it in slow motion, frame-by frame, as an expert wit­ness tes­ti­fied that King’s move­ments jus­ti­fied each baton blow.

Court TV broad­cast the tri­al live.

Racial ten­sion in LA was at the break­ing point when the court announced the not guilty ver­dicts on Wednes­day, April 29, at 3:15 p.m.

One of my friends at Lath­am was try­ing a case in Ingle­wood that after­noon. Wor­ried about a vio­lent reac­tion to the King ver­dict, the judge in his case adjourned the pro­ceed­ings ear­ly. On my friend’s way to the free­way, he drove through the inter­sec­tion of Flo­rence and Nor­mandie in South Cen­tral about 4:30 p.m. He may have been one of the last motorists to pass through unharmed.

A few min­utes lat­er, LAPD offi­cers attempt­ed to arrest a man who had thrown rocks at their car near there. They were quick­ly sur­round­ed by an angry crowd. Oth­er offi­cers arrived at the scene. The crowd threw rocks and bot­tles at them and they retreat­ed to a bus sta­tion twen­ty blocks away.

Sev­er­al men then robbed Tom’s Liquor Store at that inter­sec­tion, shout­ing, “This is for Rod­ney King.” They passed out liquor bot­tles to oth­ers on the street, and they began pulling peo­ple out of cars and beat­ing them.

News heli­copters flew to the inter­sec­tion and filmed the may­hem. Of the many vio­lent inci­dents, the most graph­ic was a live broad­cast of riot­ers drag­ging a truck dri­ver, Regi­nald Den­ny, from his rig, knock­ing him to the ground, stomp­ing him, beat­ing him with a claw ham­mer, and smash­ing his head in with a con­crete block.

Some of Latham’s staff mem­bers lived in South Cen­tral. They were afraid to go home Wednes­day evening, so we set them up to spend the night in the offices.

The riots con­tin­ued through the night. The vio­lence remained focused in South Cen­tral, so most every­one at Lath­am came to work Thurs­day morn­ing, wor­ried but not yet alarmed about our per­son­al safety.

By mid-morn­ing I was alarmed. The smoke plumes out­side my win­dow had mul­ti­plied, and they were creep­ing toward downtown.

Lath­am employed more than 200 attor­neys and hun­dreds of staff employ­ees in LA. I was the Man­ag­ing Part­ner of that office. It was my respon­si­bil­i­ty to decide whether to shut down and send every­one home. I hes­i­tat­ed, wor­ried about turn­ing off the bill­able-hours spig­ot on 200 big-time attor­neys when I didn’t know for sure the riots would reach our build­ing, but when the fires came with­in a mile of us, I pulled the trig­ger and announced a closure.

The staff bolt­ed for the doors. Most of the attor­neys packed up and got out, too, but some of them want­ed to stay and work. I went door to door, urg­ing them to leave, cit­ing Regi­nald Den­ny as Exhib­it A. Every­one even­tu­al­ly vacat­ed the office.

When I drove out of down­town at 2:00 p.m., the streets were clear. Two hours lat­er, the riot­ers over­ran our loca­tion. I sent a mes­sage to all LA per­son­nel clos­ing the office Fri­day and through the weekend.

That night, the riots spread to Hol­ly­wood and the west side. Fri­day, the vio­lence remained unchecked and out of control.

I was scared. In most of the tele­vised cov­er­age, the police were nowhere to be seen. I didn’t know how to pro­tect my family.

A Lath­am attor­ney, who lived in my neigh­bor­hood, drove his fam­i­ly 50 miles north and checked into a motel. My wife and I didn’t want to aban­don our home unless we had no oth­er choice. They’re attack­ing busi­ness­es, not res­i­dences, I told myself. At least so far.

In Korea Town, news cam­eras filmed shop own­ers tak­ing mat­ters into their own hands, stand­ing on rooftops with rifles, fir­ing down on the street. From my hunt­ing days in Vir­ginia, I had a shot­gun and a rifle in the attic. I cleaned them up, propped them by the front door, then sat on the steps star­ing at them, won­der­ing if I’d gone as crazy as the rioters.

The LAPD tried to regain con­trol Fri­day, mak­ing over a thou­sand arrests, but the riots raged on with­out skip­ping a beat.

Gov­er­nor Wil­son sent in the Nation­al Guard and Pres­i­dent Bush deployed Marines. Com­bat troops in mil­i­tary vehi­cles rolled down the street a half-block from our house.

The sol­diers restored order and brought the riots to a close on Monday.

The cost was stag­ger­ing: 63 peo­ple dead, 2383 injured, over one bil­lion dol­lars in prop­er­ty damage.

Legions of com­mis­sions and ana­lysts have stud­ied the riots since 1992, but the caus­es were clear from the out­set. Too many LAPD offi­cers used exces­sive force with impuni­ty back then. The bil­ly-club­bing of Rod­ney King was a prod­uct of that cul­ture. It went beyond the point of overkill. The jury ver­dict denied the unde­ni­able and lit a pow­der keg of pent-up anger foment­ed by decades of racism and relent­less pover­ty in South Central.

A cold hol­low place opened in the pit of my stom­ach as I wrote this post. It took me back to that help­less feel­ing of 25 years ago. I’d heard of the thin blue line before 1992, but the riots taught me what it means. The bar­ri­er between anar­chy and civ­i­lized soci­ety is thin. Law enforce­ment guards that line. With­out the police, order breaks down and all hell breaks loose. You can try to run from the chaos or you can try to fight it from the rooftops with rifles, but noth­ing real­ly works.

Bad cops must be removed, but the good ones, who are the vast major­i­ty, deserve our respect and sup­port. With­out them, no one is safe.

Post Script: LA paid Rod­ney King 3.8 mil­lion dol­lars in dam­ages. Hav­ing strug­gled with drug and alco­hol addic­tion all his life, he drowned in his swim­ming pool while intox­i­cat­ed in 2012. He was 47.

Regi­nald Denny’s skull was frac­tured in 91 places. He didn’t receive a dime for his injuries. The men who attacked him didn’t have any mon­ey and he lost a law­suit against LA. Despite years of ther­a­py, at the age of 63 his speech and motor skills remain impaired.

The U.S. Jus­tice Depart­ment pros­e­cut­ed LAPD Offi­cers Stacey Koon and Lau­rence Pow­ell for vio­lat­ing King’s civ­il rights. They were con­vict­ed in 1993 and sen­tenced to 30 months in prison.

Sun­day morn­ing, Mom stood at the bed­room door all dressed up for church. “Time to put on your Sun­day suit, Kenny.”

Still in my Roy Rogers paja­mas, I lay in bed beside Dad, who was asleep, or pre­tend­ing to be asleep. “I want to stay home with Dad.”

“Tom­my?” Mom said.

Dad didn’t stir.

Mom gave us a wor­ried look, then walked away. When I heard our Hud­son Hor­net pull out of the dri­ve­way and head up Route 60 toward the church, I got dressed and ran out­side, glo­ri­ous­ly free to do what­ev­er I wanted.

I wasn’t born a preacher’s son. Dad was a car deal­er when I was a lit­tle boy, and he refused to go to church. He was my get-out-of-church free card, and I played it every week until the sum­mer of 1954 when I turned sev­en years old.

That sum­mer, Dad want­ed to move to Hager­stown, Mary­land.  Mom didn’t want to go. She agreed to the move only after Dad promised to go to church.

In Hager­stown, Dad got out of bed bright and ear­ly every Sun­day, put on a blue suit and a starched white shirt, helped Mom stuff me into a tor­tur­ous­ly uncom­fort­able minia­ture ver­sion of his out­fit, shoved me into the Hudson’s back seat, and drove us all to The Church of the Light­ed Window.

I hat­ed my lit­tle suit. Hat­ed church. Hat­ed Sun­day School. I whined, cried hys­ter­i­cal­ly, and threw fits. Noth­ing worked. After a long strug­gle, I gave up and zom­bie-trudged my way through the Sun­day morn­ing ordeals.

Mean­while, Dad warmed up to the church, and our fam­i­ly com­mit­ment to it deep­ened. Dad served as an ush­er; Mom became a Sun­day School teacher; they vol­un­teered me to be an acolyte; and the Church chose Dad to be its trea­sur­er and then its lay leader.

In 1956, any lin­ger­ing hope of return­ing to the Sun­day morn­ing good times died for good when Dad attend­ed a Chris­t­ian retreat, found Jesus, and decid­ed to become a preach­er. I was upset because I didn’t want to be a preacher’s kid, but when I learned what the Methodist Church would require Dad to do, I calmed down. With no for­mal edu­ca­tion beyond high school, he had to take years of col­lege cours­es. Even if he stuck with it, which I doubt­ed, his ordi­na­tion was so far in the future it didn’t seem real.

Time passed. We moved back to Vir­ginia and joined a big church in Hamp­ton. Dad dogged­ly plowed through scores of cours­es, but the Church kept pil­ing on new requirements.

In June, 1961, I thought he was still years away from attain­ing his goal when he came home from the Methodist Annu­al Con­fer­ence with shock­ing news. Although the Church still wouldn’t accept him as a full-fledged min­is­ter, they had des­ig­nat­ed him a “sup­ply pas­tor” and had assigned him to the Albe­mar­le Cir­cuit, four church­es locat­ed in the moun­tains 175 miles away.

The appoint­ment was effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly. We had one week to relo­cate. We loaded our belong­ings in a truck. Tears blurred my view of our home as we drove away. I had just fin­ished the eighth grade. All my school friends lived in town. I didn’t get to say good­bye, and I nev­er saw any of them again.

The par­son­age, an old two-sto­ry white frame house with a tin roof, sat down the road from Mount Mori­ah Methodist Church in White Hall, Vir­ginia, a rur­al farm town. About fifty peo­ple stood in the yard to greet us when we pulled up in the mov­ing van.

Dad led us through the crowd, and we end­ed up stand­ing on the front porch over­look­ing a sea of uplift­ed faces. As he spoke to them, I pan­icked. Emo­tion­al­ly, I was still the sev­en year old who want­ed to stay home with Dad Sun­day morn­ings, but Dad’s appoint­ment had turned me into some­one dif­fer­ent, some­one I didn’t know. I was now the preacher’s son, a role I didn’t choose or want.

Stand­ing on the porch in front of that crowd, I felt like all eyes were on me. I assumed they expect­ed me to be a par­a­digm of Chris­t­ian virtue. I didn’t know how a devout teenag­er was sup­posed to act, so I did my best to fake it. I stood stiffly with my hands clasped togeth­er in front of me, strain­ing to main­tain a beatif­ic, angel­ic smile. On the out­side I was try­ing to imper­son­ate a preacher’s kid sat­u­rat­ed with the Holy Spir­it. On the inside I was so scared and mis­er­able I could bare­ly breathe.

The anx­i­ety that con­sumed me that day plagues most preacher’s kids. Thom Rain­er, a pas­tor, wrote a blog post in 2013, ask­ing church mem­bers to be more under­stand­ing of his chil­dren. To his sur­prise, the post went viral and he received more than 500 com­ments, most of them from preacher’s kids. They com­plained about liv­ing in a glass house where they thought church mem­bers watched their every move and expect­ed them to be per­fect. They believed they couldn’t ques­tion Chris­t­ian doc­trine or express doubts with­out being labeled rebel­lious. They wor­ried that their slight­est trans­gres­sion might destroy their par­ents’ image in the church. And most of them were des­per­ate­ly lonely.

I expe­ri­enced all of those emo­tions my first few weeks in White Hall, but my life changed for the bet­ter as sud­den­ly and deci­sive­ly as my first day as a preacher’s son had turned sour. One of the church women asked Mom if I could spend the day with her son. Mom knew I was lone­ly and shoved me for­ward. With a big smile and a sun­ny per­son­al­i­ty, my new pal was easy to like. We spent the day run­ning all over his family’s farm. It was close to the most fun I’d ever had. I went back the next day. And the next.

When school start­ed in the fall, most of the kids I met didn’t know I was a preacher’s son, and those who did know didn’t seem to care. As it turned out in the end, no one cared except me.

I was for­tu­nate Dad was assigned to the Albe­mar­le Cir­cuit. White Hall was a spe­cial place. The peo­ple who went to Mount Mori­ah were thought­ful and kind. They accept­ed me for who I was and didn’t crit­i­cize me or judge me. That’s how they approached every­one, preacher’s sons includ­ed. It was the best place I and my broth­ers could have grown up.

Fifty years after we left White Hall, I sat by Dad’s deathbed and held his hand while he slept. After a long while, he stirred; his eyes opened; and he saw me there. He shift­ed in the bed and knit­ted his brow. “Was it hard for you?” he said. “Being the preacher’s boy?”

I was sur­prised by the ques­tion. We’d nev­er spo­ken about this. In the begin­ning of his min­istry, he had worked so hard just to sur­vive that I thought he hadn’t noticed my struggle.

I con­sid­ered my answer for a good while before I spoke. “It wasn’t hard,” I final­ly said, mean­ing it. “It was one of the best things that ever hap­pened to me.”

He looked at me for a few moments, then put a trem­bling hand over his eyes. “Good peo­ple at Mount Mori­ah.” He took a deep breath. “Wish we could go back to White Hall one more time.”

“Me, too, Dad. Me, too.”

Post Script: Appar­ent­ly, there was an advan­tage to being a preacher’s son that some­how elud­ed me. In 1969, Dusty Spring­field won a Gram­my, singing in a sexy, brassy voice about a preacher’s son named Bil­ly Ray.  “The only one who could ever reach me/ Was the son of a preach­er man/ The only boy who could ever teach me/ Was the son of a preach­er man/ Yes he was, he was, oooh, yes he was.”

Suf­fice it to say, Ken­ny Bill was no Bil­ly Ray.