National Geographic Channel's LA 92 Shows Role of Latasha Harlins Case in Historic Event

Los Angeles Uprising 1992, Courtesy Tribeca Film Festival

Latasha Harlins was a fifteen year-old honor student who would often cry when she passed a cemetery. Her friends came to find out that her mother died when she was just nine years old. Cemeteries just reminded her of her mother. The teen was shot in cold blood in the back of the head by a middle-aged Korean first generation immigrant woman store-owner named Soon Ja Du in March 1991. Like the Rodney King incident which happened approximately two weeks prior, it was also in Los Angeles and also caught on videotape. Soon Ja Du was charged with voluntary manslaughter and the case went to trial in early autumn of 1991. The verdict of guilty came in on October 11th and the sentencing was scheduled for November 15th. Judge Joyce Karlin, who was white and the daughter of a wealthy movie executive, sentenced Soon Ja Du to five years probation, the cost of Harlins’ funeral expenses, and a five hundred dollar fine. The black community as well as others in Los Angeles were dumbfounded, frustrated, outraged. The editor of the Korean Times newspaper pointed out the sad irony of a Korean man serving thirty days in jail at that time for abusing his dog. Led by her Aunt Denise, Harlins’ family and community groups lobbied for the district attorney’s office to appeal the ruling which it did. The judgment was upheld in a Los Angeles appeals court just one week prior to the acquittals of the four police officers involved in the Rodney King beating on April 29, 1992.

That Harlins was murdered and then unjustly treated by the justice system is significant in itself. How and when she was murdered is also significant. It was still a gaping wound at the time of the Rodney King verdict, when justice was once again denied. The four police officers seen on video viciously beating King, were found not guilty on all charges. It wasn’t long before the accumulation of frustration, disappointment, and anger at the justice system manifested as violence, much of it targeted Korean businesses with the same callous indifference with which many thought the Harlins case was treated. Michael Woo is Dean of the College of Environmental Design at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and is seen in some of the archival footage in the new National Geographic documentary which commemorates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the incident, LA 92. Twenty-five years ago, he was a city council member. Asked to give comment for this story he stated that, “The Latasha Harlins incident certainly escalated the racial tensions between African and Korean Americans in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. In particular, the verdict constituted one more decision coming out of the legal system (in this case, highlighting a Korean American defendant) that reinforced the existing sense in the African American community that the system is unfair. Unfortunately, the Harlins case might also have been used by some as a rationale for victimizing innocent Korean Americans, especially Korean American immigrant store owners, who symbolized outsiders to African Americans.” In the end, damages were estimated as exceeding one billion dollars.

Rita Walters was a Los Angeles Councilwoman in 1992. Footage of her appears in the documentary and she was also interviewed for this story and recalls community leaders not expecting the officers would be convicted and preparing for that eventuality. She says, “In the days leading up to the verdict, there were some ministers in town and elected officials that had pulled people together at AME Church and planned what the community response would be and how we would keep the calm.” LA 92, which recently screened at the latest Tribeca Film Festival and premieres on National Geographic channel on April 30th, neglects to show the planning that the former councilwoman refers to. Perhaps because that story doesn’t fit the usual narrative where low income black neighborhoods are seen as chaotic and wholly incapable of thinking strategically. Though obviously, these community leaders failed in their attempts to reign in the high levels of frustration, their efforts is an aspect of this historic event that is not widely discussed but should be. LA 92 does however, spend a great deal of time on footage of the looting of Korean businesses and the many Korean men who took up arms to protect their stores when the police and National Guard did nothing about the violence unfolding. It is a common trope when reporting on incidents like that puts the material damages on par with the human toll. However, unlike much of the early coverage of the incident and to its credit, LA 92 highlights the story of Latasha Harlins. Perhaps due to sexism and classism, it historically been omitted or minimized in the chronicling of the events directly related to the Los Angeles rebellion of 1992. For this alone, the documentary is worth watching in that it illustrates a certain growth in sophistication in the ways in which society analyzes and understands itself.

#Society