Baltimore riots: 'They even took the ATM' – Pakistani shop owner may have lost $100,000 to looters

[Xithras]

9. Many of the Korean merchants in the LA riots were specifically targeted.

There had been racial tensions between the African Americans and Korean American communities in that area long before the Rodney King incident. Area residents had complained for years about the Korean shopkeepers treating them all like criminals, and many were still furious about a Korean shopkeeper who had shot and killed a 15 year old African American girl she accused of shoplifting. Even though witnesses and video recordings clearly showed that there was no danger and that the shopkeeper had essentially executed her with a shot to the back of the head, and even though the police showed that she had the money to pay for the item IN HER HAND and was going to pay for it, the shopkeeper was still only given probation and a $500 fine. A $500 fine for cold-blooded murder.

That conviction came down only a few months before the Rodney King verdict. That anger, combined with years of (real or perceived) abuse at the hands of the Korean merchant community, led a lot of the rioters to target Koreatown.