Its the anniversary of the genesis of that unique subset of Americans – the Roof Korean. Someone sent me this link and it’s too good to not share:
I swear, I never get tired of those guys. Interestingly, while articles like the one mentioned above pop up with frequency, I have never encountered any interviews with any actual roof Koreans. I get that many of them may not want to admit to things that may still get them in trouble, but there’s also gotta be a lot of them who just hung around the rooftops with their Mini-14s, never got a shot off, and could tell their story.
Whoever wrote that tripe has no idea what went down, and clearly wasn’t alive nor living in L.A. at the time. I was.
During the interim between the Rodney King incident, and the Rodney King Verdict, a female Korean liquor store clerk in South Central was getting walloped for stopping a teenaged black girl from shoplifting, so as the black girl left the store with a stolen orange juice bottle, the store owner capped her with her gat – in the back. Deader than canned tuna, right there.
And then got a pass from the L.A. County D.A.
Koreans had taken over many of the markets in South Central L.A. over decades, after the previous owners (generally Jewish) had been burned out of the ‘hood in the Watts Riots of ’65. The lack of any supermarkets in that aftermath, for those long decades, made South Central (exactly as today) a “food desert”, where absent a long drive to less diverse regions of the city, only corner liquor stores had the handy necessities of life, like milk, eggs, bread, etc., and being the Diversity, the locals, either lacking the wherewithal and desire to run their own markets, or more likely, knowing that they’d be robbed and shoplifted blind by their own co-Diversity beans, resented the outsiders.
The shooting above didn’t add anything to their fund of ill will.
So come the Rodney King Free Shoes and Televisions Festival, old scores got settled. Not least of which with Korean shopkeepers in the ‘hood.
In one memorable bit of local color, the Koreans, all veterans of South Korea’s National Service rules, took to the roofs of their stores.
LAPD, all aflutter, bypassed rioting Diversity beans of all colors in their haste to disarm the Koreans doing what LAPD would not do. (And no, LAPD wasn’t “stretched too thin”, they were deployed to the central bus yards, and there waited and watched the riots for three days, because Chief Knucklehead Wannabe Gates and Mayor Egging The Riots On Bradley weren’t on speaking terms. The rank and file was largely furious, but management’s plan was to do absolutely nothing, mainly to punish the citizenry at large for daring to indict police officers for beating the hell out of anyone they felt deserved it. Anybody above the rank of Sgt. in LAPD from then on was and is now, a complete gutless douchebadge.)
So when confronted by LAPD on the point, the Koreans handed over their rifles, and LAPD did what they did best in the riots: they beat feet and hid again.
Whereupon the Koreans, being no dummies, waited until the black and whites drove off leaving skidmarks, went to their trunks, pulled out their second set of arms, returned to their rooftops, and prevented many a mob from doing to their stores what happened to thousands of others.
On seeing one approaching group seeking cheap goods, the rooftop Koreans present scattered a number of rounds into the pavement ahead of the melee, and the crowd quickly decided to go loot and burn on another street, while still several hundred yards short of their objective.
That’s how it works in a riot: people tend not to go all in just for the fun of looting and arson, if it’s going to become a life-and-death proposition.
There were no complaints, and no arrest, of any rooftop Koreans for the duration. IDK whether they ever got the original set of confiscated rifles back, but knowing the LAPD and D.A., it’s doubtful.
Aesop, Thanks for that bit of detailed history.
Although upsetting and infuriating to think that the LAPD went to confiscate the arms of the Koreans protecting their lives and businesses, and then afterwards left the area to leave them defenseless in the face of the rioters who were reasonably likely at that point to burn their businesses, and quite possibly murder the Koreans also.
Your story clearly shows that one needs to have more than one set of self defense arms, in more than one location.
Thanks Aesop,
That sounds a lot more realistic. Having been a NYC Paramedic in the 80’s including the Crown Heights riots and a couple of blackouts, I’ve been in the think of things a number of times. The truth is that NOBODY is going to watch out for you except YOU when the SHTF!
Aesop, it must be refreshing to know, all of your drivel over at WRSA has proven to be, let’s say, missed the mark considerably.
And now you are here, professing and blithering about events that were fairly well documented in the 1990’s.
I too was medical field, but never do or did I pontificate and bloviate that I was all knowing or all seeing, as you have.
I truly pity you.
So ‘bottom line’: armed citizens were (and are) the best, last, defense of property rights and rule of law.
Apropos of nothing, I have more faith in the judgement of any randomly chosen group of Koreans than I do in government.
Koreans are generally pretty tough MoFos. I used to work with the ROK military when stationed there as a liaison. They were not to be trifled with. I recall one ROK Marine MSgt who had served in Nam. He told me it “was good practice for the real thing”. When the Koreans sent the ROK Army Tiger Division to Vietnam they terrified the VC and NVA to the point that there was little problem in their sector after a few “demonstration” operations by the ROKs. Hopefully there are still native born folks who still have some cojones in some of these urban hells…
Regards
I was hoping someone would bring that up. ROK troops in Nam had their own “rules of engagement”, and like Gurkhas elsewhere, their reputation alone terrified their opponents.
If you wanna talk hardcore, here’s an excerpt from the Wki on the ROK’s during Operation Paul Bunyan (which is worth a read all on its own): In addition, a 64-man task force of the South Korean 1st Special Forces Brigade accompanied them, armed with clubs and trained in taekwondo, supposedly without firearms. However, once they parked their trucks near the Bridge of No Return, they started throwing out the sandbags that lined the truck bottoms, and handing out M16 rifles and M79 grenade launchers that had been concealed below.[3] Several of the commandos also had M18 Claymore mines strapped to their chests with the firing mechanism in their hands, and were shouting at the North Koreans to cross the bridge.”
Ahh….memories. Had a T-shirt, LAPD summer Olympics participant
Shoot
Loot
And Scoot !
I read (and saw photos) of some Roof Koreans who stood very visibly on rooftops or patrolled behind their makeshift barricades carrying realistic toy guns or BB guns. From a safe distance they seemed real enough to have effect. The sight of them was a deterrent to anyone with ill intent. A bit of careful subterfuge goes a long way when applied properly.
“A bit of careful subterfuge goes a long way when applied properly.”
Until someone calls your bluff. Then……
Why, then you fight of course. With the real stuff.