The Fire This Time: Why Los Angeles Burned (1994) Reviews

In 1992, television cameras on the ground and in helicopters caught the violence of an inner city riot in south central Los Angeles, which broke out after the acquittal of several white policemen in the brutal beating of Rodney King, also captured on video cameras. This documentary explores the root causes of the many days-long explosion of violence during which the community seemed to self-destruct. Among the causes of violence the filmmakers illuminate was a plan for inner city redevelopment which was drawn up following the Watts riots of 1965; no one in the black community had any input into the paternalistic plan, and none of the core grievances from the time of that earlier riot were addressed in it. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi