Photojournalist recounts photographing Koreatown during 1992 LA Riots (VIDEO)
posted Wednesday, July 3, 2013 at 2:33 PM EDT
Hyungwon Kang was the only Korean-speaking member of the Los Angeles Times' photo staff when rioting broke out in L.A. in 1992 following the Rodney King verdict. Naturally, he was sent to cover the Koreatown section of L.A., where he photographed harrowing scenes of death and destruction as the looting began.
Kang, now a photographer with Reuters, revisited Koreatown twenty years later and recounted what it was like to be at the center of the chaos in the video below from Reuters TV.
When Kang heard that Koreatown was being evacuated as rioting broke out, he raced to the scene and started photographing looters pulling items out of stores.
"As soon as I approached with my camera and started taking pictures, some people came out of nowhere with baseball bats and started chasing me," Kang recounts in the video. "So I had to run back to the car and evacuate."
(Via Reddit)