INTERVIEW: American Heroes Channel looks back at impact of L.A. riots
It has been 25 years since officers with the Los Angeles Police Department beat Rodney King on Foothill Freeway in the San Fernando Valley, evidence of which was captured on a now-infamous home video. That night’s events led to a headline-grabbing trial and an eventual acquittal of the police officers that sent Los Angeles into a series of violent and disruptive incidents.
The L.A. riots are the subject of a new one-hour documentary on the American Heroes Channel. L.A. Riots: As We Watched premieres Sunday, May 7 at 10 p.m. on the network. The civil unrest is documented from several different angles, and the tensions between the LAPD and African-American community are explored, in particular the evening when rioters stormed the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues in South Central.
After six days, there were 50 fatalities and more than $1 billion in damage. An AHC press release calls the L.A. riots “one of the most terrifying, destructive uprisings in U.S. history.”
Recently, Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Max Culhane, an executive producer of the TV special. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What can audience members expect from the one-hour documentary, L.A. Riots: As We Watched?
One of the things that we know our AHC viewers love is raw, unedited history, and our documentary on the 1992 L.A. riots is just that — a compressed version of those historic events that occurred over several days 25 years ago. Viewers can expect an immersive experience with eyewitness accounts of those events, live news footage as the riots unfolded on TV screens across the country and informative context that allows for them to relive and explore over the course of an hour an important chapter in American history.
How difficult was the production for the special?
We made this documentary with Lincoln Square Productions, the production arm of ABC News. We had access to their incredibly extensive news archive, so the challenge was to go through hundreds of hours of raw material in order to construct an engaging retelling of those events in 1992. We hope we’ve hit the right balance between providing historical context and raw, unedited coverage of the rioting that occurred in L.A.
What do you hope the audience takes away from the documentary?
There have been several other recent documentaries about the LA riots to mark the 25th anniversary, so we worked hard to create our own look back at those events without applying current-day political filters or analysis. There are endless ways viewers can choose to go back and experience important moments in American history. We want to be known as the place where they can come and see a version that is as unvarnished, unedited and un-politicized as possible.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
L.A. Riots: As We Watched will premiere Sunday, May 7 at 10 p.m. on American Heroes Channel. Click here for more information.
