Exclusive | A Rooftop Korean who defended his LA business with a shotgun reveals what it was really like during the 92 riots
LOS ANGELES — It’s been more than three decades since Yongsik Lee grabbed a shotgun and climbed to the top of his furniture store during the 1992 Los Angeles riots — becoming one of the infamous era’s “Rooftop Koreans.”After protesters once again squared off with cops on LA’s streets — this time over federal raids targeting migrants — the armed vigilantes who defended the city’s Koreatown are back in vogue.The “rooftop Koreans” became a viral punchline and meme for anyone who worried LA was descending into violence, and thought Mayor Karen Bass wasn’t doing enough to crack down.Donald Trump Jr.posted an image to X of an armed man on a roof during the latest rioting in LA along with the caption: “Everybody rioting until the roof starts speaking Korean.”Lee says the memes sling-shotting around the internet don’t do justice for how scary the times were — and how different the recent round of LA protests and riots are from 1992.“All of the Korean people, we were just focused on protecting our property.
And we were also trying to protect the pride and spirit of our Korean community,” said Lee, who immigrated in 1981 and served in both the Korean and American armed forces.“We didn’t want to [fight.] We wanted peace,” he said.Now-historic photos at the time captured Korean men with rifles perched atop buildings as rioters moved through the city in May 1992.The mobs looted businesses and set storefronts ablaze after four white police officers were acquitted of the savage beating of Rodney King, a black man.Sixty-three people died, and property damage neared $1 billion in the chaos.Amid the riots, the police more or less abandoned Koreatown, instead focusing on wealthy, white neighborhoods, Lee said.“The police were not responsive.
They were using Koreatown as a bumper,” Lee said.“I was watching the TV, and I saw things burning down in the south side, and [rioters] were coming up here.”Lee said that’s when he decided t...