The 1992 L.A. Riots took place from April 29 to May 4 after the acquittal of 4 police officers accused of using excessive force while arresting Rodney King. Most estimates place the death of toll of the riots at between 50 and 63 deaths depending on whether you count all deaths or just homicides (according to medical examiners).
With the recent George Floyd riots and the Ferguson effect I thought it would be interesting to compare death tolls. Downloading the vital statistics NCHS’ multiple cause of death data we can plot the monthly number of homicides during the time the L.A. riots took place (sadly, I can only do this monthly because of privacy restrictions put in place in 1989)
To my great surprise there was no increase in the number of homicides. One possible explanation is that most of the violent guys were out rioting and did their killing while rioting. Not withstanding some innocents killed during the riots you could say that people died with the rioting, not from the rioting. And many had the underling condition of being violent thugs.
List of victims by the LA Times
| Race | Deaths |
| Asian | 2 |
| Black | 28 |
| Latino | 19 |
| White | 14 |
| Total Result | 63 |
Given the number of victims, any excess mortality from the rioting would have been obvious from looking at the charts. April and May weren’t even the most violent months in 1992 (although it was a very violent year). I wonder what caused the rise at the end 1995 among all races?
You can contrast the lack of Los Angeles effect with what happened in Feguson, in Chicago, and at the national level
