It is August 17 1965 and, we just went through the worst week of our lives things are finally starting to calm down. As we are going into town to see what is left, and to access the damages, we try to understand how this got so out of control. In the course of seven days, 34 lives were lost and, more than 1,032 were injured, the police had arrested 3,438 people and, there are over $40 million in property damages (Watts Riots 2013). This all started from what should have been a routine arrest by the police of young Black boy suspected of driving while intoxicated.
It all started the in the early evening on August 11,1965 when police pulled over two brothers named Marquette and Ronald Frye just blocks from their house. As the police proceeded to give Marquette a field sobriety test that he failed, Ronald walked to their house get his mother, Rena Price. Marquette had been cooperating with the police when his mother showed at the scene until she started yelling at him for drinking. At this point Marquette pushed his mother and headed toward a crowd that had gathered. As the police tried to catch him, his mother began to attack the officers that were struggling with the brothers. As the police began to use force to control the situation, the mother, and the crowd began to get hostel. Anger at the scene escalated and bitter …show more content…
There are block of burning building the National Guard are patrolling the street and Marshal law, and a curfew is in effect. You can still hear the shots ring from rioter shooting at the firemen attempting to put out the fires. On Saturday it was reported there more than 3,000 National Guard on station throughout the city and this caused the rioting to begin to slow down. By Sunday most of the riot had ceased and all the major fires were under