Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992: Butta Boom Summary & Analysis

Smith interviews Joe Viola, a television writer. Viola recounts where he was when the riots first began. He had just mailed his daughter’s registration forms to Berkeley and was standing at a street corner when the first cars arrived. A kid holding a gun pointed a weapon in Viola’s direction and said, “You’re dead, motherfucker,” or something to that effect. These events happened “Right here, right on the corner!” Viola specifies to Smith. Viola was too terrified to move. He heard screams, though he couldn’t see what was happening.

A week later, Viola read a newspaper article that clarified some of the details he couldn’t discern about the terrifying scene in the moment. Two cars filled with teenage girls pulling up to a curb outside the Jewish Federation. The girls emerged carrying a two-by-four and used it to hit a man in the head. The man fell to the ground, and people pleaded with the girls to stop. When a bystander tried to help the beaten man, a kid in one of the cars yelled, “shoot ‘em,” prompting another kid to shoot the girl in the leg. Viola remembers that one of the cars pulled up to him afterward, prompting him to run back to his house, lock the doors, and protect his wife and kids.