More LA Residents Than Ever Fear Repeat of Racial Unrest

Thirty years after the riots that devastated Los Angeles, residents’ fear that racial unrest could again boil over into violence has surged to its worst level in the past three decades, according to a Loyola Marymount University survey released Thursday.

According to the survey by LMU’s Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles, roughly 68% of respondents said they found it very or somewhat likely that riots or other disturbances like those that occurred in 1992 will occur in the next five years.

That’s the highest percentage in the history of the survey {snip}

In 1997, just five years after the riots, the LMU survey found that about 64% of residents felt more violence could erupt over racial strife in the area. That percentage steadily declined in ensuring surveys, until 2017, when the figure crept up to 58%.

Brianne Gilbert, managing director of the center and a senior lecturer in urban and environmental studies and political science, said researchers had hoped that the 2017 increase was an anomaly.

“But it wasn’t. Not even close,” Gilbert said in a statement. “Now a full 68 percent of residents in Los Angeles think something like what happened in 1992 could happen again.”

{snip}