One of the largest armed camps in Los Angeles'
Koreatown was at the California Market. On the first night after the verdicts were returned in the trial of the four officers charged in the beating of Rodney King, Richard Rhee, the market owner, posted himself in the parking lot with about 20 armed employees.
[81] One year after the riots fewer than one in four damaged or destroyed businesses reopened, according to the survey conducted by the Korean-American Inter-Agency Council.
[82] According to a
Los Angeles Times survey conducted eleven months after the riots, almost 40% of Korean-Americans said they were thinking of leaving Los Angeles.
[83]
Before a verdict was issued in the new 1993
Rodney King federal civil rights trial against the four officers, Korean shop owners prepared for the worst as fear ran throughout the city, gun sales went up, virtually all of them by those of Korean descent,[
citation needed] some merchants at flea markets removed their merchandise from their shelves, storefronts were fortified with extra Plexiglas and bars. Throughout the region, merchants readied to defend themselves as if on the eve of a war.
[82] College student Elizabeth Hwang spoke of the attacks on her parents' convenience store in 1992 and the fact that if trouble erupted following the 1993 trial, that they were armed with a
Glock 17 pistol, a
Beretta and a
shotgun and they planned to barricade themselves in their store to fight off looters.
[82]
Some Koreans formed armed self-defense groups following the 1992 riots. Speaking just prior to the 1993 verdict, Mr. Yong Kim, leader of the Korea Young Adult Team of Los Angeles, which purchased five
AK-47s, stated, "We made a mistake last year. This time we won't. I don't know why Koreans are always a special target for African-Americans, but if they are going to attack our community then we are going to pay them back."
[82]