It's tempting to look at recent headlines about unarmed African Americans dying at the hands of police officers and conclude that little has changed since 1965, when a traffic stop and the arrest of Marquette Frye triggered what became known as the Watts riots. Six days of mayhem from Aug. 11-17, primarily in South Los Angeles, left 34 people dead — most of them killed by police or the National Guard — millions of dollars in damage and a city trying to figure out what went wrong.
Then-Police Chief William H. Parker chalked it up to a few anti-police types who incited the community.