The Violent 90s

Fathoming the unfathomable…

1992, April 19- May 2: Rodney King Riot. Tens of thousands riot over an adverse court decision about police brutality, more than 50 die, over half a billion dollars in property damage.

1992, August 21: Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Federal law enforcement assaults the home and hideout of fugitive white racist and separatist Randy Weaver, killing his wife and teenage son.

1992: Militia Movements. White separatists arm themselves and begin preparing for the coming societal collapse.

1993: Urban Drug wars. Young black males murder each other 6 times more often than white youths. The murder of black men outpaces by the same rate turn-of-the-century white lynch mobs that executed a black man once every 2 ½ days.

1993, March 10: Abortion Terrorism. Self-righteous fanatics murder Dr. David Gunn in Pensacola, Florida. More murders and terrorism take place through 1998.

1993, April 19: Hellfire in Waco, Texas. Government police agencies, the ATF and the FBI, assault cultists.

1994, July 29: Abortion Terrorism in Pensacola. Director of Right-To-Life group Defensive Action, Paul Hill, murders a physician and abortion clinic escort, wounding another escort.

1994, December 30: Abortion Terrorism. In Brookline, MA, John Salvi kills 2 clinic workers, five others wounded. Salvi then drives to Norfolk, VA, and fires 23 rounds into an abortion clinic there.

1995, April 19: Oklahoma City bombing. Right-wing extremists bomb a federal building in the heartland killing 168 men and women, including 19 children.

1996, February 19: School Shooting in Bethel, Alaska. A sixteen year old kills his principal and a fellow student, wounding 2 others.

1996, July: Racial Terrorism. 74 black churches are burned from between January 1995 and July 1996.  Attacks on houses of worship have been rising dramatically since 1994.

1997, October 1: School Shooting. Student shoots 11, killing 2 students, plus his mother, in Pearl, Mississippi.

1997, December 1: School Shooting. 14 year old kills five fellow students in West Paducah, Kentucky.

1998, March 24: School Shooting. Two students, aged 13 and 11, open fire at Westside Middle School, killing 5, including a teacher, in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

1998, May 21: School Shooting. In Springfield, Oregon, fifteen year old Kip Kinkel shoots 22 students at his high school, killing 2. Before coming to Thurston High School he kills both his parents.

1998, June 7: Hate Crime. James Byrd lynched. A black man is dragged from the back of a pickup until dead and dismembered in Texas.

1998, August 9:  Police Brutality/Hate Crime. New York City cops beat and sodomize a black man with a broomstick.

1998, October 7: Hate Crime/Lynching. Mathew Shepard, a young gay man, is tied to a fence, pistol whipped and left for dead outside Laramie, Wyoming.

1998, October 26: Abortion Terrorism: Dr. Barnet Slepian is murdered in front of his wife and son at his home. The shots are fired by a sniper from a wooded area behind Slepian's home.

1998, December 28: Police Brutality. Four white Riverside, California, cops shoot a black woman as she sits in her car.

1999, February 4: Police Brutality. New York City police shoot unarmed black man 41 times.

1999, April 20: Columbine Massacre. Fifteen dead in Columbine High School in Colorado, 50 bombs and booby traps concealed throughout the school including on the bodies of the two dead perpetrators — both are students at the school.

1999, May 20: Copycat Crime. A fifteen year old opens fire on fellow high school students in Conyers, GA, wounding six. Shooter tries to kill himself, but an assistant principal pulls the .357 magnum revolver from the boy's mouth.

1999, July 2-4: Hate Crime. A 21 year old white supremacist kills two and wounds nine in an act of "leaderless resistance" during a rampage in Illinois and Indiana.

1999, July 19: Mass Murder. In Atlanta, GA, a 44 year old man kills nine, wounds 13 after bludgeoning his wife and two young children to death, apparently prompted by anxiety over loosing hundreds of thousands of dollars day-trading.

1999, August 10: Hate Crime/Attempted Mass Murder. In another act of "leaderless resistance," a white supremacist (aged 37) uses an Uzi and a 9mm Glock in a Jewish community center in LA, wounding 3 children, a teenager and an adult. He later murders an Hispanic mailman because he wasn't white and worked for the federal government.

Lawlessness and chaos …

                                     howard@howardsmead.com                                 © Howard Smead 2013