Tag: riots

All the looting going on is horrible for small business owners to include many Korean-Americans:

Nights are long these days for many Koreans in every corner of the U.S.

Rioting and looting have become nightly events in major cities and small towns alike, and Korean mom-and-pop stores are just some of the countless businesses that continue to get ransacked, robbed and destroyed by angry mobs all across the nation.

“This is just like the LA riots all over again,” said Nancy Kim, 44, who owns a clothing shop near Koreatown in Los Angeles. “I was only 16 when the riots happened here, but I still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder from the horrifying scenes. I can’t believe almost 30 years later, we’re doing this all over again.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but according to the Joong Ang Ilbo the California National Guard has deployed to Koreatown which has prevented it from being attacked like they were back in 1992. Those riots led to the “Rooftop Koreans” meme.

It looks like Paris has their own example of apparent police misconduct being used as an excuse by thugs to riot and rob:

A group of South Korean tourists in Paris were robbed of their train tickets and one passport in what appeared to be a case linked to the recent unrest over alleged police brutality, officials said Sunday.

Some 40 Korean tourists were on a bus to their hotel around 9 p.m. Saturday (local time) when three or four black men boarded the bus and fled with the tourists’ Eurostar tickets and the passport of the group’s Korean tour guide, according to officials at the South Korean Embassy in Paris.

The men shouted and brandished what appeared to be glass bottles and struck some of the tourists on their heads. The group included children and senior citizens.

An official at the embassy urged caution in the suburbs north of Paris where the hotel is located, citing safety concerns. More than 2,000 protesters gathered in the nearby suburb of Bobigny the same day to express support for a 22-year-old black man who was alleged raped and subjected to unnecessary violence by police officers during his arrest on Feb. 2.  [Yonhap]

Here is a Arirang News report about the attack:

The fast response unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency trains against riots at a command inspection in Seoul on Feb. 23, 2016, testing their preparedness against violent protests, road occupation and other scenarios. (Yonhap)

When I was first stationed in Korea 15 years ago I can remember people both Korean and retired Americans telling stories about how a black soldier was hung by Korean civilians outside of Camp Humphreys for killing a Korean man.  I was always skeptical of this claim, but as it turns out there was a grain of truth to the story.  I recently decided to research this story to see if I can make a GI Flashbacks article about it.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the always informative Popular Gusts blog had already researched this very topic. The site posted an article from the Stars and Stripes that was published in 1971 that explained what caused a race riot to occur in the Anjeong-ri ville just outside of Camp Humphreys:

Black GIs on Rampage
Riot-Torn Anjong-Ni—Why It Happened

By M. SGT. JIM FREELAND and JIM LEA
S&S Korea Bureau

ANJONG-NI, Korea—A sign hangs on the rear wall of the security guard house at the Camp Humphreys main gate which lists the names of 12 bars.

Beside each is a pair of nails from which a small plaque is hung to tell American GIs who are the life’s blood of this village of perhaps 2,000 population, 60 miles south of Seoul, the situation in each bar. A black plaque means the place is on limits; a yellow one means it is off limits.

Since 9:30 p.m. July 10, all the plaques have been yellow. The sign will remain that way for a very long time, Camp Humphreys commander, Col. John C. McWhorter, says.

A few minutes past 9 p.m. that Friday, 50 black soldiers from Camp Humphreys walked into Duffy’s Tavern, one of the plushest of the bars which line a pathway GIs call “the alley,” climbed up on the stage and told everyone to leave the club. In minutes, they had demolished it and moved on to three other clubs which, they say, discriminate against blacks. Those were demolished too. “They didn’t stay around each place very long,” McWhorter said.

“They hit one place, then moved to the next. Some news stories have said there were whites involved, but that is not true. This was between a group of black soldiers and Koreans.”

More than 200 MPs and Korean National Police swarmed into the area and struggled to separate the combatants. McWhorter ordered the village put off limits and the MPs began moving Americans back up Anjong-Ni’s single dusty street.

“We had about 80 men who were moving back toward the gate with a crowd of Koreans following them. The Koreans started throwing rocks and, to break up the crowd and protect the camp, we used tear gas grenades/’ he said.

“Some shots were fired from .45 cal. pistols.

“No one was shot down here. There are rumors that some people were shot but that isn’t true. All the shots were fired into the air to break up the crowds.”

Four bars were extensively damaged. Four days after the riot, young Korean men loafed amidst the wreckage, playing go (Japanese chess), coming alert only when newsmen came in too look at the damage. Then, they hobbled about.

The bar owners are claiming 20 million won ($54,000) damage and the 8th Army Claims Office is accepting claims. If they are legitimate, they will be paid, an Army spokesman said.

The damage does not appear that extensive.

There were no houses damaged. One shop window was broken, apparently by a rock, and the Koreans reportedly were throwing the rocks.

By 11:30 p.m., most of the Americans were out of the village and safely behind concertina wire which had been stretched across the gate. About 10 U.S. dependents were moved out of the village and onto the compound.

“There was one man down here on leave with his wife. We brought them on the base Friday night and moved them out the next day,” McWhorter said.

Saturday, U.S. MPs swept through the village twice in a door-to-door search for other Americans.

“There was a lot of anger out there, a lot of tension. The men who got caught in it went into hiding. They were afraid,” McWhorter said.

One man, a Negro, was caught by villagers as he tried to make his way back to Camp Humphreys Saturday and was beaten. Police rescued him. Another man, who was injured Friday night, was found during a search and was taken back to the post dispensary.

“This man was not involved in the riot. He’s one of my best EOT (equal opportunities and treatment) men, and he definitely was not involved in it.

“We don’t know, yet, exactly who was involved. We’re investigating, but no one has been charged yet. There were many people hurt, but just because a person was hurt doesn’t mean that he was involved in it. Many were simply bystanders.

Anjong-Ni is not an unusual village.

Its single unpaved, pot-holed street is lined with vegetable stores, a hotel — which the manager says soon will boast a miniature golf course and a swimming pool—tailor and shoe shops which hawk the outlandish fashions of the young and souvenir stores which offer everything from peace beads to intricately etched Korean brassware.

The 12 bars which dot “the alley” are by GI bar standards in Korea, plush, but they are like GI gin mills anywhere. Camp Humphreys is Anjong-Ni’s major industry. It is the reason the village was built and the people and the village could not exist without it.

Its future is now shrouded in a cloud which has put the economy of other towns, other people, in jeopardy: racial discrimination.

Duffy’s, where Friday night’s riot began, is a major source of the discrimination, blacks say.

“We have no place here to relax. The bartenders don’t like to serve us, the girls don’t like to sit with us,” they say.

These are the same complaints that other GIs in Japan, the Philippines, in other areas of Asia, have. They are difficult to prove.

In Friday night’s riot, 14 Americans and Koreans were injured and were treated at U.S. military medical facilities. One Korean, a slim man nicknamed “Johnny,” the manager of Duffy’s, was evacuated to the 121st Evac. Hospital in Seoul for treatment of three stab wounds in the abdomen.

In town, people were saying Johnny was dead and a secret funeral had been held for him Monday.

Monday afternoon, Johnny was returned from Seoul and he was driven from the base to his home in a Pacific Stars and Stripes station wagon, one of the few U.S. forces vehicles allowed into the village that day. As we moved through the concertina wire at the gate, people in a crowd glared at us. The crowd had gathered a few moments earlier when base officials decided to allow Korean women through the gate to visit their boy friends.

Then someone recognized Johnny and word that he was not dead spread quickly down the street. In seconds, the hostility vanished and people ran alongside the car, shouting welcome home and smiling for the first time in four days.

As we took him home, Johnny told us about his club and about what happened.

“I was in the club about 9 p.m. and a bunch of black soldiers came in and told everybody to get out. I ran next door to call the police. We’ve had a lot of trouble here before and I knew, there was going to be trouble again.”

“When I got back to the club, I couldn’t get inside because the black soldiers had pushed everybody out. I could hear them tearing up the place. When they left, I followed them to the street. There were a lot of people around and suddenly someone stabbed me. I don’t know who did it. There were too many people around.”

“I don’t know why they did it. Somebody said it was because there was fight between a black soldier and a white soldier at my club early in the evening. That’s not true. There wasn’t any fight before 9 p.m.

We asked point-blank if there was racial discrimination in Duffy’s.

Johnny lowered his head and answered very quietly, “no.”

“Is the service you give whites any different than that you give blacks?”

He ignored the question and waved out the window at a woman who was running beside the car, waving at him.

The manager of another bar gave at least one piece of concrete evidence of discrimination.

“A lot of it has to do with credit. Many of the bars use chit books. When a soldier doesn’t have any money he can use the chits and pay on pay day. We had a bar owners meeting and some of us argued that the chit books are no good. They only cause problems.”

He said other bar owners will extend credit to white soldiers, but not to blacks. He said his bar does not extend credit, to anyone.

Some people in town — and some on base — say that gangsters have been brought into town to keep the blacks out. They say the gangsters are being paid two million won ($5,400) for the job.

“All I know,” an MP said, “is that since Friday a lot of girls have been leaving and a lot of men have been coming in.”

“Those are rumors,” McWhorter said. “We’ve heard that’s being done and are investigating, but so far we haven’t confirmed it.”

The riot at Anjong-Ni Friday night has served one purpose: It has brought the black soldiers and white soldiers a little closer together.

Monday, when GIs were allowed to go back into the village with an MP escort to pick up their belongings, blacks were not allowed to go.

“No sweat, man,” white GIs said time and again, “I’ll get your stuff for you.”

Anjong-Ni’s bars now are faced with a choice: Either clean up their town and end discrimination or go broke.

“The village will stay off limits indefinitely,” McWhorter said. “It will be off limits until each man who goes out the gate receives the same treatment as the next man.”  [Popular Gusts]

I highly recommend reading the whole Popular Gusts article which begins with Part 1 at this link and Part 2 at this link.  The comments section above Part 2 is especially informative since servicemembers who were in Korea during this time frame provided further context of what happened.  What appears to have happened is that a group of black servicemembers decided to riot in protest of the segregation of the clubs and general discrimination against them in the Anjeong-ri ville. During the riot one of the popular club managers named “Johnny” was stabbed and evacuated to the 121 Hospital on Yongsan Garrison. It is interesting that Johnny and other Koreans that were injured were treated at the military hospital at the time because such a thing would not happen today.

Korea Times article from 1971

However, rumors spread that Johnny had died which caused anger with the Koreans in the Anjeong-ri ville.  The Koreans started to hunt down servicemembers in the ville which caused many to go in hiding and wait evacuation, some by helicopter to escape the vigilantes.  Despite the vigilantism there was no such incident as a black GI ever being hanged.  It seems like this was just a rumor that spread just like the one saying Johnny had died. Fortunately no one did die from this riot in Anjeong-ri, but it shows that Camp Humphreys and Anjeong-ri have had historically a love-hate relationship at times.  Some recent example are the Braveheart style battles that occurred in 2005 over the Camp Humphreys expansion and the nasty fight over off limits club bans in 2006.

Back in 1971 the protests did spread to other bases in Korea such as in the TDC ville outside of Camp Casey which saw only two people injured.  However as the above Korea Times article shows three black GIs attacked and stabbed a white GI to death in Busan.  It is incidents like this that show how far the Army has come since 1971 and hopefully we never seen anything like this ever happen again.

Note: You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link: 

Despite people doing damage and theft like this we are not supposed to call them thugs?  What else should this behavior be called?:

Richard Sung Kang’s American dream shattered along with his liquor store’s window during the Baltimore riots earlier this week.

The 49-year-old Korean immigrant saw his liquor store and bar, the Oxford Tavern, wrecked by a group of violent rioters following the funeral of Freddie Gray, who died of a spinal injury he apparently received while in police custody. Despite Sung closing the front door, the looters smashed the window and plundered the establishment. Even the store’s ATM was torn out, leaving a gaping hole in the exterior wall of the building.

“This is America. I wanted to follow my dream and wanted to make something for myself,” Kang told the Associated Press. He added that it was only his first year of owning the business and was unsure of reopening the store, as it could mean taking on more debt and paying higher insurance premiums.

“The most important thing is, I have to move on,” Kang said as his locksmiths worked on his doors. “But is it better to rebuild and start again or give up and find some other place? I don’t know.”  [KoreAm Journal]

You can read the rest at the link, but according to the article 200 small businesses were unable to open after the riots with 40 Korean-American owned businesses among them. If many of these businesses do not re-open than that will just further cause economic problems in area already economically depressed in the first place.

As much as I don’t like the rioters in Baltimore comparing them to ISIS seems inappropriate to me, but that is what the Korea Times cartoonist has done:

Just when you thought things could not get any worse in Baltimore it does with CNN trying to push a narrative that US military veterans caused the riots:

In a pathetic suck-up interview with Democrat Congressman Elijah Cummins, Baldwin never once had the moral courage to ask the failed Baltimore City congressman if the left-wing policies ushered in by a half-century of a Democrat monopoly in Baltimore might have something to do with the city’s ills. Instead, she said of young military veterans who become police officers, “I love our nation’s veterans, but some of them are coming back from war, they don’t know the communities, and they are ready to do battle.”

The context was a discussion about increased training and retraining for the Baltimore police.  [Breitbart]

Does she even know how many people in the Baltimore police department are veterans?  Then those that are veterans how many have even deployed or seen combat?  You would think a news reporter would do some basic fact checking before making such a sweeping statement. Here is how she tried to initially rationalize what she said:

Folks. Please don't misunderstand me. Dear friends/family of mine are veterans. I was repeating a concern vocalized to me lately. That's it.

— Brooke Baldwin (@BrookeBaldwin) April 28, 2015

So if someone made a inappropriate sweeping statement about the rioters with no facts to substantiate it would she vocalize that as well?  Since then she has been forced to apologize on air for the remark.

What is ironic about this is that it is the military veterans in the National Guard that had to come in to restore order.

I am not at all familiar with St. Louis so I was wondering if Korean-Americans had opened businesses in the black neighborhoods there like they have in other major cities.  It appears they have which of course has made them targets of the rioters:

The violent protests in Ferguson, Missouri, over a grand jury decision not to indict a white police officer who fatally shot a black teen destroyed two Korean stores.

Among the roughly 20 stores that are run by Korean nationals in Ferguson, two were burned down and another five or six were looted or had their windows broken as of Wednesday, according to the Korean American Association of St. Louis.

The cost of damages has exceeded $2 million.

The stores, most of which sell cell phones and beauty products, were attacked because they are on a road leading to the Ferguson Police Department.

Local police are reportedly blocking that road now, although business owners were recommended to suspend their businesses as people continue to protest the decision over Officer Darren Wilson, who fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown in August.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.