March
On June 15, 1932, the House of Representatives passed the Wright Patman Bonus Bill which would have moved forward the date for World War I veterans to receive their cash bonus.
Most of the Bonus Army camped in a Hooverville on the Anacostia Flats, a swampy, muddy area across the Anacostia River from the federal core of Washington, just south of the 11th Street Bridges (now Section C of Anacostia Park). The camps, built from materials scavenged from a nearby rubbish dump, were tightly controlled by the veterans who laid out streets, built sanitation facilities, and held daily parades. To live in the camps, veterans were required to register and prove they had been honorably discharged.
The Bonus Army massed at the United States Capitol on June 17 as the U.S. Senate defeated the Bonus Bill by a vote of 62-18.
Police shooting
The marchers remained at their campsite waiting for President Hoover to act. On July 28, 1932, Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the police to remove the Bonus Army veterans from their camp. When the veterans moved back into it, they rushed two policemen trapped on the second floor of a building. The cornered police drew their revolvers and shot two veterans, William Hushka and Eric Carlson, who died later.
William Hushka (1895–1932) was an immigrant to the United States from Lithuania. When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, he sold his butcher shop in St. Louis, Missouri and joined the United States Army. After the war he lived in Chicago.Hushka is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Eric Carlson (1894 – July 28, 1932) was a U.S. veteran from Oakland, California. He fought in the trenches of France in World War I. He was interred in Arlington National Cemetery.
When told of the shootings, President Hoover ordered the army to evict the Bonus Army from Washington.
U.S. Army intervention
At 4:45 p.m., commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of civil service employees left work to line the street and watch. The Bonus Marchers, believing the troops were marching in their honor, cheered the troops until Patton ordered[citation needed] the cavalry to charge them—an action which prompted the spectators to yell, "Shame! Shame!"
After the cavalry charged, the infantry, with fixed bayonets and tear gas (adamsite, an arsenical vomiting agent) entered the camps, evicting veterans, families, and camp followers. The veterans fled across the Anacostia River to their largest camp and President Hoover ordered the assault stopped. However Gen. MacArthur, feeling the Bonus March was an attempt to overthrow the U.S. government, ignored the President and ordered a new attack. Fifty-five veterans were injured and 135 arrested.A veteran's wife miscarried. When 12-week-old Bernard Myers died in the hospital after being caught in the tear gas attack, a government investigation reported he died of enteritis, while a hospital spokesman said the tear gas "didn't do it any good."
During the military operation, Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, later the 34th President of the United States, served as one of MacArthur's junior aides.Believing it wrong for the Army's highest-ranking officer to lead an action against fellow American war veterans, he strongly advised MacArthur against taking any public role: "I told that dumb son-of-a-***** not to go down there," he said later. "I told him it was no place for the Chief of Staff." Despite his misgivings, Eisenhower later wrote the Army's official incident report which endorsed MacArthur's conduct.
1992 Los Angeles riots
The 1992 Los Angeles Riots, also known as the Rodney King Riots, the South Central Riots, the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Disturbance, and the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest, were a series of riots, lootings, arsons and civil disturbance that occurred in Los Angeles County, California in 1992, following the acquittal of police officers on trial regarding a videotaped and widely-covered police brutality incident. They were the largest riots seen in the United States since the 1960s and the worst in terms of death toll after the New York City draft riots in 1863.
The riot was first started in South Los Angeles and then eventually spread out into other areas over a six-day period within the Los Angeles metropolitan area in California beginning in April 1992. The riots started on April 29 after a trial jury acquitted four Los Angeles Police Department officers of assault and use of excessive force. The mostly white officers were videotaped beating an African-American man named Rodney King following a high-speed police pursuit. Thousands of people throughout the metropolitan area in Los Angeles rioted over six days following the announcement of the verdict.
Widespread looting, assault, arson and murder occurred during the riots, and estimates of property damages topped one billion dollars. The rioting ended after soldiers from the California Army National Guard, the 7th Infantry Division, and marines from 1st Marine Division were called in to stop the rioting after the local police could not handle the situation. In total, 53 people were killed during the riots and over 2,000 people were injured.