At around midnight the police decided that their presence was antagonizing the crowd, and they withdrew from the scene. The mob was triumphant and had no intention of dispersing. Newsmen who stayed behind after the police left were attacked, and rioters overturned the mobile television-news vans. By this time local store owners were feeling the wrath of the crowd's anger, too: rioters smashed shop windows and made off with the merchandise they found inside. The hostility they felt for the oppressive environment in which they lived fueled their anger. "Burn, baby, burn," which was the trademark phrase for a disc jockey of one of Los Angeles's black-music stations, became the motto for the rioters over the course of the uprising. As their rage grew, they attacked blacks as well as whites: as a black automobile worker reported, he was on his way home...