Editing 1992 Los Angeles riots (section)

====Preparations ahead of the 1993 verdict====
One of the largest armed camps in Los Angeles's Koreatown congregated at the California Market. On the first night after the officers' verdicts were returned, Richard Rhee, the market owner, set up camp in the parking lot with about 20 armed employees.<ref name="Los Angeles Times">{{cite news |title=Cover Story – The Man Behind the Monster |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-07-28-ca-436-story.html |work=Los Angeles Times |date=July 28, 1991 |access-date=August 30, 2009 |first=Robert |last=Pittman}}</ref> One year after the riots, fewer than one in four damaged or destroyed businesses had reopened, according to the survey conducted by the Korean American Inter-Agency Council.<ref name="NY Times">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/10/us/korean-shop-owners-fearful-of-outcome-of-beating-trial.html?pagewanted=all |title=Korean Shop Owners Fearful Of Outcome of Beating Trial |work=The New York Times |access-date=August 25, 2016|first=Seth |last=Mydans |date=April 10, 1993}}</ref> According to a ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' survey conducted eleven months after the riots, almost 40 percent of Korean Americans said they were thinking of leaving Los Angeles.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-19-me-12656-story.html |date=March 19, 1993 |title=40% of Koreans in Poll Ponder Leaving : Riots: Survey of business owners finds deep concern. Blacks also voice fears but fewer want to relocate. |author=K. Connie Kang |newspaper=Los Angeles Times|access-date=August 11, 2011}}</ref>

Before a verdict was issued in the new 1993 Rodney King federal civil rights trial against the four officers, many Korean shop owners prepared for violence. Gun sales increased sharply, many to people of Korean descent; some merchants at flea markets removed merchandise from shelves, and they fortified storefronts with extra [[Plexiglas]] and bars. Throughout the region, merchants readied to defend themselves, and others formed armed militia groups.<ref name="NY Times"/> College student Elizabeth Hwang spoke of the attacks on her parents' convenience store in 1992. She said at the time of the 1993 trial, they had been armed with a [[Glock 17]] pistol, a [[Beretta M9|Beretta]], and a [[shotgun]], and they planned to barricade themselves in their store to fight off looters.<ref name="NY Times" />