Angry rioters in LA beat truck driver Reginald Denny 20 years ago this hour (1992)

(Wednesday, April 29, 1992, 6:46 p.m. PDT) — Reginald Oliver Denny, a white truck driver who stopped at a traffic light in Los Angeles, was dragged from his vehicle and severely beaten tonight by a mob of local black residents as news helicopters hovered above, recording every blow, including a concrete fragment connecting with Denny’s temple and a cinder block thrown at his head as he lay unconscious in the street.

Deadly rioting had erupted in Los Angeles after a jury in Simi Valley today acquitted four Los Angeles police officers this afternoon of almost all state charges in the videotaped beating of Rodney King.