Some Empirical Patterns in a Riot Process

This study focuses on riot process. Detailed temporal and spatial data on over 1,850 instances of crowd action recorded during Los Angeles riot are categorized, quantified and analyzed. Data are generated using an adaptation of team reporting, in which a number of segments, or pieces of behavioral action, are combined to increase amount of information available on a complex event. Common crowd characterizations and riot classificatory and conceptual schemes using monolithic concepts (generalized belief, the foray for pillage, the rampage, the Roman holiday, and the siege) fare poorly under scrutiny of a large-scale empirical inquiry. The emerging patterns indicate need for studies which approach collective violence as a complex, diverse, dynamic and interactive behavioral process.