The 1991 Washington, D.C., riot, sometimes referred to as the Mount Pleasant riot or Mount Pleasant Disturbance, occurred in May 1991, when rioting broke out in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in response to an African-American female police officer having shot a Salvadoran man in the chest following a Cinco de Mayo celebration.
Background
Mount Pleasant is a neighborhood in Ward 1 of Washington, D.C. Located north of Adams Morgan and west of Columbia Heights, the neighborhood was one of the most diverse in the nation, with a population of roughly equal proportions of black, Hispanic, and white residents, along with Vietnamese, Laotians, Indians, and South Korean ones.
Shooting incident
On Sunday evening, May 5, 1991, following a Cinco de Mayo street celebration in nearby Adams Morgan, Angela Jewell, a rookie Metropolitan Police Department police officer Witnesses disputed whether the drunken man came at her with a hunting knife, but the result was that she shot and wounded the man in the chest.
Riot
The man was shot and left paralyzed. While he was handcuffed, crowds of youths, most in their teens and twenties, formed and started to attack the police. Around 400 youths fought running street battles with the police for several hours, late into the night. Police cars were set on fire and several stores looted. The District's mayor, Sharon Pratt Dixon, told the police to hold back from making arrests for looting, allegedly because she feared it would antagonize the crowd and lead to more violence. By evening, even with 1,000 riot police on the streets, the rioting started again. Police fought with as many as 600 black and Hispanic youths, some with bandanas over their faces. Hundreds of police officers descended onto the neighborhood to enforce the 7:00 pm curfew and curb violence. Although there were some reports of rock and bottle throwing, no further stores were looted or fires set. Most people in the area stayed in their homes, afraid of being arrested for breaking the curfew. The riot was essentially over. people had been arrested, most of them for curfew violations. Fifty people had been injured, mostly police. Over 60 police vehicles had been either destroyed or damaged, along with 21 city transit buses.
Legacy
The DC Mayor's Office of Latino Affairs since then has made some progress with the Latino community. The 2008 Performance Accountability Report showed that more Latino organizations were getting city funds, more Latino parents were taking a bigger role in the public schools, and the government was readily making information available in Spanish.<!--and issues with police? -->
See also
- List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States
- 1968 Washington, D.C., riots
- Washington race riot of 1919