Latasha Harlins was a fifteen-year-old girl in South Los Angeles who was shot dead in the back of the head after a convenience store owner had wrongly accused her of trying to steal a bottle of orange juice. The anniversary of her murder is rapidly approaching – Latasha died on March 16th, 1991. She was murdered a mere two weeks after the now world-infamous beating of motorist Rodney King, and while his videotaped beating riveted the attention of the entire world, Latasha remains mostly a local story even to the present day. In February of 2021 a mural was unveiled in South Central in her memory.
Latasha Harlins was an honor student living with relatives because her mother had been murdered. She went to the Empire Liquor store on the morning of Saturday March 16th, 1991 to buy a bottle of orange juice. After the store owner accused her of trying to steal the bottle of orange juice, Latasha set the bottle down on the counter and turned to leave the store. The store owner pulled a gun from underneath the counter and shot Latasha in the back of the head. Later, the coroner would find two crumpled dollar bills still in her dead hand.
At first, it seemed as if the criminal justice system was working to right the wrong of Latasha’s murder. Her killer was found guilty by a jury and was facing about 15 years in state prison. However, the judge in her case felt sorry for the woman, and decided to ignore the jury’s decision as well as the information contained in a presentencing report which was highly critical of the killer. There was videotaped evidence from the convenience store security cameras as well as the testimony of two eyewitnesses, children even younger than Latasha who were also customers in the store at the time.
In recent times, some have considered the possibility that the real spark of the 1992 riots was not actually motorist Rodney King, but rather, the murder of Latasha Harlins. In 2013, Brenda Stevenson wrote a book entitled “The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins” in which the author examines this very possibility.
The murder of Latasha Harlins and the sympathetic way the judge in her murder case took the side of her Korean-born killer had a great deal to do with the ensuing hatred of Asian store owners in South Los Angeles. One of my best friend’s mothers recalls as the 1992 riots began, she found herself yelling “Take one for Latasha!” at the TV every time a store with Asian signage was looted or set on fire. As an older woman, she acknowledges today that she no longer feels this anger, and acknowledges that the behavior of one person (in this case the killer of Latasha Harlins) does not speak for the entire group.
The story of what happened to Latasha Harlins would haunt and shape the lives of a great many people, including rapper Tupac Shakur. In at least five different songs he wrote and performed, he talked about Latasha. The first song, “Keep Ya Head Up”, was dedicated to her memory.
EULA LOVE
Eula Love is a name most familiar to Angelenos over a certain age. In 1979, this 39-year-old African-American woman was shot to death by two LAPD officers after she waved a knife at them. She was a recent widow and under a great deal of mental stress as a result of her utilities being shut off after she couldn’t afford to pay her gas bill. There were some reforms implemented regarding LAPD officers and their use of force after Eula Love died, but the entire upcoming 1980s was a very difficult time for African-Americans who lived in Los Angeles when it came to interactions with the police.
RoxanneAdams 