House in flames
Police try to hold back rioters
The Los Santos Riots are the final events of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. A major event in the Grand Theft Auto series, the riots started because of the acquittal of Frank Tenpenny during "Riot."
Timeline
The Riots Start
At Tenpenny's trial, he is acquitted of all of charges against him and Eddie Pulaski (who is dead due to the events in High Noon but is presumed by the media to be on the run) due to lack of evidence. The charges include corruption, sexual assault and the murder of fellow officer Ralph Pendelbury are dropped. This sparks mass public outrage, leading to city-wide riots, yet these are mostly centered on the lower-class areas in eastern Los Santos.
The following conditions are in place within Los Santos during the riots, which continue even in-between missions:
- Pedestrians will attack Carl, usually with their fists, with no provocation, while others will attempt carjacks.
- The number of carjackable vehicles plummets as many vehicles, including police cars and bikes, are abandoned and set on fire, exploding soon after.
- Engaging in certain outdoor activities, such as dating, spraying tags, and street racing, become more difficult as riot conditions can interfere.
- The sky over Los Santos darkens. Presumably caused by smoke from flames and gunfire.
- Loud murmur can be heard all across Los Santos.
The riots are confined to Los Santos; there is no rioting in Red County, Flint County, or any of the other cities and towns.
The Riots End
In the final mission of the game, Carl Johnson takes down Big Smoke in his crack den in Los Flores/East Los Santos. After Big Smoke's death, the building is blown up by Tenpenny, who then escapes in a fire truck, attempting to escape to the airport. Sweet grabs onto the firetruck, with CJ pursuing him in a white Feltzer. After Sweet is pushed off the truck by another officer, CJ catches him in the Feltzer, and they pursue Tenpenney through Los Santos, with many of the rioters throwing molotov cocktails and creating blockades. In crossing a bridge over Grove Street, Tenpenny loses control of the truck, crashing it into the road below and dying on the pavement. Due to his death, justice is seen to be done and the riots subside.
Aftermath
In the end, Smoke and Tenpenny were killed, and the crack palace in East Los Santos was destroyed. Many buildings and property were damaged, as well as numerous people killed. The riots were the largest and most dangerous event depicted in the Grand Theft Auto series to date.
Gang member glitch
There is a major glitch in the game when the riots are happening in Los Santos. If you travel to any other town or city in the state, members from the Grove Street Families and Los Santos Vagos can be found talking in the streets, and driving around, quite frequently. The GSF members will recognize you and try to interact with you. The Vagos will also recognize that you are from Grove Street, but will react in a far less aggressive way than in Los Santos, in fact, if you aim a weapon at them, they will most likely run away. The two different gangs will keep peace, and will not interact with each other. GSF members, however, are less frequent than the Vagos, and can rarely be found anywhere else than in Las Venturas. Gang members cannot be found after the riot is over, and they will not appear if you cheat a "riot mode".
Trivia
- The riots are clearly a reference to the 1992 LA Riots. These were caused by the acquittal at a trial of several police officers accused of unfair treatment to African-American Rodney King. No charges were levied against the officers, sparking outrage, clearly forming the inspiration for the Los Santos riots, both events also having taken place in the same year.
- If the player attacks a looter with a TV the TV will drop and fall through the floor, if this is done on a bridge, the player can go to the water under the bridge and see the TV floating in the water.
- When you enter any emergency vehicle, then go to an area where the riot occured, the following dialogues on the police scanner has changed. While listening to one of the conversations, you can hear screaming, people shouting, sirens, explosions, alarms, etc.
- Obviously, when a train passes where the riot is started, the driver will get out of the train, even though the train is indestructible.
- Enabling the Riot cheat (also known as the Chaos cheat) will engage riot conditions, however these will be statewide, and not confined to Los Santos.
- Strangely, if you walk close to a cloud of smoke coming from a building, and you stand over it, it disappears.
- The Johnson safehouse, and other properties owned by Carl may be seen to be on fire during the riot, but the buildings are never actually damaged by the flames.
- Even the buildings and houses are set in fire, the firetruck is coming to there but will shoot the water out of control, not to the house.
- Police Radio Chatter during the riots reports riot related disturbances throughout the state. It is posssible that the riots was originally through San Andreas and rockstar forgot to remove the reports. Or it may be there just for fun.
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