Latasha Harlins was a 15-year-old Black girl shot in the back of the head on March 16, 1991, by Korean American convenience store owner Soon Ja Du during a dispute over a $1.79 bottle of orange juice in South Central Los Angeles. The entire encounter was captured on the store’s security camera. Du was convicted of voluntary manslaughter but served no prison time, a sentence that, together with the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King, became one of the grievances that fueled the 1992 Los Angeles uprising.
Her Family and Neighborhood
Latasha grew up in South Central Los Angeles and was a student at Westchester High School at the time of her death. She lived with her grandmother, Ruth Harlins, and her siblings. Her mother, Crystal Harlins, had been shot and killed years earlier, which is how Ruth came to raise the children.
The neighborhood she lived in was shaped by economic disinvestment and high unemployment, and by rising tensions between Black residents and the Korean American shopkeepers who ran many of the local stores. Between January 1990 and May 1992, twenty-five Korean American shopkeepers were shot and killed in the area. Black customers, for their part, reported being followed and treated as suspects in the stores that served their own neighborhoods.
What Happened at Empire Liquor Market
On the morning of March 16, 1991, Latasha walked into Empire Liquor Market and Deli to buy orange juice for her family’s breakfast. She put the $1.79 bottle in her backpack while holding money in her hand. Soon Ja Du, working the counter, accused her of trying to steal. Two young witnesses in the store, nine-year-old Ismail Ali and his thirteen-year-old sister Lakeshia Combs, later told investigators that Latasha said she intended to pay.
The argument became physical. Du grabbed Latasha by her sweater and reached for the backpack. Latasha hit Du with her fist, knocking her to the ground behind the counter. Latasha then placed the orange juice on the counter and turned to leave.
As she walked away, Du picked up a .38 Special revolver from beneath the counter and fired once from roughly three feet away, striking Latasha in the back of the head. She died almost instantly. The revolver had been stolen from the store in 1988 and later recovered, and had been modified with a hair trigger while out of the family’s possession; Du’s defense argued she did not know about the modification.
The Charges and the Trial
The Los Angeles County District Attorney charged Du with second-degree murder, which under California law carries a sentence of fifteen years to life.1California Legislative Information. California Penal Code PEN 190 The security camera footage was the prosecution’s central evidence. It showed Latasha setting the juice on the counter and turning toward the door before Du fired.
Du’s defense argued self-defense, and in the alternative that the modified gun had discharged accidentally during the struggle. The jury rejected the murder charge and convicted her of voluntary manslaughter, which California defines as an unlawful killing during a sudden quarrel or in the heat of passion, without the malice required for murder.2California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 192 – Manslaughter The conviction exposed Du to a prison term of three, six, or eleven years.3California Legislative Information. California Code PEN 193
No Prison Time
Superior Court Judge Joyce Karlin presided over the sentencing. She calculated a ten-year prison term, combining a six-year base with a four-year firearm enhancement, and then suspended the entire sentence.4FindLaw. People v. Soon Ja Du In place of prison, Du received five years of formal probation, 400 hours of community service, a $500 payment to the state restitution fund, and an order to reimburse Latasha’s family for funeral costs and any out-of-pocket medical expenses.
Judge Karlin reasoned that Du had no prior record, had kept the gun lawfully to protect against repeated robberies at the store, and was unlikely to reoffend. She called the case “unusual” and said the statutory presumption against probation for firearm crimes was aimed at people who armed themselves to commit crimes, not shopkeepers who kept a gun behind the counter. The California Court of Appeal later upheld the sentence, concluding Karlin had stayed within the broad discretion the legislature gave sentencing judges.4FindLaw. People v. Soon Ja Du
A fifteen-year-old girl was dead on video, shot in the back of the head while walking away, and the woman who killed her would not spend a single day in jail.
Why the Case Became a Flashpoint
Latasha was killed on March 16, 1991. Thirteen days earlier, on March 3, LAPD officers had been recorded on video beating motorist Rodney King after a traffic stop. Two incidents, both on camera, both involving Black victims, both moving through the Los Angeles courts at the same time.
The Du sentencing came down in November 1991. On April 29, 1992, a Simi Valley jury acquitted the four officers who beat King. The acquittal was the spark for the uprising that followed, but the Harlins sentence was the accelerant. The two outcomes, read together, told many Angelenos that a store owner could kill a Black child on camera and walk free, and that four officers could beat a Black man nearly to death on camera and face no consequences. The uprising lasted six days and left more than sixty people dead, thousands injured, and roughly a billion dollars in property damage. Korean-owned businesses were disproportionately targeted.
Community organizations tried to recall Judge Karlin from the bench. The campaign fell short of the 304,000 signatures required to put the measure on the ballot. In a judicial retention race in June 1992, Karlin kept her seat with 50.7 percent of the vote, a margin of 8,360 ballots. She left the bench in 1997.
How She Is Remembered
In 1998, the California State Assembly designated April 29 as Latasha Harlins Day. On March 16, 2021, the thirtieth anniversary of her death, Los Angeles renamed the Alvin Sutton Recreation Center Playground in South Los Angeles as the Latasha Harlins Recreation Center Playground and unveiled a mural with her portrait at the site.
Her name still surfaces whenever a sentence seems disconnected from what a camera plainly recorded. Judge Karlin’s decision was legally permissible and survived appellate review. For the people who watched the footage and then watched the sentencing, that was never the same thing as justice.