Spring 1992, and the City of Angels was suddenly a modern hell. During five terrifying days, as the world watched in horror, the deadliest urban rioting of the twentieth century laid waste to South Central Los Angeles. But there's a hidden story behind the riots. Lou Cannon, who covered Los Angeles for The Washington Post before, during, and after the violence, has exhaustively interviewed the survivors and learned the definitive story of just what happened and why.

Official Negligence takes us behind the scenes at City Hall and at police headquarters, inside jury rooms, onto the front lines of the violence in the streets, and into the hearts and minds of unknown heroes and tells, for the first time, a riveting tale of multiple injustices, mismanagements, and misjudgments.

Official Negligence illuminates all the characters and events surrounding what went wrong in Los Angeles. In so doing, it lays bare the ethnic, racial, and economic fault lines that divide American society at the approach of the millennium.