On March 3, 1991, Rodney King and two passengers were driving west on the Foothill Freeway (I-210) through the Lake View Terrace neighborhood of Los Angeles.
The California Highway Patrol attempted to initiate a traffic stop and a high-speed pursuit ensued with speeds estimated at up to 115 mph through freeways then residential neighborhoods.
When King came to a stop, C.H.P. husband-and-wife team Timothy and Melanie Singer ordered the occupants under arrest.After two passengers were placed in the patrol car, five
Los Angeles Police Department
(LAPD)
officers
(Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind,
Theodore Briseno, and Rolando Solano)
attempted to subdue King, who came out of the car last.
King was tackled, tasered, heavily beaten with Pr24 batons, and kicked in the head.
According to the officers, King was under the influence of narcotics at the time of arrest.
Due to the circumstances,
King made repeated attempts to get up and continued to ignore officer demands that he place his hands behind his back and stop resisting.
The incident was captured on camcorder by George Holliday from his apartment in the vicinity.
The actual tape was roughly ten minutes long.
The first few minutes of the incident showed King resisting arrest and being excessively violent toward the officers.
While the case was presented to the court, clips of the incident were not released to the public.
In a later interview,
King, who was on parole from prison on a robbery conviction and who had past convictions for assault, battery and robbery, said that, being on parole, he feared apprehension and being returned to prison for parole violations.
The footage of King being beaten by police while lying on the ground became a focus for media attention and a rallying point for activists in Los Angeles and around the United States.
Coverage was extensive during the initial two weeks after the incident: the Los Angeles Times published forty-three articles about the incident , the New York Times published seventeen articles , and the Chicago Tribune published eleven articles .
Eight stories appeared on ABC News, including a sixty-minute special on Primetime Live.
The Los Angeles District Attorney subsequently charged all four police officers with assault and use of excessive force.
Due to the heavy media coverage of the arrest, the trial received a change of venue from Los Angeles County to a newly constructed courthouse in the more predominantly white and politically conservative city of Simi Valley in neighboring Ventura County.
However, no Simi Valley residents served on the jury, which was drawn from the nearby San Fernando Valley, a predominantly white and Hispanic area, and composed of ten whites, one Hispanic, and one Asian.
The prosecutor, Terry White, was black.
On April 29, 1992, the seventh day of jury deliberations, the jury acquitted all four officers of assault and acquitted three of the four of using excessive force.
The jury could not agree on a verdict for the fourth officer charged with using excessive force.
The verdicts were based in part on the first two seconds of a blurry, 13-second segment of the video tape that was edited out by television news stations in their broadcast.
During the first two seconds of videotape, Rodney King allegedly gets up off the ground and runs from the general direction of one of the police officers,
Laurence Powell, but this allegation is disputed due to the blurriness of the video. During the next one minute and 19 seconds, however, King is beaten continuously by the officers.
The officers testified that they tried to physically restrain King prior to the starting point of the videotape but, according to the officers,
King was able to physically throw them off himself.
Another theory offered by the prosecution for the officers' acquittal is that the jurors may have become desensitized to the violence of the beating, as the defense played the videotape repeatedly in slow motion, breaking it down until its emotional impact was lost.
God is good and will protect those who stand up for them selves
The California Highway Patrol attempted to initiate a traffic stop and a high-speed pursuit ensued with speeds estimated at up to 115 mph through freeways then residential neighborhoods.
When King came to a stop, C.H.P. husband-and-wife team Timothy and Melanie Singer ordered the occupants under arrest.After two passengers were placed in the patrol car, five
Los Angeles Police Department
(LAPD)
officers(Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind,
Theodore Briseno, and Rolando Solano)
attempted to subdue King, who came out of the car last.
King was tackled, tasered, heavily beaten with Pr24 batons, and kicked in the head.
According to the officers, King was under the influence of narcotics at the time of arrest.
Due to the circumstances,
King made repeated attempts to get up and continued to ignore officer demands that he place his hands behind his back and stop resisting.
The incident was captured on camcorder by George Holliday from his apartment in the vicinity.
The actual tape was roughly ten minutes long.
The first few minutes of the incident showed King resisting arrest and being excessively violent toward the officers.
While the case was presented to the court, clips of the incident were not released to the public.
In a later interview,
King, who was on parole from prison on a robbery conviction and who had past convictions for assault, battery and robbery, said that, being on parole, he feared apprehension and being returned to prison for parole violations.
The footage of King being beaten by police while lying on the ground became a focus for media attention and a rallying point for activists in Los Angeles and around the United States.
Coverage was extensive during the initial two weeks after the incident: the Los Angeles Times published forty-three articles about the incident , the New York Times published seventeen articles , and the Chicago Tribune published eleven articles .
Eight stories appeared on ABC News, including a sixty-minute special on Primetime Live.
The Los Angeles District Attorney subsequently charged all four police officers with assault and use of excessive force.
Due to the heavy media coverage of the arrest, the trial received a change of venue from Los Angeles County to a newly constructed courthouse in the more predominantly white and politically conservative city of Simi Valley in neighboring Ventura County.
However, no Simi Valley residents served on the jury, which was drawn from the nearby San Fernando Valley, a predominantly white and Hispanic area, and composed of ten whites, one Hispanic, and one Asian.
The prosecutor, Terry White, was black.
On April 29, 1992, the seventh day of jury deliberations, the jury acquitted all four officers of assault and acquitted three of the four of using excessive force.
The jury could not agree on a verdict for the fourth officer charged with using excessive force.
The verdicts were based in part on the first two seconds of a blurry, 13-second segment of the video tape that was edited out by television news stations in their broadcast.
During the first two seconds of videotape, Rodney King allegedly gets up off the ground and runs from the general direction of one of the police officers,
Laurence Powell, but this allegation is disputed due to the blurriness of the video. During the next one minute and 19 seconds, however, King is beaten continuously by the officers.
The officers testified that they tried to physically restrain King prior to the starting point of the videotape but, according to the officers,
King was able to physically throw them off himself.
Another theory offered by the prosecution for the officers' acquittal is that the jurors may have become desensitized to the violence of the beating, as the defense played the videotape repeatedly in slow motion, breaking it down until its emotional impact was lost.
God is good and will protect those who stand up for them selves
No comments:
Post a Comment