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The Rodney King Beating On March 3, 1991, Los Angeles police officers attempted to stop a white sedan traveling at a high rate of speed through Lake View Terrace, a residential neighborhood in northern Los Angeles. After a short pursuit, King was ordered out of his vehicle at gunpoint. King refused to comply and became belligerent and uncooperative. The use of open-hand controls, pepper spray and tasers were ineffective, as King continued to assault officers while resisting arrest. More LAPD officers arrived and King was finally subdued with the use of nightsticks. Investigation later revealed King was under the influence of a combination of PCP and cocaine. This incident would have produced nothing more than another report for resisting arrest had a bystander, George Holliday, not videotaped the altercation. Holliday then released the footage to the media. LAPD Officers Lawrence Powell, Stacey Koon, Timothy Wind and Theodore Brisino were indicted and charged with assaulting King. Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ordered a change of venue to suburban Simi Valley, which is a predominantly white suburb of Los Angeles. All officers were subsequently acquitted by a jury comprised of 10 whites, one Hispanic and one Asian, and the African American community responded in a manner far worse than the Watts Riots of 1965. ?While the King beating was tragic, it was just the trigger that released the rage of a community in economic strife and a police department in serious dec...
The primary thing that persuaded my current viewpoint on race relations was the George Zimmerman trial for the homicide of Trayvon Martin. This was a case that took place when I was relatively young, around the age of ten, so I feel that the event has shaped the way that I view racism today. My mother studied racism for her degree, so I was never particularly ignorant about the topic of race. However, the Trayvon Martin case was the first time in my life that I could remember a blatant and publicized act of racial injustice. Hence, it provided evidence and validation for all the things that I had been taught about race up until this point. However, it further influenced the way I viewed race because it allowed me to see specifically see the
In the early 1990’s in Los Angeles, California, police brutally was considered a norm in African Americans neighborhoods. News coverage ignores the facts of how African ...
It all begun one year before (March 3, 1991) when Rodney King and two friends were detected to be speeding in the 210 freeway in Los Angeles. He was driving under the influence of alcohol. King, scared because he was already in probation, went on a high speed chase. Eventually King was surrounded by police cars and had no ch...
On the night of August 11, 1965 the Watts community of Los Angeles County went up in flames. A riot broke out and lasted until the seventeenth of August. After residents witnessed a Los Angeles police officer using excessive force while arresting an African American male. Along with this male, the police officers also arrested his brother and mother. Twenty-seven years later in 1992 a riot known as both the Rodney King riots and the LA riots broke out. Both share the similar circumstances as to why the riots started. Before each riot there was some kind of tension between police officers and the African American people of Los Angeles. In both cases African Americans were still dealing with high unemployment rates, substandard housing, and inadequate schools. Add these three problems with policemen having a heavy hand and a riot will happen. Many of the primary sources I will you in this analysis for the Watts and the LA riots can be found in newspaper articles written at the time of these events. First-hand accounts from people living during the riots are also used.
“Violence never really deals with the basic evil of the situation. Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn’t murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder lie; it doesn’t establish truth. Violence may even murder the dishonest man, but it doesn’t murder dishonesty. Violence may go to the point of murdering the hater, but it doesn’t murder hate. It may increase hate. It is always a descending spiral leading nowhere. This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn’t solve any problems.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. (Directly quoted from page 2 of “Quotes About Civil Rights Movement”.) Fourteen year old Emmett Louis Till, was murdered while visiting with relatives in Money, Mississippi. The young boy allegedly flirted with a white sales clerk. Not only was the nation’s reaction, and the bias of the courtroom turbulent factors in the civil rights movement, but the brutality of his murder played a major role as well.
A father purchased a toy gun as a birthday gift for his young son. His son went outside to play and and encountered a police officer who shot him seven times. This incident occurred in Sonoma County in October 2013. A similar incident occurred in November 2014 when Cleveland police killed a 12-year-old boy carrying a toy gun. Use of excessive force by police is common in impoverished "black" or "brown" communities.
In April 29, 1992 that's when the LA Riot started and I can say that it was such a terrible time. Lots of people got affected by that time and lots of things had happen . All of the terrible things that had happen because of the police brutality against African Americans people. For example, Rodney King was on a high- speed chase of 110 mph while being intoxicated, which led to his arrest and brutal beat. He tried to get away because he got scared of his revocation of parole and scared to go back to prison. Once king stopped, he refused the request of getting into the prone position and charged at one of the officers, he was then beaten and arrested. While the beating was happening George Holliday picked up his camera and started recording
I partly agree with you; the police officer could have done so many things to prevent the excessive using of force. However, as an African American woman, Breaion King couldn’t have done anything to stop this situation from happening. As the officer mentioned in the squad car, White people are afraid of Black people because they are violent, and that is why White people are afraid of Black people. My understanding of this is that, basically the officer considers Breaion King as a violent and dangerous for just being Black in American. Indeed, safety is one of the most important thing an officer should have in mind when dealing with people. But, escalating the situation doesn’t help police officer safety. Breaion went out of her vehicle after
Riot: an organized physical action by a group of individuals. After viewing the films depicting the events that followed the Rodney King verdict I believe that the actions that followed should be categorized as a riot.
The officers were acquitted of use of excessive force and abuse. This started riots in Los Angeles that rocked our country. This was the beginning of a stigma and stereotype that would be placed on all police officers. The stigma was that Rodney King was brutally beaten because he was black. The media portrayal of incidences across the nation since 1991 only heightened the stereotype. There was a very similar incident in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 with the shooting of Michael Brown by a white officer. The coverage for Ferguson lasted for weeks and put the police in a very negative light. The Portland Press Herald states that “many police think they’re being stereotyped as racist and brutal” (Wise). There also seems to be a stereotype within a stereotype. Besides the stereotype of police officers profiling young black men, is the stereotype that all young black men are thugs, especially if they’re in neighborhoods known for gang and drug activity. “Our country 's history, culture and social divide feed a subconscious attachment to stereotypes, even in the minds of people with no measurable racial bias.”
During the 1950s movement, there were multiple instances of police officers brutally beating protesters and spraying them with tear gas so they would disperse. Sadly, these accounts of police violence against black people still persists today. In the past several years, there have been many cases of police altercations with African American men which have resulted in the death of the African Americans. Cases such as Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Michael Brown, and many others illustrate instances of police force becoming so aggressive and excessive that a person has died. Some of these men were only guilty of misdemeanors when apprehended by the police officers. For example, Castile was shot and killed after being pulled over by the police for a broken taillight. Tamir Rice was shot by police after they were responding to a call that he was waving around a gun. Rice had a pellet gun tucked into his waistband. African Americans having to fear violence especially from police officers, who are meant to keep people safe, presents a barrier in their daily lives that makes achieving the American Dream
On March 2, 1991 in Los Angeles, California, Rodney King and two of his friends had been parked in King’s car, drinking. King then preceeded to drive while intoxicated. King was observed traveling at a speed over 100 mph by the California Highway Patrol. The officers activated there lights and sirens and ordered him via loudspeaker to pull over but, King kept driving. Help was called over the radio which followed in pursuit of King. Officer Laurence Powell and his trainee, Timothy Wind followed King for approximately eight miles.
Police brutality and racial profiling dates back to the 1700’s in the United States(Rushing). Unfortunately, such treatment by police continues today when police are expected to hold the civic duty to protect and serve. Mistreatment by police is just the start in most cases, when citizens fight back it becomes “brutal”. Police brutality by definition means “The use of any force exceeding that reasonably to accomplish a lawful police purpose.” Police brutality can occur in many different ways with the most common being physical harm. Although that is a big problem, there are other cases of Police brutality that involve acts of false arrest, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, intimidation, etc. An act that can be seen as police brutality could be a criminal running from the cops and an officer shoots a victim with a taser. Many cases of physical harm are police using excessive force to contain and arrest any individual. Since many accounts of police brutality have been directed towards minorities, these cases turn into acts of racial profiling. Racial profiling is the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed an offense. Let 's say for example Trayvon Martin, a simple 17 year old black male walking home from a gas station was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch member. This being one of the many
Have you ever thought about how Martin Luther King Jr. died? There is different theories that people believe.The most popular way people believe that he died is that he was assassinated standing on a balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, by James Earl Ray. People have believed and accepted this to be the way he died. The conspiracy that goes along with Martin Luther King Jr’s death is that the investigation was still open in 1993. The investigation stated that domestic spies had to do with his death. They think that the government has power enough to have Martin Luther King Jr. killed. Martin Luther KIng Jr. was assassinated by the Government due to being the Civil Rights Movement.
The Civil Rights Movement began in order to bring equal rights and equal voting rights to black citizens of the US. This was accomplished through persistent demonstrations, one of these being the Selma-Montgomery March. This march, lead by Martin Luther King Jr., targeted at the disenfranchisement of negroes in Alabama due to the literacy tests. Tension from the governor and state troopers of Alabama led the state, and the whole nation, to be caught in the violent chaos caused by protests and riots by marchers. However, this did not prevent the March from Selma to Montgomery to accomplish its goals abolishing the literacy tests and allowing black citizens the right to vote.