Discrimination Research : Law Enforcement

In looking at Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) history with using excessive force, there needs to be a way that hold these police officers accountable to prevent citizen-police tension and create transparency for the public. During the 1990s, 61% of police officers from the LAPD were white and considered aggressive with African American communities which suggest racial tension among the two groups (Suburbanstats, 2017). Eula Love and Rodney King are two victims of

Though sparked by the Rodney King verdict, there were many other causes of the riots that erupted on the streets of Los Angeles on April 29, 1992. The Los Angeles riots in 1992 were devastating. The obvious issue portrayed through the media was black versus white. If you did not live in Los Angeles or California chances are you did not hear full coverage of the story, you heard a simple cut and dry portrayal of the events in South Central. If you heard one thing about the riots, it was that there was a man named Rodney King and he was a black male beaten with excessive force by four white Los Angeles police officers on Los Angeles concrete. The media portrayed the riots as black rage on the streets due to the

On April 29, 1992, the City of Los Angeles was surrounded in a riot in response to the "not guilty" verdicts in the trial of four white Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers accused of unlawfully beating Rodney King. Six days later, when the fires were finally extinguished and the smoke had cleared, "estimates of the material damage done vary between about $800 million and $1 billion, 54 people had been killed, more than 2000 injured, in excess of 800 structures were burned, and about 10,000 people were arrested."(Khalifah 89) The 1992 riots in the City of Los Angeles were arguably the most devastating civil disturbance in the history of the United States.

From the disturbing beating of Rodney King to the horrific death of Malice Green to the shooting of Michael Brown shows there is a consistent problem with police brutality and the exertion of force used. Police brutality seems to be a rising issue again with the occurrence of the Michael Brown shooting and the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement making sure that any form of police brutality should not be swept under the rug. Action has been taken in some cities around the country for dealing with police brutality, such as police reform, which requires the retraining of hundreds of officers. There has also been talk and use of police body cameras that would record interactions between officers and the public to clear up any discrepancies in police/witness reports. To look at the effects and causation of police brutality we will be analyzing the media’s role, the sociological and psychological aspects of officers who administer the beating, and the timing of when these beatings/killings occurred.

riots started the afternoon of April 29, 1992, when four white Los Angeles Police Department officers were acquitted in the brutal, videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King. Los Angeles was rocked by widespread rioting and acts of arson. The verdict was an unethical climax to a year of political uproar and national outreach, and the reaction to it prompted Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley to declare a state of emergency and request assistance from the National Guard as chaos spread from the city’s mostly black south side to downtown Civic City Center. In one of the many outbreaks, looters ran wild and drivers were pulled from their cars and attacked at an intersection in Central Los Angeles. Truck driver Reginald Denny was delivering sand to a cement plant when he drove into an intersection of the Los Angeles riots that had begun a few hours before.

When King refused to pull over, the police forcefully stopped him and attacked him and his friends. King had suffered 11 skull fractures, permanent brain damage, broken bones and teeth, kidney damage and emotional and physical trauma. Riots later broke out in Los Angeles over the policies inhumane actions. THe riots injured over 2,000 people, killed 53 people, caused 11,000 arrests and cost many businesses during this period of time. The riots that started in April did not end until May 1992. Rodney KIng later died as a result of an accidental drowning, according to the San Bernardino County Coroner's official report released. CBS Los Angeles reports that the coroner said alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and PCP were found in his system and were contributing factors to the 47-year-old's death on June 17. There are many reasons as to why police officers are at all aggressive to citizens. According to Wikipedia, personality traits make some officers more susceptible to the use of excessive force than others. Police psychologists were surveyed on officers who had previously used excessive force against citizens. The information obtained allowed the researchers to maintain five unique types of

In the 1990s, police brutality hit its peak. One in particular, the L.A. riots, caught many American's attention. One of the more well known, was Rodney King. King was brutally beaten by a group of police officers after attempting to pull him over for speeding at 110 mph. The police claimed that King resisted his arrest after being pulled over and that he was on some sort of drugs, although neither of these claims proved to be true. The police that surrounded him continued to beat Rodney for 15 minutes which left him with severe damage including skull fractures, broken bones and teeth, and brain damage. This was the first police brutality occurrence to be filmed in Los Angeles and then eventually brought to the media. Following the leaking of this footage, the four police officers were put on trial for using excessive force. This situation forever pointed out what was wrong with police officers and

On April 29, 1992, a jury convened to try four LAPD officers for the beating and use of excessive force against Rodney King, a black motorist involved in a high-speed chase with the police prior to the incident. The beating occurred in March 1991 and had been videotaped by a witness. Within days, every news channel in America was broadcasting the disturbing video in which King had been kicked, tazed, and beaten over fifty times by the four officers with police batons (Sides). King had offered little resistance after exiting his vehicle. The images of excessive force were printed across all media channels, confirming complaints of police brutality against minorities, specifically by the black community (Monroe). Subsequently, the black community became outraged and festered in their anticipation of a guilty verdict for the four officers.

On April 28, 1992, several riots erupted throughout Los Angeles, California due to the unjust trial when several officers were caught on video brutally beating Mr. Rodney King on the street. Thousands of African-Americans were unhappy with the decision of the court allowing the four officers to get off with no charges. During the LA Riots, over 55 people were killed, 2,000 were injured, and 7,000 were put into police custody. It was nearly $1 billion in damages done to property and 4,000 buildings in the city were burned. The three days of the LA Riots will be remembered in history because of the police brutality, national reaction to the violence, and the people's

On April 29, 1992, the City of Los Angeles was surrounded in a riot in response to the "not guilty" verdicts in the trial of four white Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers accused of unlawfully beating Rodney King. Six days later, when the fires were finally extinguished and the smoke had cleared, “estimates of the material damage done vary between about $800 million and $1 billion, 54 people had been killed, more than 2000 injured, in excess of 800 structures were burned, and about 10,000 people were arrested.”(Khalifah 89) The 1992 riots in the City of Los Angeles were arguably the most devastating civil disturbance in the history of the United States.

In the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the 2015 Baltimore riots, questions were asked if police could had done more to prevent the destruction. According to Steve Lopez, reporter for the Los Angeles Times, “There’s another similarity between Los Angeles and Baltimore: Controversial use of police force on a man of color was the plunger on a powder keg decades in the making.” In Los Angeles associated causes for the riots were a worsening economy, deterioration of

All four officers were acquitted in their first trial. Following that verdict, large riots broke out in the predominately African American area of South Central Los Angeles (Walker, 2007). There appeared to be a sense that the African American community did not feel that protection from police brutality and justice could be found in the American criminal justice system.

Rodney King, one of America’s most powerful civil rights activists for people abused by police, has taught the world a lesson in his plea: “People, I just want to say, can’t we all get along?” On March 3, 1991, after a high-speed chase, King was pulled out of his car, thrown on to the ground, and beaten up by the Los Angeles police, which George Holliday videotaped. The four L.A.P.D. officers involved were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and one officer was charged with using of excessive force. However, after a three-month trial, which was held in Simi Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles, a predominantly white jury acquitted the officers. This inflamed the citizens, which resulted in the violent 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Discrimination is a known concept that happens everywhere, yet police and prosecutors are blind to it. Their ways of preventing crime are discriminatory in every sense of the word and they categorize people based on their skin color and where they reside. The disproportionate minority contact with the stop and frisk method is one of the ways that discrimination can be seen. “Code of the Street” and “Law and Disorder in Philadelphia” help dissect why discrimination is not seen by police and their agencies and also how police officers and their administration go about ways of preventing crime. The pressure within the police, community, and courts create inequalities for the individuals going through the Criminal Justice System.

Excessive force and police brutality have become common terms for anyone keeping up with today’s current events. In 2014, the media covered numerous cases of excessive force that resulted in the deaths of several people of color (Nelson & Staff, 2014). The most widely covered cases by the media in 2014 were of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black male shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri; and Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black male in Staten Island, New York who was put into a choke by police officer Daniel Pantaleo until he lost consciousness and stopped breathing (Nelson & Staff, 2014). These cases brought attention to the seriousness of police brutality and the curiosity of how often it occurs (Brown, 2015).