The Beating of Rodney King Essay

“The African American community is not making this up. It’s not something that’s being politicized. It’s real”

My first scholarly article that I read was Racism and Police Brutality in America by Cassandra Chaney and Ray V. Robertson. The article begins by highlighting the beating of Rodney King in 1992. Police brutality has gone on for a long time, and with the help of technology it has finally been brought to the light. In 1992, four white police officers beat an African American man named Rodney King. The events were caught on camera and were aired that night by a local TV station in Los Angeles. In the video the officers kicked, tasered, and beat King until he was left with an inch of his life. The injuries King sustained were crushed bones, shattered teeth, kidney damage and a fractured skull. The Rodney King beating showed American people the

“The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world” (Arendt pg 80). Violence is contagious, like a disease, which will destroy nations and our morals as human beings. Each individual has his or her own definition of violence and when it is acceptable or ethical to use it. Martin Luther King Jr., Walter Benjamin, and Hannah Arendt are among the many that wrote about the different facets of violence, in what cases it is ethical, the role we as individuals play in this violent society and the political aspects behind our violence.

Police brutality is one of the most serious and divisive human rights violations in the United States and it occurs in every community. The job of a police officer is to maintain public order, prevent, and detect crime. They are engaged in a dangerous and stressful occupation that can involve violent situations that must be controlled. In many of these confrontations with the public it may become necessary for the police to administer force to take control of a situation. Sometimes this force takes the form of hand to hand combat with a suspect who resists being arrested. Not all police officers in communities are good cops. At least once a year the news is covering a story about a person

On March 3, 1991 Rodney King led the Los Angeles police on a high speed chase. Once the chase was over officers pulled King out of his vehicle and began to brutally beat,taze and stomp on him. The recording of the video taken by a witness standing on the other side of the street was locally broadcasted then nationally broadcasted.The reasons that police officers acted the way they did was because “Rodney King was driving while intoxicated and when officers attempted to arrest him, the large belligerent man resisted that arrest.” (Blue Knights with Lt. Dan Marcou ) It was already said that King had a criminal record of second degree robbery and out on parole so the officers were aware of who he was by now. I also believe that racial profiling was another factor that caused the police officers to act they way that they did. As stated by Connie Rice a lawyer and civil rights activist , “The LAPD at the time was almost an occupying force, partially biased against people of color.” (Sastry & Bates) Personally, I do not believe that the officers acted in an appropriate matter because instead of pulling him from his car and brutally beating him they should've just gone up to him and arrested him. I understand that he was seen as a threat during this time because of the high speed chase but there were other ways that they could have handled the situation. The use of forces that could have been appropriate for this situation were verbal commands, maybe a bit of empty hand control with the soft empty hand technique and if he resisted then that is when the use of less lethal force would of been used. Also they found out that in the first three seconds of the film were cut of and showed that “Rodney King rising up from the street to charge one officer in a clear-cut violent assault. In self defense, that officer struck King with his PR-24.” (Blue Knights with Lt. Dan Marcou.) Now with this new information I believe that the officer had a right to defend himself however not to the extent that they all went. Hitting King ith the PR-24 would have caused him to fall and during that time they could have arrested him instead. According to Biography.com, “The United States Department of Justice filed federal civil rights charges

Police brutality and police militarization have become a hot topic in the United States of America. There are many cases where police officers motives are being questioned, leading the public into an uproar. Just to name a few of these cases, we have Micheal Brown from Fegurson, Missouri, that started it all, which took place on Augest 19th, 2014. We also have Eric Garner from New York, taking place July of 2014. July of 2016, Alton Sterling of Baton Rouge and Walter Scott from South Carolina in April of 2015.

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.

“Officer Jeronimo Yanez, charged with second-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black Minneapolis man” (Capecchi). “Brian Encinia, former Texas trooper charged with misdemeanor perjury stemming from his arrest of Sandra Bland, a black woman who was later found dead in a county jail” (Almasy). “Sgt. Kizzy Adonis, charged with failure to supervise in connection with the 2014 death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black Staten Island man who died after police to administered a controversial choke hold” (Eversley). These are a few examples of the mistreatment suffered by young black citizens at the hands of police officers that resulted in the death of a suspect. Throughout the nation, the mishandling of the authority given to police officers has increased and is not merely coincidentally occurring.

Police work is dangerous. Sometimes police put in situations that excessive force is needed. But, because some officers use

While racing down the freeway on March 3, 1991, driver Rodney King and friends were leading the Los Angeles Police Department on a high speed chase making it up to 115 miles per hour. When King was eventually caught, officers pulled him from his car and began to beat King with their batons hitting and kicking him more than 50 times and shocking him with stun guns in a period of two minutes as he struggled helplessly on the ground outside of his car. King suffered 11 skull fractures, kidney damage, and brain damage. This was one of America’s first viral video of what excessive force is, and it changed the way police interacted with communities forever. The use of police force is an obligation, but unfortunately some officers may misuse, or abuse

Rodney King was a black motorist who was beaten and arrested by four white police officers in Los Angeles on March 3, 1991. The policemen were unaware of being filmed until, George Holliday, captured the beating on videotape from his apartment window and released it to the press (Alexander, Jacobs, and Seidman, 2000). This incident was not a shock to individuals living in the Los Angeles County as it was common to be victimized by policemen. The difference in Rodney King’s case with other

Los Angeles witnessed a high amount of drug incidents and violence, which arose from the increasing drug problem. Unfortunately as the same time the nation witnessed a rise in the drug problem, it also saw a rise in police brutality. Throughout Los Angles and America there were many cases of police beatings, but there wasn’t any case that received as much attention and media coverage as the Rodney King incident. On the night of the Rodney King beating, “amateur video camera enthusiast, George Holliday, shot footage of LAPD officers beating a twenty-five year old African-American man following a traffic stop” (Alpert p.131). The question raised is why did something like this incident happen? In order to answer the question, a review of the police department is necessary. At the time of the Rodney King beating Daryl Gates had been the police chief of Los Angles for thirteen years. Chief Gates had power over the departments’ policies and personnel, and “his position was well insulated by unique civil service protections” (Alpert p.134). Chief Gates was recognized as someone who was professional and innovative on new ideas to enforce the law. He adopted militaristic technology as equipment to use in the streets. One example of the new technology was the motorized police battering rams, which were essentially tanks

Police brutality against African Americans was a huge impact in Los Angeles, California in 1991, and continues to be a problematic situation in America today. On March 3, 1991, a group of white LAPD beat Rodney King. After this incident occurred a lot of negative events started to transpire. A lot of African Americans were angry and demanded justice. The relationship between the LAPD and the Los Angeles community in 1991 were horrific and still continues to be awful today. Police brutality just seems to be increasing more overtime, which means the increase in the community not trusting the police. Police brutality can be a huge disadvantage when it comes to community policing.

The Rodney King incident was presented as a case study of how failure to institutionalize some of the contextual themes concepts can result in malfeasance. Research incidents of other criminal justice malfeasance and, by using the five contextual themes as a guide, identify administrative concepts that could have prevented these situations.

The most famous case of police brutality occurred on the night of March 3rd, 1991, when Rodney King was pulled over by LAPD officers. A video taken of the encounter shows King being savagely beaten by metal batons long after being subdued. The LAPD responded, saying the department had “inadequate supervisory and management attention”, noting that “of approximately 1,800 officers against whom an allegation of excessive force or improper tactics was made from 1986 to 1990, more than 1,400 had only one or two allegations. But 183 officers had four or more allegations. Forty-four had six or more, 16 had eight or more, and one had 16 such allegations” (West Valley College). Clearly, a vast majority of police officers abuse their power. But clearly this is not on an individual level;