The Streets Of Chicago, A Young People Of The United States

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

That was not enough for some officers they believed King was resisting arrest. Due to their belief some cops shot Rodney with a taser gun. Shortly several officers started to fiercely beat King with their batons. “We won that game didn‘t we,” says officer Laurence Powell to his mates. George Holliday, a men standing near the scene, video tapped the action. Rapidly this video was broadcasted not only across America but around the world. It would not be ignored by its viewers. Everyone who tuned in and watched was shocked. Justice was expected to be made towards the heartless cops who savagely bet Rodney King.

One of the recent incident of police brutality went viral after a caucasian police officer 's Mr. Fields body slams an African- American female high school student in South Carolina. The student was seated at her desk on her phone when the officer through her to the ground and across the floor before arresting her. One may argue that

would not get in felony prone position. King resisted and started to fight back, so the officers

On March 3, 1991, a spectator filmed Rodney King, an African American resident of Los Angeles, being beaten by four Caucasian officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, who used a stun gun on King and continually kicked him and struck him with batons. For weeks afterward, the assault obtained capacity coverage appearing in the news media; according to the Vanderbilt Television News Index and Abstracts (1992), from March 5, the evening the story broke, until the conclusion of the remaining

It feels as if nothing has changed about police brutality over the years. The usual cycle is that juries acquit the police, cops get their jobs back, and brutality happens again. One of the most broadcasted cases of police brutality, was the beating of Rodney King. On the night of March 2, 1991, a bystander named George Holiday, videotaped the moment when five officers used excess force on an African American man named Rodney King, beating him with batons as he struggled on the ground. Also, it was recorded that an officer stomped on King’s shoulder causing his head to hit hard against the asphalt. Holiday sent the videotape to a local TV station and soon sent shock waves around the world, catapulting police brutality and race relations in the United States to center stage. Most viewers who watched the tape revealed the brutal and senseless beating of a hopeless drunk. After debating for seven days over the fate of the officers, on April 29, 1992, the clerk announced the final verdict, the five officers were not guilty.

Judge John G. Davies, who handled the case, did not try to hide his sympathy for the defendants. Davies excluded evidence of racist comments made by the officers from the trial record. He also made several statements, saying that he too believed “the incident….would not have occurred at all, but for Mr. King’s initial misconduct.” Davies elaborated on his beliefs when he stated, “Mr. King, a paroled felon, who had fled from police and resisted arrest, bore much of the responsibility for the beating.” Judge Davies obviously had sided with the officers, describing them as “having distinguished records of public service” even though he knew that each man had been involved in at least one prior criminal incident.

Gelsey Piatt and Madalyn Davishrr 1990’s News Article -Rodney King BREAKING NEWS: Rodney King was found face down in his LA home pool, dead at the age of 47. Rodney King’s public life all started on March 3rd, 1991 where after a high-speed chase from LAPD, King was violently beaten with batons suffering more than 11 fractures, all caught on tape. 4 Los Angeles Police Department officers by the name of Laurence Michael Powell, Timothy Wind, Stacey Koon, and Theodore Briseno are all indicted by grand jury in connection to the beating of King, to the joy of the public. April 29th, 1992 almost a year following the initial incident, the trial of the 4 officers comes to a harrowing defeat when they were pronounced not guilty of brutally beating King.

Police officers are often viewed as oppressors and unjust by the community, when in reality they are just doing their jobs. The job of a police officer is to apprehend criminals and detect crime, and the maintenance of public order and to the extend and complication of this duty police officers often need to make split second decision that is not often view by the public as what we call “self-defense” which is a right we all have as human beings and stated in the Universal Declaration of

The beginnings of the riots came on March 3, 1991, when Rodney King was stopped and brutally assaulted by police. King was stopped after a high speed chase police after police caught him intoxicated and was subsequently forced out of the car (History.com). From there, police began to unlawfully assault Rodney King, leaving him with a fractured skull, along with a broken cheekbone (History.com). A witness, George Holliday, filmed the officers beating Rodney King; a day after the tape was airing on CNN for the rest of the country to witness (Los Angeles Daily News). Four officers were later arrested and put to trial a year later, however all of them were not pleaded guilty. The verdict angered a massive amount of African

2. An officer puts his boot on 17-year-old Marcel Hamer and then punches him knocking him out. Also, 43-year-old Erick Garner, who was choked to death as officers were subduing him. No one, out of all the officers gave CPR to this gentleman; after all he is a human. (“Police brutality raises social

The public impression of police use of force, as brutality, in modern day policing continues to be a sensitive issue for law enforcement agencies across the nation. Police agencies across the United States deal with accusations of misuse of force on

They blocked traffic to the Brooklyn Bridge, shouting racial slurs at the public and the mayor at the time, joined in. In an incident right after the City Hall protest, as police were leaving, several off-duty officers, all in civilian clothes, assaulted a man on the subway who had stepped on one of the officer's feet. The man claimed that he apologized but that the officer attempted to punch the man. The man cut the officer with a razor blade and the other officers, six of them, beat him viciously. (Police Brutality).

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;

"On March 3, 1991, Rodney King was the driver of a car in Los Angeles, California. The driver didn't stop when signaled by a police car behind him, but increased his speed. When police finally stopped the car, they delivered 56 baton blows and six kicks to King, in a period of two minutes, producing 11 skull fractures, brain damage, and kidney damage. Unaware that the incident had been videotaped, the police officers filed inaccurate reports, not mentioning the fact that Rodney King was left with head wounds. On March 15, 1991, four police officers were arraigned on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and use of excessive force" (Mike Lepore).