On March 3, 1991, when 25-year-old Rodney King led Los Angeles Police officers on a high-speed chase through LA County, he was trying to avoid a DUI arrest, not become a key figure in the history of civil rights and police brutality. (King was on probation following an April 1990 robbery conviction.)
Once pulled over, 4 police officers, with 17 looking on, hit King more than 50 times with their nightsticks. They also used a stun gun on the man lying on the ground in the fetal position. George Holliday, from the balcony of his apartment, caught the entire beating with his video camera.
The King beating marked the beginning of the video camera/cellphone era of citizen police surveillance. Over the next two decades, officers all over the country would be visually recorded beating people. Cops hate citizen video cameras and cellphones, and in many cases have seized them to avoid having their behavior exposed. Laws have been passed to prevent this. There is no telling how many police beatings have been detected and prevented by this technology. One could argue that the police are less brutal because citizens are armed with this surveillance capability.
The 4 officers seen on the video tape pounding Rodney King were indicted (the 17 who watched the assault were not), but a jury in Simi Valley found the defendants not guilty. The acquittals led to riots in April and May, 1992. The following year, in April, a federal jury found two of the officers guilty of violating King's civil rights. The other two officers were acquitted.
In 1996, Rodney King sued the city of Los Angeles for $15 million in compensatory and punitive damages. The civil jury awarded him $3.8 million in compensatory damages, but nothing punitive. Eighteen years later, King published his autobiography. It was not a bestseller.
At 5:25 in the morning of Sunday, June 17, 2012, Cynthia Kelly, King's fiancee, called 911 from their home in Rialto, California. Responding officers found him on the bottom of his swimming pool. The 47-year-old was wearing swim trunks. A short time later King was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Although there were no physical injuries on his body, and no other indications of foul play, his body was autopsied. A toxicology report will come later. The presumed cause of death was drowning, and the manner of death, accidental.
A next-door neighbor told officers that she heard a man crying in King's backyard from three to five that morning. The witness also heard Cynthia Kelly trying to coax the crying man back into the house. The neighbor said, "She was just saying, 'Get in the house. Get in the house.'" A few minutes later the witness heard a splash. Cynthia Kelly told detectives that because she was a poor swimmer, she had been unable to rescue King.
Once pulled over, 4 police officers, with 17 looking on, hit King more than 50 times with their nightsticks. They also used a stun gun on the man lying on the ground in the fetal position. George Holliday, from the balcony of his apartment, caught the entire beating with his video camera.
The King beating marked the beginning of the video camera/cellphone era of citizen police surveillance. Over the next two decades, officers all over the country would be visually recorded beating people. Cops hate citizen video cameras and cellphones, and in many cases have seized them to avoid having their behavior exposed. Laws have been passed to prevent this. There is no telling how many police beatings have been detected and prevented by this technology. One could argue that the police are less brutal because citizens are armed with this surveillance capability.
The 4 officers seen on the video tape pounding Rodney King were indicted (the 17 who watched the assault were not), but a jury in Simi Valley found the defendants not guilty. The acquittals led to riots in April and May, 1992. The following year, in April, a federal jury found two of the officers guilty of violating King's civil rights. The other two officers were acquitted.
In 1996, Rodney King sued the city of Los Angeles for $15 million in compensatory and punitive damages. The civil jury awarded him $3.8 million in compensatory damages, but nothing punitive. Eighteen years later, King published his autobiography. It was not a bestseller.
At 5:25 in the morning of Sunday, June 17, 2012, Cynthia Kelly, King's fiancee, called 911 from their home in Rialto, California. Responding officers found him on the bottom of his swimming pool. The 47-year-old was wearing swim trunks. A short time later King was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Although there were no physical injuries on his body, and no other indications of foul play, his body was autopsied. A toxicology report will come later. The presumed cause of death was drowning, and the manner of death, accidental.
A next-door neighbor told officers that she heard a man crying in King's backyard from three to five that morning. The witness also heard Cynthia Kelly trying to coax the crying man back into the house. The neighbor said, "She was just saying, 'Get in the house. Get in the house.'" A few minutes later the witness heard a splash. Cynthia Kelly told detectives that because she was a poor swimmer, she had been unable to rescue King.
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