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N0KFQ > TODAY 04.03.12 00:12l 113 Lines 5813 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 18625_KB0WSA
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Subj: Today in History - Mar 3
Path: IZ3LSV<IW0QNL<VE2PKT<CX2SA<N9PMO<GB7LDI<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 120303/2153Z 18625@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.49
Mar 3, 1991:
Police brutality caught on video
At 12:45 a.m. on March 3, 1991, robbery parolee Rodney G. King
stops his car after leading police on a nearly 8-mile pursuit
through the streets of Los Angeles, California. The chase began
after King, who was intoxicated, was caught speeding on a freeway
by a California Highway Patrol cruiser but refused to pull over.
Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) cruisers and a police
helicopter joined the pursuit, and when King was finally stopped
by Hansen Dam Park, several police cars descended on his white
Hyundai.
A group of LAPD officers led by Sergeant Stacey Koon ordered King
and the other two occupants of the car to exit the vehicle and
lie flat on the ground. King's two friends complied, but King
himself was slower to respond, getting on his hands and knees
rather than lying flat. Officers Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind,
Ted Briseno, and Roland Solano tried to force King down, but he
resisted, and the officers stepped back and shot King twice with
an electric stun gun known as a Taser, which fires darts carrying
a charge of 50,000 volts.
At this moment, civilian George Holliday, standing on a balcony
in an apartment complex across the street, focused the lens of
his new video camera on the commotion unfolding by Hansen Dam
Park. In the first few seconds of what would become a very famous
89-second video, King is seen rising after the Taser shots and
running in the direction of Officer Powell. The officers alleged
that King was charging Powell, while King himself later claimed
that an officer told him, "We're going to kill you, nigger. Run!"
and he tried to flee. All the arresting officers were white,
along with all but one of the other two dozen or so law
enforcement officers present at the scene. With the roar of a
helicopter above, very few commands or remarks are audible in the
video.
With King running in his direction, Powell swung his baton,
hitting him on the side of the head and knocking him to the
ground. This action was captured by the video, but the next 10
seconds were blurry as Holliday shifted the camera. From the 18-
to 30-second mark in the video, King attempted to rise, and
Powell and Wind attacked him with a torrent of baton blows that
prevented him from doing so. From the 35- to 51-second mark,
Powell administered repeated baton blows to King's lower body. At
55 seconds, Powell struck King on the chest, and King rolled over
and lay prone. At that point, the officers stepped back and
observed King for about 10 seconds. Powell began to reach for his
handcuffs.
At 65 seconds on the video, Officer Briseno stepped roughly on
King's upper back or neck, and King's body writhed in response.
Two seconds later, Powell and Wind again began to strike King
with a series of baton blows, and Wind kicked him in the neck six
times until 86 seconds into the video. At about 89 seconds, King
put his hands behind his back and was handcuffed.
Sergeant Koon never made an effort to stop the beating, and only
one of the many officers present briefly intervened, raising his
left arm in front of a baton-swinging colleague in the opening
moments of the videotape, to no discernible effect. An ambulance
was called, and King was taken to the hospital. Struck as many as
56 times with the batons, he suffered a fractured leg, multiple
facial fractures, and numerous bruises and contusions. Unaware
that the arrest was videotaped, the officers downplayed the level
of violence used to arrest King and filed official reports in
which they claimed he suffered only cuts and bruises "of a minor
nature."
George Holliday sold his video of the beating to the local
television station, KTLA, which broadcast the footage and sold it
to the national Cable News Network (CNN). The widely broadcast
video caused outrage around the country and triggered a national
debate on police brutality. Rodney King was released without
charges, and on March 15 Sergeant Koon and officers Powell, Wind,
and Briseno were indicted by a Los Angeles grand jury in
connection with the beating. All four were charged with assault
with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force by a police
officer. Though Koon did not actively participate in the beating,
as the commanding officer he was charged with aiding and abetting
it. Powell and Koon were also charged with filing false reports.
Because of the uproar in Los Angeles surrounding the incident,
the judge, Stanley Weisberg, was persuaded to move the trial
outside Los Angeles County to Simi Valley in Ventura County. On
April 29, 1992, the 12-person jury, which included 10 whites and
no African Americans, issued its verdicts: not guilty on all
counts, except for one assault charge against Powell that ended
in a hung jury. The acquittals touched off rioting and looting in
Los Angeles that grew into the most destructive U.S. civil
disturbance of the 20th century. In three days of violence, more
than 50 people were killed, more than 2,000 were injured, and
nearly $1 billion in property was destroyed. On May 1, President
George H.W. Bush ordered military troops and riot-trained federal
officers to Los Angeles to quell the riot.
Under federal law, the officers could also be prosecuted for
violating Rodney King's constitutional rights, and on April 17,
1993, a federal jury convicted Koon and Powell for violating
King's rights by their unreasonable use of force under color of
law. Although Wind and Briseno were acquitted, most civil rights
advocates considered the mixed verdict a victory. On August 4,
Koon and Powell were sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison
for the beating of King. King received $3.8 million in a civil
suit against the Los Angeles police department.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
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