Rodney+King+Trial

=﻿ = =The impact of Rodney King’s trial =

When a group of four LAPD police officers beaten Rodney King with batons and taser guns non-stop, the incident was not only an act of violence but also of an act of racism and hate. After a tape of incident, recorded by George Holiday, was revealed to the public, it sparked riots and crimes in the streets of L.A. Further riots ensued after the acquittal of the police officers who were initially charged with crimes related to the incident.

Contents: Early Life Rodney Glen King was born on April 2nd, 1965. His parents were named Odessa and Ronald King. Ronald King was an alcoholic who died at age 42 while his mother, Odessa, a Jehovah Witness, was an active evangelist. King was married to Denetta in 1984. They had one da = = ughter but divorced during King’s incident. King was an alcoholic like his dad; he loved hanging out with his friends at drinking parties. King and his friends were a bad influence. Before his trial with the LAPD, Rodney was already convicted of burglary back in 1989. He was sentenced to jail for 2 years of 1st degree burglary.
 * ===Early Life ===
 * ===The Beatings ===
 * ===The Trial ===
 * ===Riots ===

The Beatings When King was coming home on the Foothill Freeway with two friends, Bryant Allen and Freddie Helms, King was recorded going over the speed limit. Tim and Melanie Singer, a married police couple, pursued the speeding car. The Officers were chasing the car at 117 mph; King still didn’t pull over, worried about violating his parole from his previous arrest. Finally, when the LAPD police cornered the car, his friends surrendered without a fight, but King remained in the car. After the Officers repeatedly asked King to get out of the car, he finally surrendered. When King came out of his car, he went to the ground and grabbed his back pocket, which made Officer Melanie Singer suspicious of him reaching for a gun. As she took out her gun pointing at Rodney, Sergeant Stacey Koon ordered Singer to put her weapon away. The LAPD were trained to not approach a suspect with a gun because they could shoot the suspect by accident if they went out of control or ran. After Officer Singer holstered her gun, the LAPD officers Briseno, Powell, Solano, and Wind went over to him with handcuffs. King violently refused as he pushed them off his back. Sergeant Koon ordered all officers to stand back as she tasered King twice on the back. King fell slowly towards the ground, groaning but still resisted. As he tried to stand up again, Officer Powell struck King several times with his baton. While Powell was hitting King with his baton, George Holiday, witness of the scene, was recording the incident. (Violence in the Media) Once again, King rose to his knees. Sergeant Koon then ordered Officer’s Powell and Wind to control specific parts of King’s body. King could barely move at this point. He was sent to the hospital for a treatment of multiple wounds and cuts on his face and body. The Trial All of the officer’s were arrested two days after the incident. They were charged with excessive force and assault on the victim. All of the officers were acquitted, which created massive riots in the south of LA. A year later, Officer Powell and Sergeant Koon were convicted of violating King’s civil rights and each spent 30 months in prison. ( Martin Luther King and his Efforts in the Civil Rights Movement, Brown vs. Board of Education) The Riots <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">After the news broadcasted that all four officers were acquitted from the trial, thousands of blacks broke out multiple fights in the streets. ( Kennedy Assassiantion) <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">The riots caused destructions to the middle class properties, stores were burned down, and a lot of fights broke out in the middle of the streets. There were more than 2,000 people injured and 53 others who died during the riots. Damages resulted from the riots were worth more than $1 billion. Reginald Denny was one of the victims who was beaten half to death by a mob of blacks. On April 29, 1992, Denny’s incident was broadcasted live on camera by the helicopters. The police never showed up to assist Denny. Instead, they retreated because they were afraid of being outnumbered by the mob. An African American civilian named Bobby Green Jr. who saw Denny’s innocence, went to the scene and took him to the hospital. Denny has permanently lost his ability to speak and his ability to walk. Denny has been in therapy ever since the mob beatings. The riots did not only destroy 53 lives but made the mayor invoke a curfew, which lessened destructions. However, on March 9 of the 1993, the trial was redone with a new judge and jury. Both Sergeant Koon and Officer Powell were convicted guilty and were sent to prison for 30 months. This made the riots stop. King was awarded $3.8 million for the damages in LA. After the trial, King entered alcohol rehabilitation while he was placed on probation for crashing his vehicle into a block wall in Los Angeles. Two years later, King was arrested for hitting his wife, Cynthia Kelley, with his car. Not only did King commit more crimes but was repeatedly thrown in jail for drunk driving, driving with an expired license, and driving recklessly. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> =<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Analysis =

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Rodney King, an African American citizen, was the victim of a violent act carried by the LAPD police team. In the Rodney King incident, it proved that racism still existed in 1992 even after they won their civil rights in 1960’s. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">This influenced many African Americans to take a stand for their race along with Rodney King himself. All of the officers who should have been disciplined or punished, sparked riots when the jury decided that they were to be acquitted of initial charges. The jury was ruled by an all white men, adding some suspicion to as why were the officers all acquitted for such an atrocious act. Rodney King was dramatically influenced also. King suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, waking up in the middle of the night believing that he was still at the scene of the incident, "I woke up with a nightmare out of my sleep and I ran out of bed with my hands up in the air. I got through the sliding doors, opened it up and realized it was a nightmare." After the retrial, the jury had two African Americans, a Hispanic, and the rest white. Coincidentally, this time the verdict was different and the officers were punished and sentenced to jail. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Today, King's trial has changed the way of living for African Americans. They are more aware and afraid of police officers because of the Rodney King incident. Although the Rodney King incident wasn’t a good way of threatening Africans to behave better, they proved that racism was still around. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">The Rodney King trial was influenced by Rodney King and the LAPD police team. King knew that he couldn’t get away from the police and should have known better to have surrendered right away but refused to do so. Seeing that King was repeatedly asked multiples times to get out of the vehicle, the police officers use of force was reasonable but they took it beyond the limit by using excessive and unnecessary force on King. There were many other alternatives such as using pepper spray, tranquilizers, etc. Officer Sergeant Stacy Koon, who was in charge at the scene, should’ve known better as an officer to have stopped the beatings. Instead, she encouaged the officers to beat specific parts of King. In other words, Sergeant Stacy Koon was not responsible, not competent leader, and plausibly racism still thrived inside her. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Racism was most represented in the Rodney King Trial. Racism is a huge and common element in our American History. An example of the Rodney King incident is when the trial had a jury of all white men who acquitted all of the officers within a month. In the culture of African Americans, they have fought the most for their rights and peace. When the African Americans finally won their civil rights, they knew for sure that peace was to come but having these incidents happen to their people; it’s hard to really know if there is peace. Overall, many African Americans are very strong and powerful when it comes to their rights and race.

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<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">"Reginald Denny incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." //Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia//. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 June 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Denny_incident>. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">"Rodney King." //NNDB: Tracking the entire world//. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 June 2011. <http://www.nndb.com/people/595/000025520/>. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">MYDANS, SETH. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">"Rodney King Testifies on Beating: 'I Was Just Trying to Stay Alive'." //<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia //. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 June 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/08/home/rodney-testify.html>.