Читать книгу Freedom Facts and Firsts - Jessie Carney Smith - Страница 102

On March 3, 1991, following a high-speed chase, African American motorist Rodney King was subdued with extreme force and arrested by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The broadcast of a videotape by George Holliday of the King beating galvanized international attention on police brutality in Los Angeles. In a subsequent court trial, however, a predominantly white jury found the four officers not guilty of charges filed against them. The verdict ignited one of the worst race riots in the history of the United States. Later, the federal government indicted the officers on charges that they had violated King’s civil rights. Two of the officers were convicted and incarcerated. In response to this chain of events, Mayor Tom Bradley created an independent commission to investigate the LAPD. In July 1991, the Christopher Commission released its findings. Documenting the systematic use of excessive force and racial harassment in the department, the report called for structural reforms and the resignation of Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates. The Christopher Commission found that minority communities in Los Angeles held the view that they were often treated differently from whites and that law enforcement officials engaged in the use of excessive force. Appalling and well-suited to the medium of television, the Rodney King beating only accentuated the image of police brutality. However, the beating in March 1991 and the attendant videotape produced sufficient violence and mayhem to alarm the national community. More than two decades after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and the ensuing riots across the nation, the acquittal of Rodney King’s assailants after videotape showed police beating him as he lay handcuffed on the ground caused reverberations of protest throughout America.

Linda T. Wynn