Example of the abuse of power within our Government

* Born: 2 April 1965

* Birthplace: Sacramento, California
* Best Known As: The motorist whose beating set off the 1992 L.A.
riots

Rodney Glen King was the black motorist whose beating by white police officers ultimately sparked widespread rioting in Los Angeles in 1992. In the early hours of 3 March 1991, King was pulled over by the cops for driving recklessly. A witness, George Holliday, videotaped the end of King's encounter with police from his apartment balcony. The video shows the officers severely beating King in the presence of other L.A. cops -- all told, nearly 20 seconds of whacking and kicking as King tries to rise from the ground. Aired repeatedly all over the U.S., the footage shocked viewers and charges were brought against four cops: Laurence Powell, Theodore Briseno, Timothy Wind and Stacey Koon. On 29 April 1992 a jury acquitted three of the officers and deadlocked on the charges against Powell. Predominantly African American areas of the city erupted in violence, and after six days there were more than 50 fatalities, thousands of arrests and an estimated billion dollars in property damage. At one point King appeared before cameras in a plea that has since been boiled down to simply, "Can we all get along here? Can we all get along?" King was awarded $3.8 million after a civil suit against the city (and others).


Powell and Koon were convicted in federal court of violating King's civil rights and were sentenced to 30 months in prison... King still occasionally makes headlines over minor run-ins with the law.The 1991 beating of Rodney G. King by Los Angeles, California, police led to state and federal criminal prosecution of the law enforcement officers involved in the assault, a civil jury award of $3.8 million to King for his injuries, and major reforms in the Los Angeles police department. In addition, the April 1992 acquittal of the white police officers for the beating of King, an African American, touched off riots in Los Angeles that rank as the worst in U.S. history. The controversy surrounding each of these actions raised the issues of race, racism, and police brutality in communities throughout the United States.


On the evening of March 3, 1991, Rodney King was driving his automobile when a highway police officer signaled him to pull over to the side of the road. King, who had been drinking, fled, later testifying that he was afraid he would be returned to prison for violating his parole. A high-speed chase ensued with a number of Los Angeles police officers and vehicles involved. The police eventually pulled King over. After King got out of his car, four officers — Stacey C. Koon, Laurence M. Powell, Timothy E. Wind, and Theodore J. Briseno— kicked King and hit him with their batons more than fifty times while he struggled on the ground.


Unbeknownst to the officers, an amateur photographer, George Holliday, videotaped eighty-one seconds of the beating. The videotape was shown repeatedly on national television and became a symbol of complaints about police brutality.


The four officers were charged with numerous criminal counts, including assault with a deadly weapon, the use of excessive force, and filing a false police report. Because of the extensive publicity surrounding the case, the trial of the four police officers was conducted in Simi Valley, a predominantly white community located in Ventura County, not far from Los Angeles. During the trial the prosecution used the videotape as its principal source of evidence and did not have King testify. The defense also used the videotape, examining it frame by frame to bolster its contention that King was resisting arrest and that the violence was necessary to subdue him. The defense also contended that the videotape distorted the events of that night, because it did not capture what happened before and after the eighty-one seconds of tape recording.


On April 29, 1992, the jury, which included ten whites, one Filipino American, and one Hispanic, but no African Americans, found the four police officers not guilty on ten of the eleven counts and could not come to an agreement on the other count. The acquittals stunned many persons who had seen the videotape. Within two hours riots erupted in the predominantly black South Central section of Los Angeles. The riots lasted seventy hours, leaving 60 people dead, more than 2,100 people injured, and between $800 million and $1 billion in damage in Los Angeles. Order was restored through the combined efforts of the police, more than ten thousand National Guard troops, and thirty-five hundred Army and Marine Corps troops.


In the riot's aftermath, criticism of the Los Angeles police, which had escalated after the King beating, grew stronger. Many believed that the longtime police chief, Daryl F. Gates, had not sufficiently prepared for the possibility of civil unrest and had made poor decisions in the first hours of the riots. These criticisms, coupled with the determination by an independent commission headed by Warren G. Christopher (a distinguished attorney who served in the State Department during the administration of President Jimmy Carter) that Gates should be replaced because of the brutality charges, placed increasing pressure on the police chief. Gates finally resigned in late June 1992.


In August 1992 a federal grand jury indicted the four officers for violating King's civil rights. Koon was charged with depriving King of due process of law by failing to restrain the other officers. The other three officers were charged with violating King's right against unreasonable search and seizure because they had used unreasonable force during the arrest.


At the federal trial, which was held in Los Angeles, the jury was more racially diverse than the one at Simi Valley: two jury members were black, one was Hispanic, and the rest were white. This time King testified about the beating and charged that the officers had used racial epithets. Observers agreed that he was an effective witness. The videotape again was the central piece of evidence for both sides. On April 17, 1993, the jury convicted officers Koon and Powell of violating King's civil rights but acquitted Wind and Briseno. Koon and Powell were sentenced to two and a half years in prison.


King filed a civil lawsuit against the police officers and the city of Los Angeles. After settlement talks broke down, the case went to trial in early 1994. On April 19, 1994, the jury awarded King $3.8 million in compensatory damages. However, the jury refused to award King punitive damages. In July 1994 the city of Los Angeles struck a deal whereby King agreed to drop any plans to appeal the jury's verdict on punitive damages. In return, the city of Los Angeles agreed to expedite payment of King's compensatory damages.






this led to the biggest riots in L.
A April29th 1992 and it also led to this tragedy when Reginald Denny was drug from his truck and severally beaten


On April 29, 1992, at 5:39 PM, Denny loaded his red, 14-wheel truck with 27 tons of sand and began driving to a plant in Inglewood where the sand was due. He left the Santa Monica Freeway and took a familiar shortcut across Florence Avenue to get to his destination. His truck had no radio, so he was unaware he was driving into a riot. At 6:46 p.m., after entering the intersection at Normandie, rioters threw rocks at his windows and he heard people shouting for him to stop. Overhead, a news helicopter with reporter Bob Tur aboard captured the events that followed.


Antoine Miller opened the truck door, giving others the chance to pull Denny out. Another man, Henry Keith Watson, then held Denny's head down with his foot. Denny, who had done nothing to provoke the violence, was kicked in the stomach by an unidentifed man. Another unidentified man who had led a liquor store break-in earlier that day hurled a five-pound piece of medical equipment at Denny's head and hit him three times with a claw hammer. Damian Williams then threw a slab of concrete at Denny's head and knocked him unconscious. Williams then did a victory dance over Denny. He then flashed gang signs at news helicopters, which were televising the events live, and pointed and laughed at Denny. Anthony Brown then spat on Denny and left with Williams. Several bystanders took pictures of Denny but did not attempt to help him.


After the beating, various men threw beer bottles at the unconscious Denny. Gary Williams approached Denny and rifled through his pockets. Lance Parker stopped near Denny and attempted to shoot the fuel tank of Denny's truck but missed.


Bobby Green (a truck driver), Titus Murphy, Terri Barnett (boyfriend and girlfriend), and Lei Yuille (a dietitian), who had been watching the events on TV, came to Denny's aid. All four are black. Denny eventually regained consciousness and dragged himself back into the cab, driving away from the scene slowly and erratically;[8]. Green, himself a truck driver, boarded Denny's truck and took over at the wheel, driving him to the hospital. At the time that Green took over, Denny was on the brink of losing consciousness again, and suffered a seizure shortly thereafter.


Paramedics who attended to Denny said he came very close to death. His skull was fractured in 91 places and pushed into the brain. His left eye was so badly dislocated that it would have fallen into his sinus cavity had the surgeons not replaced the crushed bone with a piece of plastic. A permanent crater remains in his head despite efforts to correct it.Reginald Oliver Denny, at the time, was a 33 year old white construction truck driver. On the first day of the rioting, Denny was attacked, pulled from his truck and brutally beaten, sustaining serious head and other injuries. As a result of the injuries he suffered during the attacks, Denny had to undergo years of rehabilitative therapy, and his speech and ability to walk were permanently damaged. After the 1993 trial of his African-American assailants, he appeared on the Phil Donahue show to shake hands with one of the assailants, Henry Keith Watson. Denny largely avoids the media and rarely speaks about his ordeal. As of 2007, he works independently as a boat motor mechanic in Lake Havasu, Arizona, where he moved after an unsuccessful lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles.