...The Scene that started it all: After a decade of policing crises that began with the beating of Rodney King in April, 1991, which was shown around the World wasn’t bad enough, the Rampart police corruption scandal in 1999 wasn’t bad enough, the city of Los Angles exploded after the three officers were found not guilty in the beating of Rodney King. People took to the streets to protest, and over 50 people lost their lives. Reforms: The U. S. Department of Justice announced in 2000 that it had accumulated enough evidence to sue the City of Los Angeles over a pattern-and- practice of police misconduct. The city government entered a “consent decree” promising to adopt scores of reform measures under the supervision of the Federal Court. There were two components included in the police reform: The consent decree produced by the Justice Department’s intervention, and the leadership of chief William Bratton, who since 2002 has focused the Department’s attention simultaneously on reducing crime, improving morale, and complying fully with the consent decree. Results: The LMPD did not meet their goals after five years, so the Government decided to extend the decree for three more years. But, during those first five years, the crime rate dropped, there were fewer reports of police complaints, and changes were made from the top to the bottom. At first, you had policemen complain about they were afraid to stop people for fear of being reprimanded; having too much paperwork to complete...
Words: 494 - Pages: 2
...March 3rd, 1991 marked the excessive beating of an African American motorist from the Los Angeles Police Department after leading police forces on a highway speed chase"1. Consequently, this led to the Rodney King trial in which, "an all-white jury acquitted four police officers of all assault charges on April 29, 1992"2. This led to the significant violence of the 1992 Los Angeles riots which erupted as a result to the trials which, lasted six days. Notedly on "May 1, 1992, the third day of the riots Rodney King made his appearance where he attempted to calm down the rioters by stating Can't we all get along"3 a famous quote to this date. The riots evidently raised notoriety towards the lower class socioeconomic conditions and allowed for...
Words: 657 - Pages: 3
...Imagine your city under rage and disturbance created by one single incident that ignites an angry spark in thousands of people to get justice. One of the worst riot in United States History was the Los Angeles Riots that was triggered by the beating of Rodney King by four Los Angeles Police Department officers. Rodney King is a symbol of mistreatment of African Americans throughout the justice system. Rodney King was undeserving of the mistreatment that he endured. March 3, 1991 was a day that we would all remember. Rodney Glen King III was an African American construction worker who became nationally known after being beaten by Los Angeles Police officers. On March 3, 1991 Rodney King and two of his friends named Bryant Allen and Freddie...
Words: 1979 - Pages: 8
...Bernard Parks was appointed Chief of Police of Los Angeles in 1997, his term lasted till the year 2002. During his time in office Parks was very strict on his officers, some officers stated they were scared to do their jobs, due to the indiscriminate punishment and lack of concern for the officers. Parks stripped the Captains’ authority and created “community policing.” Despite Parks’ public praise for community policing, it was common knowledge inside the Department that he was not an advocate. Parks would later remove the senior lead officers from community policing and reassign them to the field. Removing the senior lead officers came as a surprise to many of the department’s advocates of the community policing, and many residents regarded this as a huge step backward, many captains felt the same, one captain stated “The impact was devastating. It was a real blow to community policing.” As the pressure grew to reinstated the senior lead officers, Mayor Riordan ordered parks to reinstate the senior lead officers in March 2001. In April 2002, after a national search for a new Chief of Police, Chief William J. Bratton was appointed to the new Chief of Police. When Chief Bratton to over leadership he spent his first year surrounded by eleven consultants from New York and Boston, trying to learn the department as quickly as he could. Bratton studied the problems Williams and Parks had faced. Quickly Bratton reached out to the union and included its leadership...
Words: 479 - Pages: 2
...society police brutality and racism go hand in hand together, and play a huge part with shaping our society but unfortunately today police brutality is a major concern in the United States. Within many cases, violence is an ongoing battle for millions, and from this stems the many types of violence such as racial discrimination, gang violence and unpredictable outbursts of brutality and from saying that there will always be the cold hard fact that there are some authority figures abusing their power. Cases of police brutality can be traced back to centuries ago, unfortunately when one usually thinks about the given topic, the biggest incident that comes to mind is the Rodney King trial. Since I will be touching on one of the most controversial cases in police brutality it is safe to say that police brutality is still “one of the most serious human violations in the United States. For years the negative use of force used by police officers and local authority has been of a main concern and a large issue throughout our nation” ("LA riots,"). Everything begins when, police officers abuse the use of force that has been given to them, meaning that it has become a growing concern about the abuse of police officers using unnecessary force. And as people have become more educated and aware of what’s taken place, more people have united. People have filed many complaints against police officers using excessive use of force during an arrest and in many cases we have seen how the police have...
Words: 1956 - Pages: 8
...history. On March 3, 1991 following a high speed chase through a rough area of Los Angeles California five Los Angeles Police Officers brutally beat King in the middle of a roadway offering no mercy as he lay in the fetal position soaking up each hit that was delivered from the varies officers. From a nearby balcony a witness caught the beating of King. Whether or not Mr. King resisted the officers following the chase- the violence that followed was most certainly unwarranted. Many officers also stood near where the brutality was taking place, but offered no assisted to King- this footage was aired on national television. The outrage of the public was enough to begin a second riot all of its own. With tension between the Los Angeles Police Departments and African Americas already high in the area, this situation offered no mercy from either party. In 1992 Los Angeles police officers- Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno and Stacey Koon where all charged by Los Angeles County with criminal offenses, including assault with a deadly weapon (Rodney King, 2012). The officers was set to take place in Los Angeles county, but it was argued by the defense attorneys that a fair trial would not be possible because the amount of publicity that surrounded the case. From Los Angeles the case was moved to nearby Simi Valley, approximately 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles, a predominantly white suburb of Los Angeles. The officers were acquitted of all charges soon after the move to Simi...
Words: 732 - Pages: 3
...Willie Hurst A: Plan of Investigation To what extent did the trail and riots for Rodney King bring exposure to Police brutality and racial tensions in the United States? On March 3, 1991 Rodney King was involved in a high-speed chase from the police department. Kings car was spotted due to reckless driving along with the high speeds he was traveling along the highway at. After being forced to pull over, King was beaten by the Los Angeles Police Department. King was taken to Pacifica Hospital where he maintained facial fractures along with a broken ankle and many bruises and lacerations along his body. During the beating a local witness filmed the incident and sent the footage to the local news. The tape shows four policemen surrounding...
Words: 1151 - Pages: 5
...It was just like any other week day for families all across the nation. The evening news was just starting and could be heard in the background in most houses. However, that night’s broadcast was one that no one saw coming: Rodney King, a 25 year old, African American, male, had been brutally beaten by two Los Angeles police officers, and the entire altercation had been caught on film. Brent Maher, a senior in high school at the time, can recall the impact it had, not only in Los Angeles, but across the nation. Rodney King was an unemployed construction worker who was out on parole after serving time in prison for armed robbery. On March 3, 1991, he was caught speeding down the highway with two other passengers. When his car was finally...
Words: 1779 - Pages: 8
...Kolb 02 Police brutally and police management The 1991 beating of Rodney King highlights abuse as one of the most pressing civil rights issues in the United States. It demonstrates that racism is still very real and that people continue to be treated based on the color of their skin. It was one of "the most visible uses of force by police in this country’s history" and put the issue of police brutality on the national agenda (Mydans 1). The King beating set off a chain of events that enflamed racial, ethnic, and social tensions in Los Angeles. It caused six days of riots and rebellion, calls for structural reforms of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. It also caused the resignations of the mayor of Los Angeles, the chief of police, and the Los Angeles County district attorney. This event shows how one officers actions can effect how police officers and police mangers are see by the public. This Civil liability is something that all police mangers will have to deal with at some point in their career weather it be a real case or someone putting a false case in. On March 3, 1991, Rodney King was driving a car in Los Angeles, California, with a passenger, Bryant Allen in the back seat. When King was signaled by police car behind him, but he did not stop, and increased his speed. One estimate stated that King drove one hundred miles per hour for about eight miles, while being chased by police officer Melanie Singer of the California...
Words: 1428 - Pages: 6
...2011 finds that police closed at least 189 cases without an arrest, leaving some families of victims wondering” (Thompson 1). Also, the protocol of most investigations is to conduct interviews with the suspects and victims of each case, with integrity and honor. This has not been the case with Washington, D.C. police officers according to many victims: “A Washington Post examination of nearly 2,300 homicides in the District between 2000 and 2011 found that police closed at least 189 cases without an arrest — 15 percent of the 1,288 total closures. Cases solved without an arrest are known as “administrative,” or “304.1s ,” after the section in the police general orders that refers to the procedure. They are counted the same as an arrest in closure statistics, which are the main measuring stick for homicide detectives and police chiefs” (Thompson 1). Police misconduct is not restricted to the bad behavior of police officers; misconduct appears when police officers simply do not do their jobs, as in the case of many reports relating to the Washington, D.C. police department. There have been many instances of police misconduct in the news, as early as the beginning of law enforcement. In recent news, police officers beat Rodney King in the era of Los Angeles riots of 1991 (Dupont-Morales 91). During this time, Rodney King was racially profiled, and he was beaten by Los Angeles police officers on a videotape. This led to the inclusion of videotapes in all police vehicles. The...
Words: 969 - Pages: 4
...criminals. They are often equipped with specialized weapons including assault rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, stun grenades, and high-powered rifles for snipers. They also have specialized equipment including heavy body armor, entry tools, and armored vehicles. Throughout this paper we are going to give a general overview of these tactical teams. Tactical teams were developed from a number of cases in law enforcement history that came to a head in the 1960’s. The Los Angeles police department realized it needed a team specializing in high risk situations. This realization came from an examination of the way in which the LAPD handled the Watts Riots which resulted in six days of over three thousand arrests. The LAPD and other police departments also needed a way to combat sniper attacks such as the sniper incident in Austin, Texas in 1966 in which the only people capable of returning long range fire were civilians armed with hunting rifles. An LAPD officer name John Nelson introduced the idea of a specialized police unit to an Inspector Daryl Gates. Gates built the original SWAT team with 15 four-man teams. Each of the men originally involved in SWAT were volunteers from patrol officers, and all had prior military experience. Other Tactical Operations teams developed from or to aid SWAT teams, such as negotiations and bomb squads. The components of the Tactical Operations Divisions are SWAT, Negotiations, Bomb Squad, Dive Team, and K-9 Units. Each component has a special purpose...
Words: 1769 - Pages: 8
...Joseph Myers 10/26/12 Ms. Gupta “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets” In “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets” published in Harper’s Magazine, political journalist Peter Singer asks if governments should be transparent and argues why they should be transparent. Singer states the first ever thought of the way to keep track of people through “Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon idea”. (31) Singer further goes on to state that “the FBI collects information without our consent through many of the technological devices we use today”.(32) Singer says that “over the course of Western history we have developed a desire for more privacy, but in the past privacy was not as of a big deal”. (32) For example a 17th century Japanese man makes love to his wife while his daughter kneels on the floor”. (32) Singer says that if more people do something risky then it becomes less risky for everybody else. (33) Singer also states that “there will always be a danger that the information collected will be misused whether by regimes seeking to silence opposition or by corporations seeking more profitable customers.”(33) Also Singer gives many examples on how the government should be private. For instance Singer gives the example Hilary Clinton uses by saying it would not be smart to tell our enemies about where we keep our nuclear weapons because that would be very dangerous to national security. Singer agrees with Clinton in that not everything the government has secret shouldn’t...
Words: 461 - Pages: 2
...mayhem that ensued in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict. According to Wikipedia, the riots and violence broke out in L.A. for three continuously because, out of the four officers, who were involved in allegedly beating Rodney King, only one of them was found guilty of using excessive force and the others were cleared of all charges. This had a great impact on the citizens of L.A. “Twilight 1992” is a series of monologue which is based on the interview Smith conducted with different individuals who were involved in the L.A. riot. Among them, Rudy Salas, Stanley K. Sheinbaum and Jason Sandford intrigue me the most. In “Twilight” Rudy Salas, Sr. the Mexican sculptor and painter seem almost consumed with hatred towards white police officers. Because of his Mexican heredity he says he was called inferior in school by the “nice white teachers” (2). No wonder he called them “the enemy”. Even so he doesn’t exactly hate them. But rather he says he has “an insane hatred for white policemen” (Smith 3). That is because of the fact that he was beaten and turned deaf by four cops when he was a teenager. He was kicked in the head and his eardrums were fractured. Here Salas contradicts himself by saying “I don’t like to hate, the way my uncle Abraham told me that to hate is to waste energy and you mess with the man upstairs” (Smith 3). But then again he can’t deny how he feels towards white policemen. Rudy Salas, Sr. is one of those citizens who were wronged by police, to be more specific...
Words: 934 - Pages: 4
...Miguel Martinez Rick Wilson AJS 101 1 January 2016 All police officers involved received felonies for the beating of Rodney King. Officer Koon, who his job was to keep his officers in line, received the most charges out of the four. He received assault and intentional great bodily harm charges. He also attemptted a cover up. Officer Koon shot the taser at King and had wires attached while Rodney King was helpless. Officer Powell and Wind faced assault charges. In the video, officer Briseno is seen delivering a stomp to Rodney King’s head. Rodney king suffered a broken cheekbone, one of his eyes was damaged and a concussion. Rodney King did not face any charges. The police reactions were not appropriate. Messages were found on the police officer’s cars. One message said “It was right out of ‘Gorillas in the mist.” After the beating, one officer typed “I haven’t beaten anyone this bad in a long time.” The police started laughing when they called an ambulance over. I feel like they just...
Words: 415 - Pages: 2
...Mikayla Monroe Mrs. Purdie English 3 honors 16 November 2015 Police Brutality On March 3, 1991, four LAPD officers brutally beat an American taxi driver by the name of Rodney King. King was believed to be highly intoxicated during the arrest and the officers believed using extremely excessive force would help. The study of police brutality can be used to help further inform the reader of steps they can take to prevent it. For example, the beating of triggered many riots two years later, resulting in more than fifty people losing their lives. However, the people believed that Rioting would help diminish the aspect of police brutality. This topic is important because it shows how police officers believe that they are superior to citizens and they can do anything they please....
Words: 909 - Pages: 4
