This comment is stupid. If you’re going to blame someone other than the rioters themselves, the people to blame are the LAPD for the long history of brutality and discrimination as well as practices that were guaranteed to cause problems and the jurors who rather stupidly decided to acquit the police officers of the beating.
This comment is even dumber.
One would have to be extremely ignorant of the history of LA, the LAPD and its relationship with the black community, delusional, willfully blind, or some combination of the three to actually believe that there wasn’t a pretty obvious racial component to the beating.
Leaving aside the fact this was four white officers beating the hell out of a black man, when Lawrence Powell, the officer who delivered over 40 blows to the prone King, had a recorded conversation with his girlfriend, and fellow police officer where he was laughing while describing the encounter and declared it was “right out of gorillas in the mist”, after which she asked “let me guess, who be the players.”
Now, if you want to argue that race wasn’t involved when one of the officers was making jokes about “gorillas in the mist” go ahead, but I think most people would agree it would be quite stupid.
…they aren’t ignoring it: it simply isn’t relevant. The narrative starts where thing go from normal to abnormal, when police stopped being policeman and started being thugs. Everyone in the thread concedes that King broke the law: that isn’t up for debate. The question has to be, if everyone is in agreement that King is a bad guy and was committing a crime, why do you keep bringing it up?
You can be a racist bastard and still have a legitmate reason to beat the crap out of a guy who happens to be black. Being racist just means you found it more entertaining than would usually be the case. It does not change the fact some beating was required.
Using a baton is just like using a taser or using tear gas: if it’s not working, you stop. The point is to make him comply not just hurt him. If you’re hitting a guy with a baton and he’s still not doing what you want and you keep hitting him anyway, then you’re just beating him up. And while you can be justified in using force to make a person comply with your orders, you’re not justified using force if it’s just to hurt the guy.
They should have shield rushed him or blanketed him. (They make kevlar shields and blankets for this purpose.) Get him pinned down on the ground and immobilized. Just keep an eye on him because you can kill a person by doing this (the weight can keep them from getting enough air, especially if he’s lying on his stomach). You want to get the guy cuffed up as soon as possible. You cuff the legs first because those are easier. Once the legs are cuffed, the guy is off balance and his ability to resist has dropped way down. But if he’s still struggling, you grab his arms and cuff them together. I don’t care if you’re Chuck Norris - two guys on each arm and your arms are going to be cuffed. Once the arms and legs are cuffed, it’s pretty much over. You might have to belt him or put a mask on him if he’s a biter or a spitter but these are just details.
If he still wants to fight at this point, you just tell him he’s a looney and then you and your faithful servant Patsy ride off to continue your quest.
…they are: and everyone in the thread agrees that King is responsible for this and a criminal.
Ibn Warraq is correct: the police are responsible for their actions: and their actions are what got them in trouble. Do you not think that people should accept responsibility for their actions?
If they were thugs they would have dragged him out of the car and beat him without trying several different ways to arrest him without him getting hurt. There is no “let’s beat up that black guy” or “we’ll show him what happens when he breaks the law”, they are trying to arrest a guy and bring him to justice. In retrospect they may have done it in a better way, but he had already thrown off 4 police officers and been un-debilitated by a Taser. Yet we have a bunch of people whose closest brush with violence is playing video games telling us all how it should have been handled. There is no “saved game” in real life. If a policeman had been killed he’d have stayed dead and someone would have had to go to the widow’s house to tell her.
I think it’s right that the officers involved were investigated and if I were on the jury I might even have found them guilty of something depending on what evidence was presented, but I am not outraged by what they did. I am outraged by what Rodney King did and by the riots.
…show me any police department in the Western world where the way the cops behaved here is part of the standard operating procedure.
And if all you’ve got is attacks on the other posters here, then you don’t really have a lot at all. You have no idea of my background or the background of any of the posters here and to claim that our " closest brush with violence is playing video games" is insulting. There are people here who know much more than you think: you should really stick to keeping to the debate and leave the personal attacks out of it.
…so you agree that Rodney King should have been punished and he was, and you agree that the police should have been punished and they were. So what you are really saying is that you wouldn’t have done anything differently?
Fighting the cops in any way is a no go. Unless they tell you do something that will likely lead to your immediate demise or the death of others you do what the fuck they say to do. If you are so drunk or high or on an adrenaline rush such that you cannot or will not comply…well you just fucked yourself over.
Don’t like what they want you to do? Just fracking do it. Then write the local paper. Contact your congressman or senator. Call the local TV station. Hire Lionel Hutz or Johhny Cochran. Put a bug up the ACLU’s ass. Tweet Jessy Jackson. Stuff like that.
But once the fighting starts? IMO unless the cops actually continue to beat you or draw a gun and shoot your ass AFTER you are unconscious and not moving then tough titties.
No, my knowledge of this subject is not theoretical. I’ve subdued more people than I can count. And some of them were more violent than Rodney King ever dreamed of being.
I’m not sure what role I am playing. If I were King I would have done lots of things differently: not driven drunk, not driven at high speed in a residential area, and not resisted arrest.
If I were the police I don’t know what I would have done. Would I have thought that King was going for a gun when he “grabbed his buttocks”? In that case I might have shot him. Maybe I would have Tased him again, maybe I would have hit him with a baton and then waited to see what happens, maybe I would have assumed that if other officers were hitting him with batons there was something going on like them seeing a knife and joined in, maybe I would have had second thoughts and yelled at the other officers to stop. Luckily I’ve never been put in the situation where I have to weigh injuring someone else against protecting me and my co-workers.
Is the question poor training or painting the cops as thugs? Certainly the use of batons is not in itself against procedure, if it were they wouldn’t be issued. I don’t know what LAPD training was for baton strikes. I’m pretty sure the kicking was not regulation though.
…well don’t play a role then, just give us your opinion.
Yes: everyone in the thread agrees that King is a very very bad man. Congrats on bringing it up again though: I’m sure it won’t be the last time!
After reading this response I too am glad you are not a member of the law enforcement community. Heaven forbid the buttock grabbers, lest they end up peppered with bullets.
Here is the video:
Looks like a bunch of thugs to me. Are you saying they don’t look like a bunch of thugs to you?
Can you show me any police department in the western world where this is standard operating prodeedure?
I haven’t seen that video in nearly 20 years, and watching it again, I’m struck by the fact that all of the people who watch this video and try to claim that King is trying to get up in order to fight back are insane. That guy is trying to get up in order to get away from people beating him to death.
There is always the claim that the video doesn’t show all the stuff that happened before the beating, which is both true and irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if King had murdered a family of nine before the video started, the police could obviously have subdued this man without further beatings, and it is for the courts to decide what to do with him from there.