Rodney King beaten by three white police officers


White on Black crime?
Date: 
Sun, 1991-03-03

*This date marks the anniversary of the Rodney King beating. On March 3, 1991, white police officers in Los Angeles, California, stopped a car driven by a 34-year-old African-American named Rodney King, who, they said, was speeding.

According to the officers, King emerged from his automobile in an aggressive manner that suggested he might have been high on drugs. Before handcuffing King, the police delivered some 56 blows, kicks, and a number of shocks from a stun gun to the fallen body of the Rodney King. A bystander captured the beating on videotape, and within two days the footage was being broadcast on national television.

King brought charges of brutality against four of the policemen. The officers, who claimed they acted in self-defense, were tried before a predominantly white jury in a white middle-class suburb of Los Angeles. On April 29, 1992, all four men were acquitted.

Reference:
The Associated Press
permissions
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Person / name: 

King, Rodney