This week (February 29 - March 6) in crime history – Malik
Nettles opened fire on school bus in St. Louis killing two (February 29, 1996);
The Lindbergh baby kidnapping (March 1, 1932); The Salem Witch trial began
(March 1, 1692); Grave robbers steal the body of Charlie Chaplin (March 2,
1978); The Rodney king beating (March 3, 1991); Martha Stewart was released
from prison (March 4, 2005); Louis Buchalter, head of Murder, Inc. was executed
(march 4, 1944); Jim Morrison was charged with lewd behavior in Florida (march
5, 1969); Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg began (March 6, 1951)
Highlighted Crime
Story of the Week -
On March 3, 1992, at 12:45 a.m. robbery parolee Rodney King
stops his car after leading police on a nearly 8-mile pursuit through the
streets of Los Angeles, California. The chase began after King, who was
intoxicated, was caught speeding on a freeway by a California Highway Patrol
cruiser but refused to pull over. Los Angeles Police cruisers and a police
helicopter joined the pursuit, and when King was finally stopped by Hansen Dam
Park, several police cars descended on his white Hyundai.
A group of LAPD officers led by Sergeant Stacey Koon
ordered King and the other two occupants of the car to exit the vehicle and lie
flat on the ground. King’s two friends complied, but King himself was slower to
respond, getting on his hands and knees rather than lying flat. Officers
Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Ted Briseno, and Roland Solano tried to force
King down, but he resisted, and the officers stepped back and shot King twice
with an electric stun gun known as a Taser, which fires darts carrying a charge
of 50,000 volts.
At this moment, civilian George Holliday, standing on a
balcony in an apartment complex across the street, focused the lens of his new
video camera on the commotion unfolding by Hansen Dam Park. In the first few
seconds of what would become a very famous 89-second video, King is seen rising
after the Taser shots and running in the direction of Officer Powell. All the
arresting officers were white, along with all but one of the other two dozen or
so law enforcement officers present at the scene. With the roar of a helicopter
above, very few commands or remarks are audible in the video.
With King running in his direction, Powell swung his
baton, hitting him on the side of the head and knocking him to the ground. This
action was captured by the video, but the next 10 seconds were blurry as
Holliday shifted the camera. From the 18- to 30-second mark in the video, King
attempted to rise, and Powell and Wind attacked him with a torrent of baton
blows that prevented him from doing so. From the 35- to 51-second mark, Powell
administered repeated baton blows to King’s lower body. At 55 seconds, Powell
struck King on the chest, and King rolled over and lay prone. At that point,
the officers stepped back and observed King for about 10 seconds. Powell began
to reach for his handcuffs.
At 65 seconds on the video, Officer Briseno stepped
roughly on King’s upper back or neck, and King’s body writhed in response. Two
seconds later, Powell and Wind again began to strike King with a series of
baton blows, and Wind kicked him in the neck six times until 86 seconds into
the video. At about 89 seconds, King put his hands behind his back and was
handcuffed.
Sergeant Koon never made an effort to stop the beating,
and only one of the many officers present briefly intervened, raising his left
arm in front of a baton-swinging colleague in the opening moments of the
videotape, to no discernible effect. An ambulance was called, and King was
taken to the hospital. Struck as many as 56 times with the batons, he suffered
a fractured leg, multiple facial fractures, and numerous bruises and contusions.
Unaware that the arrest was videotaped, the officers downplayed the level of
violence used to arrest King and filed official reports in which they claimed
he suffered only cuts and bruises “of a minor nature.”
George Holliday sold his video of the beating to the
local television station, KTLA, which broadcast the footage and sold it to the
national Cable News Network (CNN). The widely broadcast video caused outrage
around the country and triggered a national debate on police brutality. Rodney King
was released without charges, and on March 15 Sergeant Koon and Officers
Powell, Wind, and Briseno were indicted by a Los Angeles grand jury in
connection with the beating. All four were charged with assault with a deadly
weapon and excessive use of force by a police officer. Though Koon did not
actively participate in the beating, as the commanding officer he was charged
with aiding and abetting it. Powell and Koon were also charged with filing
false reports.
Because of the uproar in Los Angeles surrounding the
incident, the judge, Stanley Weisberg, was persuaded to move the trial outside
Los Angeles County to Simi Valley in Ventura County. On April 29, 1992, the
12-person jury, which included 10 whites and no African Americans, issued its
verdicts: not guilty on all counts, except for one assault charge against
Powell that ended in a hung jury. The acquittals touched off rioting and
looting in Los Angeles that grew into the most destructive U.S. civil
disturbance of the 20th century. In three days of violence, more than 50 people
were killed, more than 2,000 were injured, and nearly $1 billion in property
was destroyed. On May 1, President George H.W. Bush ordered military troops and
riot-trained federal officers to Los Angeles to quell the riot.
Under federal law, the officers could also be prosecuted
for violating Rodney King’s constitutional rights, and on April 17, 1993, a
federal jury convicted Koon and Powell for violating King’s rights by their
unreasonable use of force under color of law. Although Wind and Briseno were
acquitted, most civil rights advocates considered the mixed verdict a victory.
On August 4, Koon and Powell were sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison
for the beating of King. King received $3.8 million in a civil suit against the
Los Angeles police department.
Check back every
Monday for a new installment of “This Week in Crime History.”
Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the author
of seven nonfiction books that includes the soon to be released In the Company of Evil Thirty Years of
California Crime 1950-1980 and the award winning Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California 1849-1949.
Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com
for more information. His books can be purchased from Amazon through the
following links:
