ON THIS DAY

 

March 3, 1991: 

On this day in 1991 Los Angeles police officers severely beat motorist Rodney King (1965 – 2012) during his arrest after a high speed pursuit for driving while intoxicated. An uninvolved resident, George Holliday, saw and filmed the incident from his nearby balcony and sent the footage, which showed King on the ground being beaten after initially evading arrest, to local news station KTLA. The incident was covered by news media around the world and caused a public uproar.

At a press conference, Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates announced that the four officers involved would be disciplined for use of excessive force and that three would face criminal charges. The LAPD initially charged King with "felony evading", but later dropped the charge.  On his release, King spoke to reporters from his wheelchair, with his injuries evident: a broken right leg in a cast, his face badly cut and swollen, bruises on his body, and a burn area to his chest where he had been jolted with a stun gun.

Four officers were eventually tried on charges of use of excessive force. Of these, three were acquitted; the jury failed to reach a verdict on one charge for the fourth. Within hours of the acquittals, the 1992 Los Angeles riots started, sparked by outrage among racial minorities over the trial's verdict and related, longstanding social issues, overlaid with tensions between the African American and Korean American communities. The rioting lasted six days and killed 63 people, with 2,383 more injured; it ended only after the California Army National Guard, the Army, and the Marine Corps provided reinforcements to re-establish control. King advocated for a peaceful end to the conflict.

The federal government prosecuted a separate civil rights case, obtaining grand jury indictments of the four officers for violations of King's civil rights. Their trial in a federal district court ended in April 1993, with two of the officers being found guilty and sentenced to serve prison terms. The other two were acquitted of the charges. In a separate civil lawsuit in 1994, a jury found the City of Los Angeles liable and awarded King $3.8 million in damages. 

On Father's Day, June 17, 2012, King's partner, Cynthia Kelley, found him dead underwater at the bottom of his swimming pool. King died 28 years to the day after his father, Ronald King, was found dead in his bathtub in 1984. 

King's autopsy stated: "The effects of the drugs and alcohol, combined with the subject's heart condition, probably precipitated a cardiac arrhythmia, and the subject, incapacitated in the water, was unable to save himself."

 

Rodney King in 2012

 

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