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Excessive Use Of Force In The Rodney King

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After analyzing the video, I believe that excessive use of force was presented in the Rodney King arrest. The excessive use of force was first seen as soon as Mr. King went down on the ground and the first police officer used his baton to strike Mr. King. After that, the next scene is another police officer pulling out his baton to strike Mr. King as well. It also shows that the police officers are using their foot to kick Mr. King. That is the moment when excessive use of forced have been used. Mr. King stopped his vehicle and surrender himself by exiting the vehicle and proceeded to lay down on the ground. This shows to the police officers that he has surrender and is complying; however the police officers chose to ignore Mr. King’s compliance because they are angry about him leading the Los Angeles Police Department with a high speed chase instead of pulling over the minute they turned on their lights and sounded the sirens. I believe that …show more content…

King to exit out the vehicle and to lay down on the ground. However, he didn’t comply with the orders and remained in the vehicle. Now some people may say he didn’t comply with the police officer because he was under the influence; however Mr. King wasn’t alone. He had two friends with him and they followed the police officers orders. Seeing what his friends were doing in that situation then Mr. King should have realized that he needs to copy his friends so the escalation wouldn’t have risen. Considering the short-term of the consequences, it did cause a controversy of police brutality and lead the police officer involved with the beating to be charged. But, no one knew what would have happened if the police officers didn’t decide to pursue Mr. King. He could have killed someone for driving under the influence or crash the car and taken his own or his friends life away. It would have been possible that the police officer wouldn’t use excessive use of force and just place Mr. King under

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I understand he felt as though he did nothing wrong and that he was being profiled. That very well may have been the case, but it is standard procedure to intervene when something may appear suspicious: possibly the time of night, age, and maybe the fact that they had just left a party and were coming from a direction where shots were fired moments prior. The second, biggest mistake was getting out of the vehicle even though the officer dragged him out. Khalil attempted to get out of the vehicle on his own terms first. He then moved from where the officer told him to wait.

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King also comments on the churches' compliments of the police force in handling the demonstrators. First, he points out that the policemen often treated members of the black community very cruelly, cursing and physically abusing them. These details are important because the church should not be perpetuating violence. He does still mention that some policemen acted nonviolently, but he argues that even if they did conduct themselves with some degree of discipline, the policemen are fighting to protect a great evil. Therefore, their actions are still wrong.

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When King describes the acts of violence against his “black brothers and sisters” from law enforcement he is able to appeal to the emotions of many by making people try to sympathize with him and his cause. As King states, “but when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill,” (King 2) he shows how misguided the statement of the clergymen was. He does this by exhibiting real life examples of what he himself has seen occuring as a result of peaceful demonstrations furthering his arguments validity. Not only physical harm from law enforcement is affecting African Americans, but the way the law works is too. With Kings example of the segregation that the law causes he uses the scenario, “as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park… and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children,” (King 2) to show how an innocent child understands the issue of racism.

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This a situation that happened to Rodney King in 1992. Rodney was traveling at a high rate of speed; he was refusing to stop. Once he was stopped, three police officers were kicking, brutally beating Rodney King with metal batons while he was defenseless (Pollack, 2017). This was a high profile case which the officers used excessive force to get him into custody. The L.A. Community erupted when they saw the video that surfaced which showed the brutal beating that he received (Harari, 1993).

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Kings substance abuse issues and how bad the cops actually beat King up led up to the Rodney King trial. Before the beating and trial King dealt with many substance abuse issues(Karen Bates). King was actually on

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There are some episodes where police officers use excessive force on suspected criminals. For instance, there is a scene where a young woman is suspected to be in possessive of some ammunitions and when she tries to resist arrest the police officer uses excessive force in her arrest. There are also other myriad instances on the move when the rights of the individuals are violated. This has changed over time. Human rights activists have come out strongly to condemn the excessive use of force in combating crime.

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Lawrence Vogelman wrote in The Big Black Man Syndrome: The Rodney King Trial and the Use of Racial Stereotypes in the Courtroom (1993) that “Rodney King was portrayed as the prototypical “Big Black Man….with superhuman strength” he goes on to describe how the jury had seen the videotape of the beating in the context of King as the aggressor who needed to be repressed. Similar to the investigation and battle against hip-hop track “Fuck Tha Police”, fear of rebellion surrounds the artificial representation and depiction of the black male. The black male is considered to be “superhuman” yet constantly repressed and incapable of receiving the justice and respect deserved as an American citizen and simply a human being. The L.A. riots sparked as the four officers were excused of all charges and police brutality was condoned by law and order again. During a time that was considered the era of Mass incarceration (which can now be considered the somewhat earlier stages of Mass Incarceration), black men were being arrested and paraded across television screens in handcuffs everyday; the stats increased drastically from the 1970s up until the present day.

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King was in jail for speaking his mind about racial discrimination, but the clergyman did not like his protests accusing him of putting the lives of others in danger, but in reality it's the police who act violently and put the lives of innocent people in danger by persecuting the unruffled protesters. He also defends his organization and reminds the clergyman and the government that he has done no wrong or harm to anyone, yet he is in

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The four officers were brought to court and tried on charges of assault. During the trial, an officer argued that Rodney King resisted arrest, and that they believed King was under the influence of Phencyclidine (PCP) which caused him to be very aggressive and violent toward the officers. When the police thought King was reaching for a weapon near his waistband, they thought the use of force would be “necessary”. The officers did not handcuff King until he lied still.

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When it comes to situations like these, the officer has to ensure that the person being arrested is in good hands and makes it out in 1 piece alive. Therefore, officers should be held accountable for their actions if it results in the injury or death of the person being arrested if it could have been prevented. If an officer has to pull out his weapon to defend himself from an armed man with a gun, then arresting wouldn’t be much of the priority, but pacification should take priority instead in this case. As for a normal routine traffic stop, the officer should focus on writing out the check or arresting the person for the crime they have committed, especially if the person has shown no signs of violent or hostile behavior. In this case, Officers should be charged and held accountable if the use of deadly force was considered unnecessary and the death or injury of the defendant could have been prevented.

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The numbers in the police are falling short in order to successfully create peace within the country. As a result, many police officers feel they have to abuse their power and go to extremes to stop criminals. One of the biggest problems with police brutality is the disgusting racist police culture and how they treat minorities such as blacks and Hispanics. On the third of March, 1991, a black man named Rodney King was involved in a high-speed car chase with officers from the Los Angeles Police Department. The officers were successful with pulling King over.

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Since, these laws went against that statement and destroyed lives, they're unjust. In a way, King is justifying breaking a law because he's saying that it's "OKAY" to break a law, if the laws established are oppressing you or the community. He was breaking the law to reach a common goal! He brought positivity to his community

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Most incidents of police violence which have created a public scandal has the appearance of atrocity, because they are cases of disproportionate use of force. The Rodney King beating in Los Angeles, March 1991 is an archetypal instance. King was caught by police officers after a high-speed chase and was brutally beaten (Karstedt, Loader & Strang, 2013). Local witness George Holiday filmed much of it from his balcony and was later aired around the world, which raised concerns about police treatment of minorities in America (Karstedt, Loader & Strang, 2013). After a three-month trial the officers were acquitted and the outrage sparked the violent 1992 Los Angeles riots.

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A year earlier, in March 1991, Rodney King led police on a high-speed chase through Los Angeles. When police finally stopped him, King was ordered out of the car. Los Angeles Police Department officers then kicked

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Many officers have been tried due to the excessive force. Some of these officers have have ended up being convicted of the crime, where others just lost their job. There have been many been many well publicized high profile cases in the last 30 years, where some of the officers have been arrested due to their part

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