On the night of March 3 1992 Rodney King was brutally beaten by four police officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (California) with batons and shocked with an electric Taser gun shortly after having being pulled over in his car. King was surrounded by many police officers, four of whom appeared to be beating him relentlessly with their wooden batons (Source G). After being struck a total of 50 times with the batons King was further shocked with an electric Taser gun after appearing to be continuing to “resist arrest”. Source A, as a visual representation of the physical impact of the brutal beating that had occurred shows an evidently swollen and heavily bruised face. 3 surgeons operated on King for 5 hours the morning that image was taken as a result of the injuries King had sustained. It is apparent that King had previously anticipated a beating to this brutal extent as racially influenced police brutality seemed to be the norm amongst –not just minority communities- but particularly against black communities in America. Shortly prior to pulling over for the police King proceeded to search for a public place to pull over, “fearing what (the police) might do to him” if they were in a secluded area. …show more content…
It is stated that about 1 out of 33 back people living in California was in jail or in prison by 1 April 2000, with 1 out of 17 black men in California having being incarcerated. The expansion and high rate of African-American incarcerations is alarming owing to the fact that in the 1990’s the crime rate was “down for most of the decade and the state’s population growth was not that dramatic.” Furthermore, African-Americans made up 29% of those in correctional institutions despite the fact that they only represent a mere 7% of the state of California’s