On March 3, 1991, a black man led a high-speed chase in the city of Los Angeles. Rodney King was driving drunk. Previously, King had been found guilty of a robbery and was under parole, and knew that driving drunk would violate his parole.
In the high-speed chase, King was being pursued by several police cars and a helicopter. King was forced to stop when the police finally surrounded his car. After coming to a halt, he and his two passengers were ordered to exit the car and lie down on the floor. At first, King refused to come out of the car, but when he finally did, he was brutally beaten.
Unknown to the officers, George Holliday was recording the incident from his apartment window. Holliday later contacted the police about his recording, but was ignored. He then went to KLTA television with his videotape.
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Urine and blood tests revealed that at the time of arrest, King would have been intoxicated. Nurses also reported that the officers who accompanied king joked and bragged about the number of times king had been hit.
Rodney King was released on March 7 without any charges. Later, Sergeant Stacey Koon, as well as officers Laurence Michael Powell, Timothy Wind, and Theodore Briseno were indicted by a Los Angeles grand jury. In the trial, the officers and Sergeant Stacey Koon were acquitted by an all white jury, and riots erupted all across