Rodney King and the LAPD
On March 3, 1991, Rodney King was driving his car in Los Angeles when a police car signaled him to stop. However, instead of following the police's orders, King instead increased his speed, driving at 100 m.p.h. for 7.8 miles. When King was finally stopped by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the four policemen who were in pursuit hit King fifty-six times with their batons and kicked him six times within a two-minute period. In total, King suffered eleven skull fractures and both brain and kidney damage.

Thinking that there were no witnesses to the assault, the police officers filed inaccurate reports; they neglected to mention that King had any head wounds at all. However, George Holliday, a man who was standing on a balcony of a nearby building, videotaped the entire beating with his home camcorder. Holliday immediately called Los Angeles Channel 5 News and gave them the eighty-one second tape. By the next morning, the tape was being played on news stations worldwide.

On March 15, 1991, the four police officers--Sergeant Stacey C. Koon, Officer Laurence M. Powell, Officer Theodore Briseno, and Officer Timothy Wind--were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and use of excessive force. On March 26, all pleaded not guilty.

The trial was moved from Los Angeles to the suburb of Simi Valley, despite prosecutor's objections that the two communities had very different demographics (the jury in the King case ended up having ten whites, one Hispanic, and one Asian sitting on it). Consequently, almost a year passed between the indictment and the trial.

On April 29, 1992, the jury rendered their verdict: besides a hung jury decision regarding Powell, all the police officers were acquitted of any crime. In response to the decision, riots broke out on the streets of Los Angeles (see Sa-I-Gu mainpage), causing the deaths of 54 and millions of dollars in damage.

A year later, a federal jury convicted Koon and Powell of violating King's civil rights. Federal District Court Judge John Davies sentenced the two men to thirty months in prison; however, no riots or rebellion occurred after this sentencing.

Both Koon and Powell were released in October of 1995.
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