Would you hope that they continued to beat him for several minutes after he had been subdued?
What happened to Rodney king defined a generation of race relations in the USA. It isn't a matter of a couple of cops roughing a guy up - it is a matter of excessive, race related police brutality and a sham investigation and prosecution afterwards.
I don't believe it was racially motivated. Did the cops go too far? Yes. But you can't prove it was racially motivated. King provided all the motivation the cops needed to break their batons over his skull when he was racing thru residential LA neighborhoods high, drunk, and belligerent. Oh and he was a well known drug dealer.
I don't believe it was racially motivated. Did the cops go too far? Yes. But you can't prove it was racially motivated. King provided all the motivation the cops needed to break their batons over his skull when he was racing thru residential LA neighborhoods high, drunk, and belligerent. Oh and he was a well known drug dealer.
Even if he was
- drunk
- going to fast
- belligerent
THAT SHOULD NOT BE MOTIVATION TO BREAK BATONS OVER A GUYS SKULL!!!
And you will never, EVER convince me that if he was white that it would have gone down the way that it did.
The big thing wasn't necessarily the beating itself, but the fact that all of the officers who did it were acquitted a year later by a nearly all white jury despite there being some pretty clear evidence of excessive force by at least 2 of the policemen. If they'd been convicted originally (as they later were on federal charges), the LA riots probably wouldn't have happened.
What people are those? Who doesn't know he was drunk, that he was a convict, that he was high... bla bla bla bla bla? We knew all this when it happened.
A bunch of cops beat the $hit out of him with clubs. We've all seen it.
Were they justified in doing so because he was no angel?
Are you a police officer? Dealing with the worst part of society every day with your life in danger constantly. When your adreniline is running 200% we will see how well you react.
Are you a police officer? Dealing with the worst part of society every day with your life in danger constantly. When your adreniline is running 200% we will see how well you react.
Don't know. But nobody is forcing them to be police officers. They could have just said, "f it! I quit" when they felt so stressed out after coming across Rodney King.
Are you a police officer? Dealing with the worst part of society every day with your life in danger constantly. When your adreniline is running 200% we will see how well you react.
If a policeman can't follow the law while on duty he shouldn't be an officer. The danger is an inextricable part of the job and if a person can't face that without acting like a psycho then maybe they're not cut out for the job. Obviously there must be allowances for life and death situations where snap decisions need to be made, but this (like most cases of excessive force) wasn't one of those.
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Are you a police officer? Dealing with the worst part of society every day with your life in danger constantly. When your adreniline is running 200% we will see how well you react.
That's impossible no one can give more than 100 percent. By definition that's the most any one can give.
And no, I'm not a police officer. Are you? Kinda sounds like it. Do you really deal with the worst part of society every day and your life is in danger constantly? That would be tough, I agree with you there.
But if you can't handle the job, and you think it's okay to get together with your other like-minded 200%-ers and beat a man with clubs in the street, I hope for all of our sake's you look for another line of work.
No police officer I've ever come across was so reckless, violent, and stupid. I know in Calgary they do their best (and seem to do it quite well) to weed out the morons.
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Last edited by RougeUnderoos; 06-17-2012 at 11:19 PM.
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I don't think that the police officers were right in gang beating a high drunk driver and I don't think the people put in place to uphold the law should be able allowed to break it. They could have handled it better. What I would like to see is groups of violent criminals/thugs drag drunk drivers out of their vehicles and gang beat them. Then we can send the violent criminals/thugs to jail for gang beating someone, and drunk drivers get gang beat, and no one will have anything to cry about because it wasn't the police doing it. Eventually we will run out of drunk drivers and violent criminals/thugs and the world will be better off.
Of course there are plenty of holes in this unrealistic scenario but one can dream....
Last edited by Forever Flames; 06-17-2012 at 11:14 PM.
Even if he was
- drunk
- going to fast
- belligerent
THAT SHOULD NOT BE MOTIVATION TO BREAK BATONS OVER A GUYS SKULL!!!
And you will never, EVER convince me that if he was white that it would have gone down the way that it did.
Going too fast is an understatement. We are talking speeds of 90 to 115 mph. Whether or not it would have happened if he was white is up for debate. It's not like white people have never been victims of police brutality. Is there even any evidence that it happens more to black people than white people?
The biggest contributing factor was that a dangerous and violent criminal (armed robbery and wife beating) was pulled over for endangering people's lives and then resisted arrest. You will never convince me that if that didn't happen, that things would have gone down the way they did. All those things were major contributing factors.
Quote:
Originally Posted by opendoor
The big thing wasn't necessarily the beating itself, but the fact that all of the officers who did it were acquitted a year later by a nearly all white jury despite there being some pretty clear evidence of excessive force by at least 2 of the policemen. If they'd been convicted originally (as they later were on federal charges), the LA riots probably wouldn't have happened.
Technically speaking, 3 of them were acquitted (arguably the right decision for 2 of them) and the 4th had a mistrial and would have been tried again. Rodney King himself said that he was only expecting a conviction for one of the officers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
No matter what the verdicts were in those trials that city was going to explode. Rodney King was merely an excuse or a catalyst.
The whole situation from the beating to the riots were repugnant.
I seem to recall around the same time that this happened, there was also an incident where an African American teenaged girl was shot and killed by a Korean store owner which led to some skirmishes. Then the whole Rodney King thing happened which made everything blow up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Forever Flames
I don't think that the police officers were right in gang beating a high drunk driver and I don't think the people put in place to uphold the law should be able allowed to break it. They could have handled it better. What I would like to see is groups of violent criminals/thugs drag drunk drivers out of their vehicles and gang beat them. Then we can send the violent criminals/thugs to jail for gang beating someone, and drunk drivers get gang beat, and no one will have anything to cry about because it wasn't the police doing it. Eventually we will run out of drunk drivers and violent criminals/thugs and the world will be better off.
Of course there are plenty of holes in this unrealistic scenario but one can dream....
In theory, I have no moral problem with corporal punishment. I just don't think police or the public have the right or the training to apply it properly. When a dangerous repeat offender gets a thrashing, I certainly won't shed one tear no matter what colour their skin is. When you look at Rodney Kings crimes before and after the incident, it is hard to feel sorry for him.
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Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 06-18-2012 at 08:47 AM.
Black, white, red or yellow if you are a drunk drug dealer leading the police on a high speed chase odds are you are in for a beating and you deserve it. If you don't accept that colour is a non issue then go to youtube and educate yourself.
I see the "it shouldn't happen because it shouldn't!" brigade is out in full force though.
I was watching a news story where they showed a lot of film clips of the riots. Beyond the horrible scene of a truck driver being pulled out on the street and brutally beaten. One rioter saying that he was rioting to get free stuff, there was one shocking clip of a Korean shop owner calmly firing his pistol into a crowd of rioters.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
We were actually doing a LA/Anaheim family trip just before the riots went down.
I got really sick towards the end, so much so we had to delay our flight out, and was in two different hospitals (a public one before we figured out, 'hey, we have insurance, this is different than home') the first of which I ended up watching a lot news.
Which of course was the trial.
We got out two days before the verdict, I kid you not. Now I agree, the actual danger we would have been in probably would have been minimal, but it sure wouldn't' have made things easy or fun.
And yeah, I remember that truck driver incident. Brutal stuff.
Even if he was
- drunk
- going to fast
- belligerent
THAT SHOULD NOT BE MOTIVATION TO BREAK BATONS OVER A GUYS SKULL!!!
And you will never, EVER convince me that if he was white that it would have gone down the way that it did.
Are you suggesting that a white man has never been beaten by cops after a high speed chase?
__________________ I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love." - John Steinbeck
What is interesting, is Reginald Denny (The white truck driver), the guy who was nearly killed in an unprovoked attack by an angry mob of blacks, has gone on to live a very quiet, law abiding life, and is the most stable guy you could ever meet. Holds zero ill-will towards blacks, even after what they did to him ruined him financially, and left severe physical and emotional scars that will be with him for the rest of his life. Interview with him in 2002:
Rodney King, went on to be arrested nuerous times, be shot at, and did prison time on separate instances after everything blew over. Rodney King is exactly what the cops knew he was. An addicted, thieving, drug dealing, wife beating criminal.
Is it perhaps possible, Rodney King was giant a giant a-hole, that maybe got what was coming to him, regardless of color?
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They probably should have beaten him more than, since they perhaps "knew what he was".
Perhaps you should watch the video and take in some of Denny's wisdom, there are idiots not matter what race or colour they are.
If you were insinuating my comment was racist in some way, you are way off base. King was a criminal jerk, that did nothing to make this world a better place in any way shape or form. No matter what colour he was, a person like him... a criminal like him, deserves little sympathy.
