Yaolee Chen
English 306
The Beating
Rodney King
The TV cameras can record the abusive
power of the police-tyrants when the policemen use excessive forces against any
civilian in California. The news will
spread out the videotape quickly national and international wide. And the angry civilians will create the
revolts. In observing the increasing
riots and protests in California, Peter Schrag, the author of Paradise Lost,
thinks that the quality of life is going to decline in California. But I disagree it. I think, California is going to be a better place to live
throughout the protests and riots. With
the help from the TV cameras, California tomorrow is going to be better. In my case studying, the Beating Rodney
King, I have found the TV cameras help the policemen to be more likely to
protect the civilians, than to scare the residents in downtown LA.
Without [videotape], investigators would have known that a physically
imposing African-American man had led police on a pursuit of nearly eight miles
and behaved in a bizarre fashion after he finally stopped. They would have
known that the man was shot by an electric stun gun and charged at an officer
who hit him with a baton. They might have concluded from medical reports that
he had been struck numerous times, but they would not have known that he had
been on the ground during many of the blows. Without [videotape], they would
have been unable to determine whether the officers had behaved unreasonably.
Without [videotape], thevictim would have been just another black ex-convict who was
injured by the police while supposedly resisting arrest, and no one except
friends and family would today know the name of Rodney King. (Cannon 193)
According to the history, California has
been a place where the new immigrants and the colored people are welcome to
purchase the American dreams on the land. With the increasing Latinos move into
California in the late 20th century, a census of 1990s shows that
40% of the residents lives in downtown LA is Latinos, 37% of the population is
whites, 13% of the population is blacks, and 9% of the population is Asians
(Chan 477). In another word, more than 60% of the residents are colored people.
And, the history of California shows that people, who live in downtown LA,
believe in the equal pays for the equal jobs, regardless of their genders,
races, and colors (Rice 379). In the late 1980s, the factories in the East Los
Angeles are closing down; less and less none-skill-job is available for the
colored people (Chan 479). Colored people are discriminated by the policemen
that the colored are the unemployed and are the poor, and are very much likely
to break the social rules. When the traffic patrols caught Rodney King
over-speed on the freeways on March 3rd, 1991, they pulled Rodney
King out of his motorcycle and began to beating at him. The traffic patrols can
send him a tick or a fine by mail; but they choose to use violence instead. The
case, Beating Rodney King, obviously is a racial discrimination, and it is
intolerable by the California dreamers. Around a year later, on April 28, 1992,
when the court decided the police-tyrants were not guilty, an angry multitude
burned down the business building in downtown LA and lunched on a 5-days-riot.
Till the police tyrants are punished, California becomes a desirable place to
live, again. Without the TV camera, the
court cannot speak fairly for the colored people.
Through the video, civilians have watched
the policemen use excess forces on beating at Rodney King. According to what Los
Angeles Time says on March 6th, 1991, it was on a Sunday morning
12:30 am, Rodney Glen King, age 25, who had been in jail for 2-years-and-an-half
3 months ago, drove a little over-speed on the freeways, and he was caught by
the traffic patrols. Three witnesses saw Rodney King put his left hand in his
pocket and refused to get off the motorcycle. Four traffic patrols surrounded
him, pull him off his motorcycle and began to beating at him. King’s one leg
was broken and his face was disfigured, he could not remember what had happen
at the night when the policemen used excess forces on him. Fortunately, there
was a TV camera not far away from King when the beating was taken place. The
Cable News Network, which was a LA television station, broadcasting the tape
international wide, by the end of Tuesday, at least 300 angry audiences called
to the TV station, who had watched the news. Civilian groups hired lawyers to
investigate the case, the Beating Rodney King (Tape of L.A. Police Beating
Suspect Stirs Public Furor).
Thirteen months later, the judicial
courts sent the police-tyrants free from the punishment, and it angered the
residents of downtown LA. The tape had been played repeatedly national and
international for about a year. A retired policeman told the court that the
policemen had used excess forces on the civilian after he watching the video
for several times, but the court ignored what he had witnessed. The court, on
the racial discrimination bases, had tried its best to send the police-tyrants
free from punishment by saying that the traffic patrols were just doing their
duties. And the court used the wrong
verdicts, which say that King fought back after getting off the motorcycle. A
year after, according to Los Angeles Time says, on April 28, 1992, right
after the court’s final decision was made, the angry multitude, which had
learned about the unequal racial treatment from watching the TVs and videos,
knowing that the court did not punish the police-tyrants, the civilians burned
the business buildings at Vermont and Manchester in LA. Peter Wilson, under the
request of Mayor Tom Bradley, sent troop guards into the city (All 4 in King Beating
Acquitted Violence Follows Verdicts; Guard Called Out). The revolt lasts for 5
days and results in 54 dead, 2,328 injured; and among the dead, 28 of the dead
were African American, 14 were Latino, 9 were non-Hispanic whites, and 2 were
Asian. And three persons who died in the fires had been too badly burned to
determine their race of ethnicity (Cannon 347). In another word, most of the
dead are the colored people, the blacks particularly.
In the 5-days riot, the police-tyrants
had no change on their attitudes toward the civilians, again. A video made from
the TV camera shows that, in the riot, a police-tyrant pull out the driver from
a car and whip at the driver with a deadly weapon on the ground, till the
driver was almost dead, a car which was to make a turn on the corner. And the
tape is, again, played repeatedly national and international on the TVs and
media. President father George Bush, after watching the video, was very much
concern about that the action of the policemen has violated to the civil
rights, and President Bush ordered the court to re-investigate the case, the
Beating Rodney King. In the second investigation, with the iron evidences form
the videotapes, the court uses the true verdicts that King did not fight back
and the policemen had used excess forces on beating at Rodney King. And the
consequence is that Mayor Tom Bradley, and the Chief of LA Department, and at
least three police-tyrants are fired from their jobs. The decision does not
guarantee that the policemen are not going to use the violence against the
civilians. But, at least, the policemen will think it twice before they use
violence against the colored people in the future because they may be recorded
by the TV cameras at anytime in anyplace.
In
observing the increasing crimes and violence in downtown LA, Peter Schrag says
in the book, Paradise Lost, that the quality of life in California is
going to decline, and the social unrest is going to be continued (Schrag
261-261). But, I think, such a worrying is not necessary. The result of the
civilian rights from watching TV is the loosing jobs of the tyrants, Mayor Tom
Bradley, and the Chief of LA Police Department, and the several
police-tyrants--- a civilian right, which threatens to the throne of the
political power that sits on the top, and this very same right is inestimable
to the civilians and formidable to the tyrants only. The despots cannot
understand that the policemen are hired to protect the civilians and are not
hired to scare the residents. The Beating Rodney King has threatens to the
security of our lives. “Whenever any form of government is running to its
destructive ends, it is our right, and it is our duty to throw off such a
government and to provide a new guard for our future security” (Jefferson). No
other people in the world want the American dream so badly like we do in
Californian that we put the law in our own hands. The riot on May 3, 1992, is
the greatest riot in the US history since the Watts Riots of 1965, with its property losses exceeded $900 million (Cannon 347). Why Californians? My answer is that the Californians, with
the large immigrant population, the diversity culture backgrounds, and the
different ethnic groups, believe that a racial equality is achievable if the
people will try to success. The believing in racial equality directs the world
to an incorruptible political system that we are not serving a king or a
prince, but we are changing the political structure for the common people, like
you and me.
Some direct and indirect causes for a better government to success in California: the indirect cause is the believing in the American dream to be true. And a direct cause is the using of TV camera: At first, the court was not to believe that the policemen were doing wrongfully on the civilians, even the videotape had so truly and so obviously showed. But the news has spread out the truth across the United States: it brings out the angry multitude to speak for the truth. In the second investigation after April 28, 1992, the court has to believe that the action of the policemen has violated to the civil rights, and it’s all in the videotapes that the court cannot deny the facts. As much as the believing in American dream is important, what makes the dream come true is the using of TV camera. Seeing is believing. A TV camera spreads out the news quickly, and it helps the LA Police Department to be the best police department in the world. Unlike the assertion of Schrag that the moral was to decline, Californians are making the place more desirable to live in. Without the TV cameras, California history will be different from what we have today. So, California is going to be better tomorrow by the blessing from the scientific technology—the using of TV camera.
Works Cited
“All
4 in King Beating Acquitted Violence Follows Verdicts; Guard Called
Out”. Los Angeles Time. April 29,
1992. A1.A22.
Jefferson,
Thomas. “The Declaration of
Independence”. July 4, 1776. In
Congress.
Cannon,
Lou. How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and
the LAPD. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.
Chan,
Suchen et al. Major Problem in California History. Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1997.
Rice,
Richard et al. The Elusive Eden: A
New History of California. New
York: The McCraw-Hill Companies Inc. 1996.
Schrag,
Peter. Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future.
Los Angeles: University of California
Press. 1999.
“Tape
of L.A. Police Beating Suspect Stirs Public Furor”. Los Angeles Time.
March 6, 1991. A1. A21.