Yaolee Chen
Kent Schofield
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], the victim
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[1].
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[2]. 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[3]. 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[4]. 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 nigh 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[5].
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[6]. 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[7]. 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 videotape 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[8].
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”[9].
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[10]. 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 the 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.
“All 4 in King Beating Acquitted Violence Follows
Verdicts; Guard Called Out”. Los Angeles Time. April 29, 1992. A1.A22.
“The Declaration of Independence”. By Thomas
Jefferson. July 4, 1776. In Congress.
The Elusive Eden: A New History of California. By Richard
B. Rice, William A. Bullough, Richard J. Orsi. New York: The McCraw-Hill
Companies Inc. 1996.
How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and
the LAPD. By Lou Cannon. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 1999.
Major Problem in California History. By Suchen Chan et al. Houghton Mifflin Company,
1997.
Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s
Future. By Peter Schrag. 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.
[1]How
Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD. By Lou Cannon.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. page 193.
[2] Major Problem in
California History. By Suchen Chan et.al. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1997. page 477
[3] The Elusive Eden: A New History of California. By Richard B. Rice, William A. Bullough,
Richard J. Orsi. New York: The McCraw-Hill Companies Inc. 1996. page 379.
[4] Major Problem in
California History. Page 479.
[5] “Tape of L.A. Police Beating Suspect Stirs Public
Furor”. Los Angeles Time. March 6,
1991. A1. A21.
[6] “All 4 in King Beating
Acquitted Violence Follows Verdicts; Guard Called Out”. Los Angeles Time.
April 29, 1992. A1. A22.
[7] How
Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD. By Lou Cannon. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 1999.
[8] Paradise Lost:
California’s Experience, America’s Future. By Peter Schrag. Los Angeles:
University of Californica Press, 1999. Page 260-261
[9] “The Declaration of
Independence” by Thomas Jefferson. July 4, 1776. In Congress.
[10] Cannon, Lou. How
Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD. By Lou Cannon.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. page 347.