Rodney King Police Brutality

A LOOK INTO POLICE BRUTALITY, DEADLY FORCE & THE BLACK COMMUNITY

A look into Police Brutality, Deadly Force & the Black Community
Elbony Rodriguez
SOC 4080
Race & Cultural Relations
Northwestern State University

This paper explores police brutality and the use of deadly force across our nation and the racial tension that follows and the people that have suffered from it. There have been several of cases of police brutality witnessed over the years. Although it has been noted as something that has been going on for decades, it seems as though recently it has been put back in the forefront and causing a huge controversy all over again as the media has begun to report it. It seems there has a flood of assaults on young African

American men. It is true that officers are faced with several threatening situations on a daily basis and must make split and it seems more and more often those split decisions can either cost the officer has life or the life of others. But it is often the police vs. the people and police brutality is real and in this report I will give information on statistics and examples of police brutality and why many believe that is boils down to power and racism.
There is an ongoing debate in regards to policing and race. Many believe that race plays a role in police brutality and misconduct. Minority groups are more likely to be a victim of unfair treatment by the police. Surveys show that that confidence in police is extremely low due. According to a Pew/USA Today poll conducted in August 2014, Americans of all races collectively “give relatively low marks to police departments around the country for holding officers accountable for misconduct, using the appropriate amount of force, and treating racial and ethnic groups equally.” Social scientists who have done extensive field research and interviews note the deep sense of mistrust embedded in many communities. According to a report performed by Propublica, it states that young black males in recent years were at a far greater risk of being shot dead by police than their white counterparts: 21 times greater according to a Propublica analysis of federally collected data on fatal police shootings. The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police. Propublica’s risk analysis on young males killed by police certainly seems to support what the African American community has believed for decades and that is Blacks are being killed at disturbing rates when set against the rest of the American population.
Our police are to serve and protect the community. They are there to enforce the laws of the land; however there are some officers that believe they are the law and have a warped mentality of how things should been handled and some may even say that they have to protect and serve communities that they rather not be in and or associated with . Police officers should not have the power to take citizen’s rights away or use excessive force when they choose too. Can these events isolated occurrences in particular police departments or dangerous examples of a more general problem plaguing police departments across the United States? Is it something more sinister and those behind the badge or getting away with it? According to Journalist Resource, numerous efforts have been made by members of the law enforcement community to ameliorate these situations, including promising strategies such as “community policing.” Still, from a police perspective, law enforcement in the United States continues to be dangerous work and I would have to agree. America also has a relatively higher homicide rate compared to other developed nations, and has many more guns per capita. Citizens seldom learn of the countless incidents where officers choose to hold fire and display restraint under extreme stress. Some research has shown that even well-trained officers are not consistently able to fire their weapon in time before a suspect holding a gun can raise it and fire first; this makes split-second judgments, even under “ideal” circumstances, exceptionally difficult. But as the FBI points out, police departments and officers sometimes do not handle the aftermath of incidents well in terms of transparency and clarity, even when force was reasonably applied, fueling public confusion and anger which in fact creates more outrage in the community.
Rodney King: Going back to 1991, the first story I heard about has a young child in regards to police brutality.

Rodney King is a name that many associate police brutality with and the outrage it can cause to a community. It was on March 3, 1991 when 25 year old Rodney King, who was on parole at the time, had been driving around in Los Angeles with some friends and reports say driving drunk had failed to initially pull over after driving at high rates of speed. He was finally pulled over and King resisted arrest and was initially subdued by a taser and that’s when things got ugly and ugly fast. King was beat with nightsticks over fifty times and one of the officers began to kick King in the head repeatedly and unknown to the officers and King, the arrest was being videotaped. King suffered brain damage, eleven skull fractures and other physical and emotional damage. The officer in the case was initially found not guilty of all criminal charges. This caused a major backlash is the community and a riot has ensued in South Central Los Angeles. The rioters, whom were mostly you black males began to set fires to buildings and cars, looted stores and assaulted innocent people coming through the neighborhood. Those horrendous assaults were also caught on film by local television stations as they filmed the riots from their helicopters. King won a civil lawsuit and was awarded 3.8 million dollars. This was an epic moment in US history as it shed light on what and when it is necessary to use force and what type of force is deemed appropriate and inappropriate for the police. Did the LA officers have the right to do what they did or were they completely out of line. Depending on who you ask, you will get a different

answer.
Abner Louima: In 1997, New York City after a night club scuffle incident, Louima was said to have been involved in an altercation that involved the patrons of the night club and then with the officers that had responded to the scene. Louima was sodomized repeatedly by a NYPD officer. The officers had brought him to the police station where they pulled down his pants and sexually assaulted him with a plunger and broomstick tearing his rectum and bladder. The officers involved were charged and one was sentenced to thirty years in prison. Louima was awarded a settlement of 8.7 million dollars the largest police brutality settlement in New York’s history. Luckily for Louima, he survived their horrendous injuries as did King, however there a many who have not.
There are reports of more than 12,000 police homicides stretching from 1980 to 2012 contained in the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Report. The data, annually self-reported by hundreds of police departments across the country, confirms some assumptions, runs counter to others, and adds tone to a wide range of questions about the use of deadly police force. There are also several shootings that are not included in the reports due to the fact that some of these shootings are listed with the circumstances undetermined which could skew the findings and in reality there are more than what the FBI reports actually contain.
Sean Bell: November 25, 2006, Sean Bell was leaving a club with friends for his bachelor party. A night that should have been about fun times as the last day of being a single man had approached turned into a night of horror. Bell had just left a New York City strip club with some of his friends, that had hosted his bachelor party it was said the officer were conducting an undercover prostitution sting and believed that one of the persons Bell was with was retrieving a gun and fired 50 shots into the vehicle they were leaving in. One website state that, several eyewitnesses who were at the club, an argument broke out between the three and two other men an argument and the dispute continued in the clubs foyer, as the three were trying to leave, and then outside the club, where one eyewitness said threats and counter-threats were made and that goes on all the time in situations like these. And, in fact, Benefield reiterated what Bell had said moments earlier about it being time to split, and the three headed out. Also in the Kalua that night was a male Black undercover cop, part of a special NYPD unit that was scoping out the club for possible prostitution and drug activity. Police Commissioner Kelly has admitted that this cop had a couple of beers before the shooting that followed but that he is considered to have been “fit for duty.” Having witnessed the argument, the undercover cop signaled those outside, who were sitting close by in an unmarked minivan and Toyota Camry, that one of the three friends might have a gun. As the three got to Sean’s car on Liverpool and were climbing in, the minivan and Camry arrived and the inside undercover walked toward Sean’s car, hollering at the three. What happened next (as told to their attorneys and the media by the wounded Guzman and Benefield a couple of days later from their hospital beds—to which they had been handcuffed until enraged family members and others forced the police to take them off) was that all three of them thought they were about to be robbed or car-jacked. In an attempt to get away, Sean Bell first lurched the car forward, which the police claim “clipped” the undercover cop, threw it into reverse, climbing over the sidewalk and bashing the rear end into the iron gate covering a store front, and then lurched forward again, hitting the minivan. Then the undercover cop who had approached Sean’s car opened fire, then immediately joined by the other officers. One of them reloaded and clicked off thirty one shots. In a matter of a few seconds, Sean Bell was dead and Joseph Guzman, hit eleven times, and Trent Benefield, hit three times. There was never a gun found in the car or on anyone in the vehicle with Bell. This caused a major outrage in the community. How can police be so careless? If you think you see a weapon does that give you the right to use deadly force? Was this shooting and killing justified? None of the officers involved were had any charges brought up and