At 12:30 am, Officers Tim and Melanie Singer, husband-and-wife members of the California Highway Patrol, noticed King's car speeding on the freeway. The officers pursued King, and the pursuit attained high speeds. Confrontation Officer Tim Singer ordered King and his two passengers to exit the vehicle and lie face down on the ground. Bryant Allen was manhandled, kicked, stomped, taunted and threatened. "Passenger describes L.A. Police Beating of Driver, Calls it racial," New York Times, March 21, 1991.
The video that was captured shows four white police officers clubbing and kicking Rodney King repeatedly. With the exposure that this video tape created for the police force in Los Angeles, it was inevitable that the trial would “brings into focus the questions of police misconduct and racial bias that have aroused anger in Los Angeles and led to revisions in law-enforcement” (Mydans). There was a lengthy investigation and trail put on for the four officers involved. Each officer was charged with use of excessive force and assault with a deadly weapon in the apprehension of Rodney King. During the investigation and trial of the officers, the prosecution and defense used the home video shot by a man named George Holliday, a local man who shot the video from just outside his apartment.
In New York City, an average of seven Latin Americans were killed a year between 1986 to 1989 but, in 1990, that number increased greatly. In that year, twenty three Latin Americans were killed by police gunfire. When asked how he felt about racism being involved in police brutality, Yussuf Naimkly of the University of Regina Commented: “Excessive police force against blacks has always been tolerated, because as a formally enslaved minority African Americans are trapped in a cultural context specifically designed to inhibit their development and thus minimize their threat to white hegemony”. Another shocking incident of police brutality occurred in Reynoldsberg Ohio. A group of offices named themselves “S.N.A.T” squad.
In more recent years, Pelican Bay State Prison located in Crescent City, California, has received national media attention on more than one occasion. This trend started back in February 24, 2000 when a prison riot between African American and Hispanic inmates erupted on a recreational yard. The result of this riot left an inmate dead, 19 others wounded, and a total of 89 manufactured weapons recovered (Wallace, Podger, & Van Derbeken, 2000). In 2011, Pelican Bay prisoners began a statewide prison hunger strike. This hunger strike was directly related to the 2000 riot followed by recurring violent attacks on inmates.
Along with King, police arrested 1000 other protesters and many were beat with whips and clubs. This was broadcasted on tv across America and people were appalled. Only then did they start to realise that what they were doing was wrong. In 1964, King was
In the following weeks, eight of the boys were convicted and sentenced to death in the electric chair. The only one, who was not convicted, was twelve year old Leroy Wright. His trial ended with a mistrial. There was a great deal of public outcry for and against the boys. The NAACP was slow to help the boys and the International Labor Defense (ILD) took over their cases.
Later, in March of 1968 the My Lai Massacre devastated a town of North Vietnamese citizens. American solders fed up and angry with the war killed the entire town of mostly women and children. The Military covered this event up for about a year, but in December of 1969 when the American public became
As if being interrogated isn’t bad enough, they were also incarcerated and deported for just being their skin color. It was even reported that by November 5, 2001, the Immigration and Naturalization Service had detained 1,182 people and was still continuing to do so (Hassan). According to American-Islamic Relations, published in April following the attacks, suggests that around 60,000 Arabs were disturbed by the government’s hate and discrimination against them (Cainkar). Many might think that the fear and hatred would go away after some time, but that’s clearly not the case. Many Arabs are still being judged from an event that happened almost eleven years ago.
Of course, members of the Party rapidly caught on to the Police’s ideals. As a result of this, by the end of 1972 at least four African Americans were killed. H. Rap Brown, who iscurrently serving life in prison, was a prominent Black Panther Party member. He murdered aGeorgian’s Sheriff Deputy and wounded another officer, both sheriff and officer being of AfricanAmerican decent. Police harassment and internal problems took a massive toll on the Black Panthers and it indeed restrained them from achieving their goals.At this point the Black Panther Party was at a critical stage having lost four importantmembers within three years of the party’s lifetime.
In New York City, an average of seven Latin Americans were killed a year from 1986 to 1989, but in 1990, that number increased greatly. In that year, twenty-three Innocent Latin Americans were killed by police gunfire. It is obvious that racism is still prevalent in today’s world and its no surprise that there would be racist people in the police force. This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed because this can cause many problems externally as in random arrests and internally as police conflicts. People should be interviewed and maybe even subjected to a lie detector test to prove that they have no outstanding hatred toward certain people.