The Rodney King Incident Essay

THE RODNEY KING INCIDENT According to Whitman (1993) "Well before he heard the first siren, Rodney King knew he never should have slipped that key into the ignition. They had been having so much fun, he and his buddies Bryant Allen and Freddie Helms, just kicking back, sipping some inexpensive 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor at the local park as they jawed and laughed while the daylight ebbed away. Afterward, they had stood in front of Allen's mom's house trying to croon a few tunes. King wasn't much of a singer but, when he switched to rapping, his buddies felt he was almost in a groove. And then it was after midnight, and suddenly King was driving his car, flying down the highway at 80 miles per hour, the radio blaring, he and Allen singing again, and then there it was--the flashing light atop the highway patrol car bouncing off his rearview mirror, filling his car with a red light that King had learned to dread. King knew, as he later testified, that he was drunk and that if the police caught him speeding he'd soon be back in prison for violating parole" (Whitman, 1993, pp. 34-57). It is recommended that the student writing on this topic consider the mindset of Rodney King and why he fought being detained by the officers. In the middle of the night of March 3, 1991, George William Holiday taped the encounter between Rodney King and several officers. This was, according to some, one of the most famous images in modern American history. The tape, however, was edited before it was broadcast. Wilson said, "Gone were the few seconds in which King, at the start of the episode, charged at the officers. What views saw was only officers beating a crouching King with metal batons. And the absence of pictures of King's charge led many people to believe that King was...

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