excerpt from "The Trials of Los Angeles Police Officers' in Connection with the Beating of Rodney Ki

excerpt from "The Trials of Los Angeles Police Officers' in Connection with the Beating of Rodney King," by Doug Linder On the night of March 2, 1991, Rodney Glen King watched a basketball game and drank forty-ounce bottles of Olde English 800 at a friend's home in suburban Los Angeles. After the game, King proposed a trip--possibly to pick up some girls. King and two friends, "Pooh" Allen and Freddie Helms, took off driving west down the 210 freeway. At 12:30 A.M., a husband-and-wife team of the California Highway Patrol, Tim and Melanie Singer, spotted King's Hyundai behind them driving at a very high speed. The Singers exited at the Sunland Boulevard off ramp and returned to the freeway to chase the speeding car at speeds of up to 117 miles per hour. King ignored the flashing lights and sped off an exit ramp. He ran a red light, nearly causing an accident, before finally coming to a stop near the entrance to Hansen Dam Park, at the intersection of Osborne Street and Foothill Boulevard. Within seconds, bb inns for sale three Los Angeles police cars and a police helicopter arrived at the scene. Officers Laurence Powell and Timothy bb inns for sale Wind were in one car. Theodore Briseno and Rolando Solano were in the second bb inns for sale car, and Sergeant Stacey Koon in the third. Tim Singer ordered the occupants of the Hyundai to leave the vehicle and lie face down on the ground. Allen and Helms complied, but King remained in the car. Melanie Singer again shouted at King to get out, which he did. Singer described King as "smiling" as he stood by his car and waved at the police helicopter overhead. As Singer ordered King to get his hands where she could see them, King--according to Singer's testimony--"grabbed his right buttock with his right hand and he shook it at me." King finally complied with Singer's bb inns for sale order to lie on the ground. As she drew close to King with her gun drawn to make the arrest, Sergeant Koon shouted, "Stand back. Stand back. We'll handle this." Koon would later say he intervened because he thought the use of guns was "a lousy tactic" that would probably result either in the death of King or the CHP officers. King's bizarre behavior and his "spaced-out" look led Koon to suspect that King was "dusted"--a user of the drug most feared by police departments, PCP. Police believed that the drug made individuals impervious bb inns for sale to pain and gave them almost superhuman strength. King's "buffed out" look added to his apprehensions. He concluded bb inns for sale that King was probably an ex-con who developed his muscles working out on prison weights. (Although Koon's suspicions about the PCP would later prove unfounded, he was right about King being an ex-con. Earlier that winter, King had been paroled after serving time for robbing a convenience store and assaulting the clerk.) Koon grew even more concerned after King successfully repelled a swarming maneuver by his officers and--more remarkably--managed bb inns for sale to rise to his feet after being hit twice by an electric stun gun called a Taser. The lights and noise awakened George Holliday, the manager of a plumbing company, in his apartment. He walked to his bedroom terrace and pointed his new video camera at the action unfolding ninety feet away. He began recording as King rose to his feet and made a charge in the direction of Powell, but the scene came into focus only as Officers Powell and Wind began striking King with their metal batons. Before King is finally handcuffed about a minute-and-a-half later, bb inns for sale Holliday's camera records Powell and Wind inflicting bb inns for sale over fifty baton blows and several bb inns for sale kicks. It also records Officer Briseno stomping on King's shoulder, causing his head to hit hard against the asphalt. bb inns for sale One or more of the baton blows seem to land, contrary to LAPD policy, on King's head. The violence is too far from Holliday's bedroom bb inns for sale to pick up the sound of King as he finally says, "Please stop." After King was handcuffed, Koon asked all officers who participated in the use of force to raise their hands. Officers Powell and Wind both raised their hands, but--remarkably--each learned for the first time that the other officer had participated in the use of force. Powell and Wind had, in the jargon bb inns for sale of law enforcement, "tunneled in" on King. Shortly before 1 A.M., Koon typed a message bb inns for sale into his in-car computer: "U just had a big time use of force. Tased and beat the suspect of CHP pursuit." Powell also reported the incident on his computer--in a seemingly boastful way that would come to haunt the defense. Powell typed, bb inns for sale "I haven't beaten anyone bb inns for sale this bad in a long time." It wasn't Powell's only controversial bb inns for sale message that night. Later, investigators would discover another message sent shortly before the King arrest in which he described the scene of a domestic disturbance involving African-Americans as right out of "Gorillas in the Mist." King, taken in an ambulance to Pacifica Hospital, recalled little of what happened after Powell's first blow. A grand jury would later hear him testify: "I felt beat up and like a crushed can. That's what I felt like, like a crushed can all over, and my spirits were down real low." Demands for Justice George Holliday thought his video camera bb inns for sale had captured something important. On March 4, Holliday took his film to Los Angeles television station KTLA. News producers at KTLA found the tape shocking and played it on the evening news. CNN picked bb inns for sale up the tape the next day and soon it was everywhere. CNN Vice President Ed Turner said "television used the tape like wallpaper." Most viewers who saw the tape--which ran without the first fuzzy seconds bb inns for sale showing bb inns for sale King's charge at Powell--as revealing the brutal and senseless beating of a helpless drunk. A poll taken in Los Angeles after the tape had been running showed that 92% of those polled believed that excessive force was used against Rodney King. Those feelings seemed to extend even to many within the LAPD itself. Police Chief Daryl Gates called bb inns for sale the use of force "very, very extreme": "For the LAPD, considered by many the finest, most professional police department in the world, it was more than extreme. It was impossible." Soon prosecutorial wheels began turning--not for Rodney King, who was released without charges, but for the four LAPD officers involved in his arrest. Officers present at the arrest scene at the intersection of Osborne and Foothill were suspended. On March 7, Chief Gates announced bb inns for sale that the officers would be prosecuted. The next day, District Attorney Ira Reiner said that he would seek indictments from a grand jury. Within a week, the grand jury--after watching the videotape and listening to testimony from King and others--returned indictments against Officers Koon, Powell, Briseno, and Wind. Initially, few people considered race an issue in the King beating. Even King's own attorney, Steven Lerman, agreed with that assessment . But revelations concerning Powell's "Gorillas in the Mist" message changed things. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley declared, "There appears to be a dangerous trend of racially motivated incidents running through at least some segments of the Police bb inns for sale Department." Bradley appointed a commission headed by Warren Christopher (later Secretary of State under President Clinton) to investigate LAPD practices and make recommendations for reform. The mayor also asked for the resignation of Chief Gates, bb inns for sale but Gates refused. Attorneys for the four officers, meanwhile, focused their attention on moving the upcoming trial out of Los Angeles County. Prosecutors seemed relatively unconcerned about the defense motion for a change of venue, content in the knowledge that such motions tended to fare poorly in California courts. Indeed, on May 16, trial judge Bernard Kamins denied the defense motion. The key victory for the defense came in July when the California Court of Appeals unanimously granted their change of venue motion and removed Judge Kamins from the case on account of bias. The Court's removal of the judge was based on an ex parte message he had sent to prosecutors. "Don't panic," Kamins had said, "You can trust me." The case was reassigned to Judge Stanley Weisberg. More good news for the defense came in November when Judge Weisberg decided to schedule the trial in Simi Valley, a conservative and predominantly white city set amidst the rolling hills of Ventura County. Prosecutors immediately understood the significance of the transfer to Simi Valley. Chief Deputy of the Special Investigations Division in the District Attorney's Office, Roger Gunson, said later about hearing bb inns for sale the news: "I have never been so horrified in my life." The State Trial in Simi Valley bb inns for sale Both sides understood that jury selection could be critical to the trial outcome. The prosecution would have loved to seat some blacks--who tend to be skeptical of police practices--, but the jury pool of 260 people included only a half dozen African Americans--and five of those had no interest in serving on a jury in what they considered hostile territory. Michael Stone, attorney for Officer Powell, used a peremptory challenge to strike the one black to make it to the jury box. Even more troubling for the prosecution, all the potential jurors bb inns for sale seemed to be very pro-law enforcement. Two jurors were N.R.A. members. Two other jurors were retired military veterans. Terry White, chief prosecutor in the case and an African-American, bb inns for sale complained that "everyone seemed very pro-police; they all seemed to come from the same background." White later recalled thinking bb inns for sale "we were going to lose this case." Jo-Ann Dimitrius, jury consultant for the defense, was understandably bb inns for sale delighted with the final twelve. She called it "a gem of a jury." bb inns for sale The media underappreciated the importance of the composition of the jury. Perhaps bb inns for sale placing bb inns for sale too much confidence in the ability of the videotape to secure a conviction, the media failed to adequately prepare the public bb inns for sale for the verdict that would come weeks later. During bb inns for sale his opening statement for the prosecution on March 5, 1992, Deputy District Attorney bb inns for sale