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Compton fire chief arrested7/9/2023 ![]() ![]() "It was an open campaign to suppress and contain the black community," she says. "What we had was aggressive paramilitary policing with a culture that was mean and cruel, racist and abusive of force in communities of color, particularly poor communities of color," Rice says in an interview with NPR's Grigsby Bates. The LAPD at the time was almost an occupying force, particularly biased against people of color, says lawyer and civil rights activist Connie Rice. John Gaps III, David Longstreath/AP Ted Soqui/Corbis via Getty Images Armed National Guard soldiers (bottom) hold a line at a post office in South Central after the post office suspended mail delivery due to rioting. A National Guardsman (right) at a gas station near Vermont Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard. An LAPD officer (left) takes aim at a looter in a market at Alvarado and Beverly Boulevard. Police flooded the streets on April 30 as riots continued. That what we thought was open and shut was really 'a reasonable expression of police control' toward a black motorist."Ī year earlier, in March 1991, King - who was on parole for robbery - had led police on a high-speed chase through Los Angeles later, he was charged with driving under the influence. "And yet, we saw a verdict that told us we couldn't trust our lying eyes. It seemed compelling," he says of the videotape. "There was ocular proof of what happened. My jaw dropped," says Jody David Armour, a criminal justice and law professor at the University of Southern California. "When the verdict came out, it was a stunner for people coast to coast. It ignited a national conversation about racial and economic disparity and police use of force that continues today. The photo is one of three introduced into evidence by the prosecution in the trial of four LAPD officers in a Simi Valley, Calif., courtroom in 1992.įury over the acquittal - stoked by years of racial and economic inequality in the city - spilled over into the streets, resulting in five days of rioting in Los Angeles. This photo of Rodney King was taken on March 6, 1991, three days after police officers beat him savagely. ![]()
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