"That evening, in the Lake View Terrace section of LA, a plumber named George Holliday was awakened by the sound of a police helicopter flying over his apartment building. From his window, he saw several policemen surrounding a Black man. Holliday reached for his recently acquired camcorder and videotaped four Los Angeles Police Department officers as they beat the unarmed Rodney King, hitting him 56 times with metal batons and kicking him as he writhed on the ground in pain while 23 other cops looked on."
"The fillings were knocked out of King's teeth, and he sustained a crushed right eye socket, a broken cheekbone, 11 fractured bones at the base of his skull, and a shattered ankle. He was not charged with a crime."
"The night after the beating, an 82-second excerpt of Holliday's video was broadcast on KTLA, a Los Angeles TV channel. CNN aired it the following morning, and over the next 24 hours it appeared on virtually every national TV news show. In the eyes of millions of viewers, Rodney King posed no plausible threat to the officers, and the ferocious beating had no legitimate law enforcement purpose."
On March 3, 1991, Los Angeles Police Department officers brutally beat Rodney King while Daryl Gates was publicly praised at the White House. George Holliday filmed the assault from his apartment window, capturing officers striking King 56 times with batons and kicking him as he writhed in pain while many other officers stood by. King suffered severe facial and skull fractures and a shattered ankle and was not charged with a crime. An 82-second video excerpt quickly spread across local and national television, convincing millions that the beating lacked any legitimate law enforcement purpose and exposing deep racial disparities in policing that would echo into later national politics.
Read at The Nation
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