The Rodney King Beating

The incident began on March 3, 1991 when Rodney King and two of his friends were out drinking one night, and King drove the car when they left the local park where they had been drinking for some time. King would later testify in court that he knew he was drunk and should not have been driving, so that was never in dispute. It was after midnight when King was driving down the freeway at 80 miles per hour, singing along with the radio, when the california Highway patrol started following him with a siren blaring. King said he knew he would be arrested for drunk driving and that he was afraid of being sent back to prison for violating parole. He spotted the patrol car behind him just as he exited the freeway, on his way to buy more liquor. A police chase ensued at speeds up to 85 mi

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vely cordoned or defused by later attempts by the legal process to deal with the issues raised by the video recording. An amateur video operator thus managed to delegitimize the actions of police officers against King, by bringing to witness the event millions of television viewers (Goldsmith 43). Law enforcement agencies were divided according to jurisdiction and responsibility to a great degree. The Los Angeles Police Department was most directly involved in that the beating was administered by its officers. Police Chief Gates impled early that King was responsible because he had not stopped and may have resisted arrest, though he also said the sort of behavior seen on the video was not condoned by the department. The Highway Patrol, whose officers were also on the scene, blamed the LAPD, and the patrol officers present said they had not participated and had complained to ranking officers at the scene. The LAPD response was always somewhat confused, both challenging what its officers had done and leaving the door open for a degree of justification based on King's actions. The political response was also mixed. Again, the videotape caused many simply to state that this was a case of police abuse, though others took a m
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2123
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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