believe that a suspect is about to cause injury or death.
Applying the above conditions, it is clear that the Rodney King beating was a display of excessive force by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The LAPD officers crossed the line between what was necessary to subdue King and police brutality: "Excessive force, by definition exceeds what is reasonable . . . when an officer takes someone into custody or attempts to recapture someone who has tried to avoid arrest, only reasonable force is permissible" (Alpert and Dunham, 1997, p. 223-224). On the night of March 3, 1991, King led the police on an eight-mile, high speed chase through city streets. When King finally stopped, he resisted arrest and a group of at least three LAPD officers beat, kicked, and shot him with a taser gun while more than a dozen other officers watched: "Images of King writhing under the blows were a staple on national television for months to come" (Thernstrom and Thernstrom, 1997, p. 513). Although the police accused King of resisting arrest, as a citizen he had the right to use reasonable force to protect himself, because the officers were using excessive force to subdue him.
Although the videotape of the King beating clearly showed that the LAPD officers were in the wrong, some officers defended the use of force in this situation. They pointed to the fact that King's blood alcohol level was above the legal limit. King was a paroled convict. Also, King had just led the police officers on a high-speed chase that endangered lives. But these factors should not have been considered in the police officers' decision to assault King in such a brutal manner. The beating continued long after King had been subdued: "those officers lost control and the beating resembled a feeding fre
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