None of the above justifies the beating that those cops gave him. I’m glad that they did time. I think that they are lucky that they didn’t get an attempted murder rap, because it easily could have been justified.

THe one thing that I have the utmost respect for Rodney King for doing is the one thing that people strangely seem to lampoon him for – his being brave and reasonable enough to go on TV and call for an end to the senseless violence being perpetrated in his name. That took guts and fortitude, and proved to me that he wasn’t totally lost.

I pray that he can finally find the peace that seemed to elude him in this life, and re-state his poignant, simple words that so many laughed at him for saying:

Can’t we all just get along?

Part of protecting rights is committing to protect them without caring too much whether the rights are held by people who are awful or wonderful.

At the time, I thought the police were right…because the police are good people. Heroes, even! Since then, I have learned differently (lots of reading and then through personal experience that confirmed everything I’d read) and I am sorry I wasn’t able to see the Rodney King story through clearer eyes back then.

Thanks, Ken.

In this layman’s opinion that would be an excellent closing statement, counselor ; ). The state must “wither away,” so to speak, for many reasons. One of the major reasons–and Agitator readers see this every day–is that government has so much control over information and its subsequent portrayal in the media. Thanks to this control and the skilled propagandists of the state, they always win even when they commit horrid atrocities or pathetic blunders. The internet and other technologies have put a dent in the state’s ability to manage perception, which is why many in government are seeking ways to get their hooks into these new tools.

Great post Ken, and welcome!

It makes me think about the Treyvon Martin case. At this point much of the public discourse involves ascertaining who is the good guy, rather than whose actions precipitated the tragedy.

At the end of the day, just as with Rodney King, it should come down to who did what to whom and when. Rights are not rights when they are applied selectively. They are perks.

I suspect the Derfel Cadarn of the Bernard Cornwell books would have been a bit more logical and better at typing–and for a 5th century warrior and monk, that is saying something. I’m not saying I found the police behavior around the incident anything but savage…But somehow despite my agreement with the outrage of every police brutality that Ken is citing, I am wondering if the solution really lies in writing them off as evil. For all time. As your post seems to suggest. I believe if the Rodney King issues and this article illustrate anything they show that there isn’t an easy verdict to hand down on this.

from My Blue Heaven

Seriously, this might be the best take I’ve read on the Rodney King story. The blog is in good hands it seems.

Stellar handle!

(Yes, I am aware that Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were not killed by the US. They are still symptoms of a clear desire for revenge, not any form of justice.)

@C. S. P. Schofield: are you suggesting that a black child in Los Angeles in the 1990s could hope to attend a reasonable school, get a reasonable job, and never be harassed by police without probable cause? The statistics say otherwise – that at every step of the way people who appear black or Hispanic are victims of both active and unconscious discrimination.

When the man takes every opportunity to stop and search you, and never employs you, you don’t need advice from anyone else to realize that the man is keeping you down.

I know it’s a hard job, but we pay them to put their lives at risk. No one forces them into the job either.

The sad thing is they could get the respect they sadly so often try to force on others. All they would have to do is act like normal human beings and not the jack booted thugs, which in many cases they quite literally have become.

I will point out again that the whole video, which was NOT generally broadcast until well after the public narrative of ‘innocent mann beaten by cops’ was well established, showed King apparently ignoring taser shots and charging the police. Such behavior didn’t seem to ME to justify the extensive beating he got, but it went a long way to explain it, and a jury – a jury that the prosecution passed on I remind you – found the cops not guilty of the charges against them.

I don’t remember what the charges were. Were they overreach by the prosecution? Did the prosecution simply do a lousy job? Did the jury get mad at the presumption that they would do what everybody expected them to do? I don’t know. I don’t think anybody does, anymore. Not even the jury members, who have probably talked themselves into believing all kinds of things by this time.

The blacks rioted because they were told that THE MAN had gotten away with beating an innocent Black Man, a narrative arguably as dishonest as anything said in after years about King by the Political Right, They rioted because society has allowed their worldview to be controlled by parasites like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who prime them to riot so that they can threaten people they want something from with those riots.

King was a lout. He got one hell of a lot more sympathy from all concerned than a white man who did what he did would have, beating or no beating. But that isn’t his fault, and I don’t recall that he asked for it. May God receive him into heaven, and a pox on all the swine who used him while he lived.

I dont think the police or Rodney King are “bad”. The are both human. Humans react instinctively and socially especially in high andrenalin situations. Fight or flight. The job of the police, given those two options is fight.

The problem is that they aren’t taught to manage their instincts, to plan for and manage the high stress and fear and act in a third and more civilized manner.

Humans take a whole lot of behavioral clues from other humans and if we aren’t careful we will act automatically based on those cues. If one person acts a certain way, it gives others close to them an unconscious permission to act similarly. If in high stress a perceived foe resists, it gives unconscious permission to fight.

We need to stop pretending that people are thinking about the right and wrong thing in these moments. Most of them aren’t doing much thinking at all. Training to over come the mindless reactions is possible. Some police depts are implementing it with some degree of success.

It’s all about the narrative, isn’t it? Note how the cops’ focus is relentlessly shifted back to Rodney King’s crimes. When the accused criminal focuses on the crimes of others, he is “blaming others” and “not taking responsibility”; when the cops do the same thing, no one sees it that way.

Almost no one, anyway.

Does race influence all this? Yes and no. Your race, if you’re black, makes you much more likely to wind up on the wrong end of the system narrative, from which there is usually no escape. But on the other hand, at least from what I have experienced, anyone who has wound up on the wrong side of the narrative is treated the same no matter what their race is. So if you’re white you’re much less likely to wind up there, but if you do it’s the same for you as it is for anyone else in the same boat.

The cops like to write the narrative, and once they do they shout down all competing or conflicting narratives. They do this even when reason and evidence proves their narrative is completely wrong, and often prevail purely because they regard themselves as the system’s owners, and few will challenge them.

This is why the Rodney King fiasco prompted a riot. When you catch the police dead to rights, on tape, and it makes no difference people get upset with the system. As well they should.