Click on banner ad to support JWR

Jewish World Review March 10, 1999 /22 Adar 5759

Mona Charen

Mona Charen
JWR's Pundits
Tony Snow
Dr. Laura
Paul Greenberg
MUGGER
David Corn
Larry Elder
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Don Feder
Linda Chavez
Mona Charen
Thomas Sowell
Walter Williams
Ben Wattenberg
Rodney King in perspective

(http://www.jewishworldreview.com) RODNEY KING HAS BEEN ARRESTED for the seventh time since his notorious beating in 1991. The Los Angeles Times reports that he was arraigned on charges of domestic violence against his 16-year-old daughter and her mother. His most serious crime involved a conviction for hitting his estranged wife with a car and then leaving the scene in 1995.

King's resurfacing coincides with an extremely illuminating video that aired recently on the Learning Channel and is available through Films for the Humanities and the Sciences (1-800-257-5126, $34.95 for individuals). "The Rodney King Incident: Race and Justice in America" takes advantage of the passage of time and new evidence to reflect on the role of the police, the media, the courts and the federal government in this searing national trauma.

As one of the lawyers in the case explains on this videotape, "Everyone thinks they know what happened that night. They saw it with their own eyes. But they don't know."

King
I must confess that I myself was in that category. After viewing the video of King's beating (which was broadcast more often on American television than any other video in history with the exception of the assassination of President Kennedy), I wrote an irate column calling the officers involved "criminals" and condemning the Los Angeles Police Department for harboring such monsters.

The truth is more complicated. There were three people in King's car that night. After the 8-mile high-speed chase on which King led the California Highway Patrol and the Los Angeles police, a CHP officer demanded that everyone get out of the car with his hands on his head. King's passengers did as they were told. King, for reasons that remain mysterious, refused to comply and did not speak intelligibly to the officer. An ex-con on probation, King certainly knew the arrest drill. He says he smoked dope and drank malt liquor that night. The police were convinced that he was high on PCP.

The whole world thinks that the police next engaged in an orgy of violence. But that is because the first 13 seconds of the tape -- which showed King charging at Officer Laurence Powell -- were edited out. The first jury saw the whole tape.

King simply would not get down. The police accordingly escalated their violence. They attempted a maneuver called the swarm, in which four officers would overcome King. He was able to throw them off. Sgt. Stacey Koon, the officer in charge, next attempted to subdue King with a Taser. It had no effect. Frightened now of this large and seemingly preternaturally strong suspect, the officers began to hit him with their batons, all the while shouting for him to get down on the ground. King continued to stay up on all fours. Powell told the first jury that he feared King was going to wrest his gun away from him, leading to a shooting.

The final seconds of the Rodney King beating tape do suggest excessive force. Ironically, it was Officer Ted Briseno, who turned on his fellow defendants at the first trial, who administered the first unnecessary blow after King had submitted.

That is only one of the many ironies this story yields. The tale of the second trial, the federal trial, which followed the riots, reveals federal prosecutors who were determined to make this a racial case (which the black district attorney in the first trial did not) and accordingly coached King to testify that racial epithets had been hurled that night. King testified that he couldn't recall but that he thought they had called him "killer" or "nigger."

Stacey Koon, who served 20 months in prison and survived an assassination attempt, knows that "Somebody had to serve as a scapegoat." But as this film makes clear, it was the news stations' irresponsible editing of the videotape combined with their inflammatory decisions to run it so very often that created the charged climate that eventually made justice impossible and helped set the stage for the O.J. Simpson trial.

No one emerges unsullied in this tale, not L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates, not President George Bush, not the officers and not Rodney King. Still, it's important to grasp the truth, even if it's too late to prevent the damage.


Up

03/08/99: Monica's story: No morals
03/04/99: Not home but library alone:
3/02/99: Tuning our racial sensitivities
2/27/99: Cease-fire in war between sexes?
2/23/99: Where were the religious voices?
2/19/99: Depends what you mean by "acting"
2/17/99: As Minn., goes so goes the nation?
2/09/99: Prepare for post-impeachment spin
2/03/99: Teaching morality
2/01/99: What did he say?
1/26/99: The truth about the Peace Process
1/22/99: The vulgar decade
1/19/99: Was Jefferson libeled by DNA?
1/13/99: The backlash picks up speed
1/11/99: Who invented politics of personal destruction?
1/07/99: Shall we dance?
1/05/99: Try him!
12/30/98: The price of virtue
12/28/98: The gift of giving
12/22/98: Party of shame, party of shamelessness
12/18/98: Wag the country
12/16/98: Is this impeachment constitutional?
12/14/98: Republicans find courage
12/09/98: Nappy Hair and other racial slurs
12/07/98: Stranger in a strange land
12/02/98: Dangerous ground
11/30/98: Involuntary fatherhood?
11/24/98: Lies, damned lies, and sex lies
11/18/98: Another victory for cowardice
11/16/98: Separatism plus welfarism equals a dead end
11/10/98: Did conservatism lose campaign '98?
11/06/98: Democrat venality, Republican timidity
11/04/98: Are girls being shortchanged?
11/02/98: Believe the children?
10/28/98: What 'Measure 58' would do
10/26/98: The officers are bailing out
10/20/98: Using Matthew Shepard's murder
10/19/98: The school voucher that saved a family
10/14/98: Are powerful women different?
10/09/98: Can just sex be impeachable?
10/07/98: Repeal Miranda
10/02/98: Understanding the polls
10/01/98: What school texts teach about marriage
9/28/98: Fear of choice
9/23/98: A fork in the road: Bubba's fate and ours
9/18/98: Christianity and the Holocaust
9/16/98: The national dirty joke
9/11/98: Are we in crisis?
9/09/98: Does Burton's sin let Clinton off the hook?
9/07/98: Liar's Poker
9/01/98: One, two, three
8/28/98: Fat and folly
8/25/98: When homework is a dirty word
8/21/98: The unravelling
8/18/98: The wages of dishonesty
8/17/98: Sex, honor and the presidency
8/12/98: Pro-choice extremist
8/10/98: Switch illuminates biology's role
8/05/98: The presumption of innocence and the American way
8/03/98: An American hero
7/29/98: Lock up those who need psychiatric care
7/24/98: Making the military more like us
7/22/98: The 'Net sex hoax... and us
7/20/98: Disappointed by Cosbys
7/15/98: Feelings, not morality, rule
7/10/98: Guns as the solution?
7/8/98: Teacher preacher
7/6/98: The China behind the headlines
7/1/98: What is the First Amendment for?
6/26/98: The Republican city
6/24/98: Poison pen
6/22/98: Clinton: inventing his own reality?
6/16/98: Senator mom?
6/12/98: Wisconsin: a trail blazer?
6/9/98: These girls say no to sex, yes to excellence
6/5/98: Lewinsky's ex-lawyer would feel right at home as Springer guest
6/2/98: English? Si; Republican? No!
5/29/98: The truth about women and work
5/27/98: Romance in the '90s
5/25/98:Taxing smokers for fun and profit
5/19/98: China's friend in the White House
5/15/98: Look out feminists: here comes the true backlash
5/12/98: The war process?
5/8/98: Where's daddy?
5/5/98: The joys of boys
5/1/98: Republicans move on education reform
4/28/98: Reagan was right
4/24/98: The key to Pol Pot
4/21/98: The patriot's channel
4/19/98: Child-care day can't replace mom
4/15/98: Tax time
4/10/98: Armey states obvious, gets clobbered
4/7/98: A nation complacent?
4/1/98: Bill Clinton's African adventure
3/27/98: Understanding Arkansas
3/24/98: Jerry Springer's America
3/20/98: A small step for persecuted minorities
3/17/98: Skeletons in every closet?
3/13/98: Clinton's idea of a fine judge
3/10/98: Better than nothing?
3/6/98: Of fingernails and freedom
3/3/98: Read JWR! :0)
2/27/98: Dumb and Dumber
2/24/98: Reagan reduced poverty more than Clinton
2/20/98: Rally Round the United Nations?
2/17/98: In Denial
2/13/98: Reconsidering Theism
2/10/98: Waiting for the facts?
2/8/98: Cat got the GOP's tongue?
2/2/98: Does America care about immorality?
1/30/98: How to judge Clinton's denials
1/27/98: What If It's Just the Sex?
1/23/98: Bill Clinton, Acting Guilty
1/20/98: Arafat and the Holocaust Museum
1/16/98: Child Care or Feminist Agenda?
1/13/98: What We Really Think of Abortion
1/9/98: The Dead Era of Budget Deficits Rises Again?
1/6/98: "Understandable" Murder and Child Custody
1/2/98: Majoring in Sex
12/30/97: The Spirit of Kwanzaa
12/26/97: Food fights (Games children play)
12/23/97: Does Clinton's race panel listen to facts?
12/19/97: Welcome to the Judgeocracy, where the law school elite overrules majority rule
12/16/97: Do America's Jews support Netanyahu?

©1999, Creators Syndicate