Rodney King Research Paper

The suspects then shot 2-3 times, striking Cook once. The suspects then fled behind the houses on Selma. The victim was transported to UTMC with non-life threatening injuries. A K-9 track was attempted but no scent was found. Crime Lab responded and located one casing and took photos.

Experts argue that cultural biases and stereotypes have been reflected through the increasing number of incidents of Caucasian law enforcement abuse towards African Americans. Examples of this are the killings of African Americans which occurred in Ferguson and Baltimore. A peer-reviewed New York Times article entitled “What Happened in Ferguson?” discussed the death of Ferguson resident Michael Brown. Brown, an unarmed black teenager, robbed a convenience store of its cigars minutes before being fatally wounded and shot an additional six times by young white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri during August of 2014 (Buchanan et al. 2). After the unnecessary, portrayed as “defensive” actions of Wilson, protests rattled the country regarding Caucasian police brutality towards African American men.

It was like any other Sunday afternoon. The football games had just ended and my brother and I were perusing through the channels looking for something to watch. After what felt like an eternity scrolling up and down the guide, we finally settled on an episode of Cops. The scene is instantaneously set.

The Rodney King trial started as a drunk driving incident but ended in the destruction of Los Angeles. King was in a high speed chase with the Las Angeles Police department and when they caught him King was then viciously beat up and attacked. This was one of the first police brutality incidents filmed and released to the general public and eventually ended the era of not showing what happens behind closed doors. Along with being one of the first police brutality incidents filmed, it was also one of the first police brutality incidents taken to court. A lot of attention and controversy surrounded this trial just because of how it hit America. The trial involved lingering racial tensions in America which seperated many Americans. The trial ultimately led to the riots of L.A. and the total destruction of the city. The riots lasted for days and resulted in thousands of dollars and even lives lost. These riots were so big that the United States National guard had to be called in order to calm down the people of Los Angeles. the King trial shows the evolution of an era that shuns what happens behind closed doors to an era which shows the harsh reality of police brutality with new means of communication and the growth of technology with the smartphone and videotaping.

Initially, there were 750 investigators from the LAPD and other departments working on the case. On January 26th another letter was sent to the Los Angeles Examiner but this time it was handwritten. It said, “Here it is. Turning in Wed Jan 29 10 am.

At that point two of the officers left while the third watched from across the street. After some time several officers returned. The legal paperwork reported that seven officers were there. Mr. Greene, who

“Our criminal justice system is fallible. We know it, even though we don't like to admit it. It is fallible despite the best efforts of most within it to do justice. And this fallibility is, at the end of the day, the most compelling, persuasive, and winning argument against a death penalty.” (Spitzer, 2013).

Finally a suspect was found. In September 1934, one of the gold certificates showed up at a gas station in New York. The gas attendant thought the gold certificate might be “counterfeit” (Schwartz 3), so he wrote down the license plate. The car belonged to Bruno Richard Hauptmann. On September 19, 1934, Bruno Hauptmann was arrested and tried for murder on January 2, 1935.

The evening of November 9, 1989, Timothy Dickerson was charged with possession of crack cocaine. Dickerson was seen coming out of an apartment building, on Morgan Avenue North, around 8:15 p.m. by a Minneapolis patrolling officer. The officer was aware of the types of criminal activity due to having severed several warrants at the apartments. Dickerson began to walk towards the patrolling officers police car, he spotted the police car, made eye contact with one of the officers, and turned around and started walking in the other direction. The officer pulled the squad car into the alley and ordered Dickerson to stop and submit to a pat down search.

The first officer to show up was Betty Shelby. When Officer Shelby pulled up to the scene, Crutcher was walking around with his hands in his pockets. When Officer

The Rodney King incident took place 23 years ago, however the issue of police brutality against African American men persists today. Even when verite video that captures the incident from start to finish and audio is heard from both parties, police are continuously let off. Lets take for example the contemporary 2014 incident, in which a police officer placed African American male Eric Garner in, what looked like a chokehold, which ultimately killed him in the streets of New York City – all caught on video by a passerby’s cellphone. After considering everything seen and heard in the video, including Garner claiming 11 times “I can’t breathe”, a jury decided to not indict the officer. The autopsy examiner ruled Garner’s death a homicide, explaining the death was caused by compression of the neck and chest (Calabresi, 2014).

Chase dragged her corpse into the bedroom slit her neck a few times and drank her blood. After the murder of Teresa Wallin FBI agents created a profile based on the evidence at the scene. They Determined that the fugitive was tall, malnourished, a loner, physically unclean, and the most important fact, they believed that he would kill again. A week after the mass murder Nancy Holden, Chase’s high school classmate who refused to give him a ride, told police that she believed that Chase could be the killer. The police looked into what they had in their system about Richard Chase, and they saw that he had registered a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol that was linked to the spree of murders.

The mystery was growing with each passing day. Checking alibis, interrogating suspects, questioning family and friends and handling the media; all was more hectic than taking care of my 4 young ones causing chaos at home. This is all the usual routine of a cop when she 's got a murder on her hands to solve however this one had got me rattled for a while. Roderick Hayes; the billionaire who owned Hayes ' Industries, was found dead in one of his cruise ships at the harbor. His death window was between 12:00 and 3:00 in the morning of 31st April, as stated by our medical analysts while the cause of death was a gun shot with a 9 millimeter to his head that killed him instantly.

The government works to ensure the guilty receive adequate justice for their crime, and the act of pursuing justice granted to the state by the will of the governed ensures that “[executing] a lawfully condemned prisoner” defies the label of murder (Koch). The common misconception of characterizing the death penalty as murder rejects the rights of the state which supersede those of the individual. In the government’s efforts to ensure justice to criminals for crimes committed, they have a wide variety of options available to them, and it is the job of the judge and jury to confirm that the punishment meets the crime. If the average citizen executes those they believe culprits of heinous crimes, they willfully choose the path of manslaughter over specious justice because only the government has the power and ultimate responsibility to condemn the

“No justice, no peace! No justice, no peace!” In cities throughout the United States, this chant can be heard from the voices of people of color and their white allies. Recently, in many cities such as Ferguson, Baltimore, and Cleveland, people of color have been killed by the police for seemingly insignificant transgressions. This trend of potentially race-based killings has ignited a movement focused on educating America about its race problem.