31 Years Ago, 4 White Officers Were Acquitted For Brutally Beating Rodney King

On April 29, 1992, the Los Angeles riots began. People filled with confusion, rage, and vulnerability bombarded the streets after a jury, composed of 10 white people, one Latino, and one biracial person, delivered a not guilty verdict to four police officers who punched, tased, and kicked a Black man named Rodney King.

This was decades before cell phones served as video cameras. However, King’s assault was captured on video by George Holliday. Holliday, a plumber, witnessed the brutality from a window in his home. The recording allowed TV news stations to broadcast the beating repeatedly. Millions watched in horror as King felt the blow of police brutality.

At the riot’s conclusion, 58 people died, more than 2,000 people were injured and property damages were assessed at close to $1 billion.

On July 14, 2013, Black folks were anxious to hear the verdict of George Zimmerman, 30, who killed unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. There wasn’t much difference in the outcome of the two cases, except King lived. Zimmerman was found not guilty and protests erupted.

Almost 10 years later, on January 27, 2023, police body-camera footage captured the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols by five Memphis Police officers. Prior to the release of the disturbing footage, Memphis police chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis, warned that the officers beating Nichols is perhaps worse than footage of King being beaten by the four officers back in 1992.

What King’s beating and Martin and Nichols’ death highlight is that America has not moved past racial paranoia. Most racial misgivings are predicated on fears that encourage violent racial encounters. Racial paranoia outlines how many police officers confront encounters with Black citizens. Racial paranoia outlines a commitment to extremist ideas, social distrust, and commitment to the idea of intuition—police often claim that they can spot a criminal from the look in their eyes.

In July 2014, in Staten Island, New York, 43-year-old Eric Garner was choked by New York City Police officer Daniel Pantaleo. Five years after Garner’s death, in 2019, Pantaleo was fired from the NYPD for placing Garner in an illegal chokehold, but Pantaleo did not, and has not, faced any criminal charges.

One month after the murder of Garner, on Aug. 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, white police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager. It was believed that Brown robbed a store. Security video footage proved otherwise. Again, echoing the 1992 LA riots, Ferguson erupted in protests.

In describing his encounter with Brown, Wilson compared himself to a five-year-old child trying to fight Brown, who Wilson compared to Hulk Hogan and a “demon bulking up the run through [gun]shots.” A jury decided not to indict Wilson.

Decades after slavery, state-sanctioned violence against Black still functions as the main ingredient in Blacks’ experience with the criminal justice system. Since slavery, Blacks have been forced to navigate formal laws of policing as well as informal policing such as the Ku Klux Klan who worked in tandem with formal police as well as citizens such as George Zimmerman, who have the option to act as formal police officers. Highly publicized deadly and vicious encounters between Blacks and police continue to lower the already low trust levels of the criminal justice system.

To put it plainly, policing the Black community has been tainted by state-sanctioned violence. And many Blacks are anxious, paranoid, and annoyed by the sight of the police. King’s beating by the four police officers should serve as a reminder of the racial paranoia that has plagued Americans of the post-Civil Rights generation.