Word: rioted
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...outside the smoking city, the trial became a symbolic test of national values -- something that trials, with their focus on factual specifics and winner-take-all outcomes, are not constructed to be. The acquittals were so shocking to a nation mesmerized by a videotape, and so achingly rejected in riot and rage, that it was inevitable the case would somehow be tried again. This time, with the jurisdiction federal rather than local and the charges focused on civil rights, the burden on participants is greater. The result will be momentous, but the nation is really watching for what comes after...
...judgment this time is harsher for the police, there will be some suspicion that it represents expediency and fear of another riot rather than fair weighing of the evidence. Maybe so. But guilty verdicts would also reflect the fact that this prosecution, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Clymer, did a better job. It relied less on the celebrated videotape, which the defense at the first trial dismissed as a partial record, and more on live testimony -- from weeping or infuriated police who rejected clubbing and kicking as unnecessary and wrong, from seasoned medical experts who debunked the defendants' blow...
...RODNEY KING CASE WENT TO the jury last week, Los Angeles residents were keeping a wary eye on another case involving a videotaped beating: the assault on white truck driver Reginald Denny by a group of black men at the outset of last year's riot. Although the parallels between the two incidents are largely superficial, many African Americans tend to equate them. The case against the three men accused in the Denny assault has become a symbol of the disparity between how whites and blacks are treated by the criminal-justice system. Many Angelenos fear that a volatile situation...
...June 30. The chaotic mayoral race, with its 24 candidates, has so far failed to produce a leader who shows full promise of pulling together the city's four main constituencies: blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians. Antagonism among those groups has failed to soften in the year since the riots. According to a UCLA survey, while 88% of blacks and 76% of Latinos in Los Angeles were likely to support increases in spending to help the poor, only 61% of both whites and Asians agreed. The percentage of L.A. blacks who felt that American society owed their "ethnic group...
Chief of Police Willie Williams, imported from Philadelphia after the riots to replace the truculent Daryl Gates, was intent on not repeating Gates' mistakes of last year, when police were deployed to riot zones too late and in insufficient numbers. In addition to providing his force with new gear, including bullet-resistant helmets, rubber bullets and spray cans of disabling gas, Williams brokered a mutual-aid pact with other Southern California cities. In the event of trouble, up to 20,000 out-of-town reinforcements could be moved...