Word: verdicts
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...verdict prompted amazement and disbelief. The King case was not another garden-variety allegation of police brutality. Everyone in the world within eyeshot of a television set had seen the amateur videotape made by a witness on the night of March 3, 1991, when, after a high-speed chase, King was forced out of his car and encircled by police. The 81-second video recorded what happened next: a danse macabre of casual, almost studied, violence. King, writhing on the pavement, was kicked by his uniformed assailants, jolted with a stun gun and hit with nightsticks 56 times...
Early last Wednesday evening the phone rang in the home of our Los Angeles correspondent James Willwerth. On the line was bureau chief Jordan Bonfante with urgency in his voice. "Are you aware that rioting and gunfire have broken out over the Rodney King verdict?" he asked...
...BEGINNING, THERE WAS RIGHTEOUS indignation. Just three hours after the King verdict was announced, thousands of shocked black residents of South Central Los Angeles gathered at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church. Speaker after speaker denounced the injustice and alienation that are part of their everyday life. Each community leader acknowledged that institutions designed to protect law-abiding citizens had failed them this time, but still some appealed for calm. "Look beside you," said Los Angeles city council member Mark Ridley-Thomas. "These young African Americans are not in the streets...
Though the King verdict clearly sparked the explosion, the black community's rage had long been building. Citing numerous incidents, black leaders charged that local police forces had systematically brutalized and mistreated blacks...
...They should go and destroy Beverly Hills," said one rioter. "Hey, the police don't even bother to stop." A minute later, someone lit a match, and what was left of the store went up in flames. Watching the carnage, neighborhood resident Verdis Barnes expressed rage over the King verdict: "The video tells it all. They didn't have to do him like that. But these people should have gone somewhere else to do this...