It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but there are times when a word can be worth an entire video when it comes to revealing what is in the mind of the speaker.
That was the case when it came to revealing what was in the minds of the Los Angeles Police officers who were shown beating Rodney King in the notorious video taken by George Holliday from his second story terrace across the street from the beating. The sensational video was shown on local, national and international television. It went viral before going viral was trendy.
Along with almost everyone else in the United States and most of the Western world, I saw the video and I wondered what the police were saying to King as they were beating him. Revealing what is being said, often under the most difficult or extraordinary circumstances, is a vital part of my expertise. Hence, I was asked to analyze the sounds on the Rodney King video.
I played the results to the jury in the civil trial Rodney King v. the City of Los Angeles.
In my studies of the case, I came to understand King’s Odyssey, the convoluted sequence of legal cases that culminated in the trial, and the historic riots that surrounded the case.
On the evening of Saturday March 2, 1991, Rodney King and a couple of his friends were at another friend’s house in Altadena, California watching a basketball game and drinking malt liquor. At about midnight, King and his buddies Bryant Allen and Freddie Helms piled into King’s 1988 Hyundai Excel and drove westward on the Foothill Freeway as it skirts the San Gabriel Mountains at the northern edge of Los Angeles.
In spite of overpasses that enshroud it and interchanges that entangle it, the Foothill Freeway is the most attractive freeway ride in Los Angeles, particularly as it traverses the Verdugo Mountain Pass and swoops by the highest hills in the Los Angeles area. However, given that it was dark at that hour, we may assume that King and his friends were not sightseeing. To this day they say they don’t know where they were going. They were just driving. Because it generally has less traffic than other freeways in the Los Angeles area, the Foothill Freeway seems to encourage, or at least allow for, higher speed travel than other freeways.
The Chase
At about 12:30 A.M. on Sunday, King’s vehicle was spotted in the rearview mirror of a California Highway Patrol car driven by Officer Melanie Singer. Because it was approaching at high speed, Singer exited at the next off-ramp, waited moments for it to pass, and then returned to the freeway behind it. She turned on her red emergency lights and her siren to signal them to pull over. King did not pull over. Instead, he led Singer on a chase of up to 110 miles per hour on the freeway and then from 50 to 80 miles per hour on city streets, nearly causing numerous accidents along the way. Singer called for help. With sirens blaring, other police cars, and then a helicopter, joined the chase.
After nearly eight miles of city streets, King’s car was cornered. All three men were ordered to get out of the car and lie face down on the ground. Passengers Bryant Allen and Freddie Helms complied and were taken into custody without further incident.
King, however, initially refused to leave the car. When he first attempted to leave, he had not unhooked his seat belt so he got half way out and then lurched back in. He then unhooked his seatbelt and managed to leave. When he emerged, he seemed to be giggling. He slapped the ground and waved to the helicopter overhead. He leaned against the hood of the car as instructed, and then he grabbed his buttocks. Why? Only Rodney King knew.
Officer Singer, who thought King was reaching for a gun, drew her weapon and pointed it at him. She ordered him to lie down on the ground, which he did. Then, with her weapon still drawn, she approached King, intending to make the arrest.
By this time several more police cars, with additional personnel, had arrived at the scene. The highest-ranking officer among them, Sergeant Stacy Koon, took charge. He ordered Singer to holster her weapon and back off. It is LAPD doctrine, and in general standard police procedure, not to approach a suspect with a drawn gun because the suspect might gain control of it. Koon wanted to avoid the possibility of a dead suspect, let alone a dead police officer or a dead bystander.
The Video
The sounds of the helicopter and police sirens awakened George Holliday, who lived across the street from the incident. He stepped out onto the terrace of his second story apartment and saw policemen beating a black man with batons. He got out his Sony camcorder, which he had purchased a couple of weeks earlier as a Valentine’s Day present for his wife, and made a video of the beating.
As the video begins, it shows King lying on the ground. He then rises and lunges in the direction of Officer Laurence Powell. Was King attacking Powell (as Powell later claimed) or was he simply trying to escape? It appears that he may have been resisting arrest, but possibly he was just confused, as he later claimed at trial.
Powell strikes King with his side-handled metal baton, using what the police call “power strokes,” knocking him to the ground. He falls on his face. Whether Powell struck King on the side of the face or on the shoulder is not clear from the video. Officer Powell continues to violently strike King with his baton while he lying is on the ground.
Powell pauses for about three seconds and raises his baton again. Someone (presumably Sergeant Koon, but that is uncertain), shouts “That’s enough.” Officer Briseno raises his hand in front of Powell, apparently intending to ward off further blows. Powell steps back.
King starts to rise. Officer Powell resumes beating him. Officer Wind joins in. King falls. They keep beating him.
Koon then orders four LAPD officers, Powell, Briseno, Solano and Wind, to “swarm” King. In the swarm, the officers are supposed to grab the subject’s arms and legs, and then subdue and handcuff him.
Officer Powell weighed 193 pounds. Officer Briseno weighed 135 pounds. They were assigned to hold King’s arms. Officers Solano and Wind were assigned to his legs. King is 6’ 3” and weighs approximately 220 pounds.
On command, all four officers leap forward and grab the limb each was assigned to. With a powerful flick of his torso, King tosses Powell and Briseno off his back. Then he flings Solano and Wind off his legs. Koon later said he thought to himself “Oh shit! He’s turned into the Hulk!” He thought King was on the hallucinogenic drug PCP, which is reputed to confer superhuman strength to people under its influence.
Koon orders the officers to “stand clear.” In an effort to subdue King he uses a Taser. The zap sound of the Taser is heard on the recording.
A Taser is an electric stun gun that shoots two dart-like electrodes that are barbed like fishhooks so they stick into the skin of the target. The electrodes are connected to the stun gun by wires that conduct 50,000 volts into the target individual. The high voltage is designed to disable the subject by causing violent muscle spasms.
Tasers were originally marketed as non-lethal weapons, but in view of deaths that have occurred with their use, they are now marketed as “more effective and safer than other use-of-force options.”
When he is Tasered, King groans and falls to his knees and then rises and turns toward Koon and howls, whereupon Koon Tasers King again. The zap sound is heard again. Once again King groans and collapses, and once again he struggles to his feet.
Again he is beaten with batons. Koon orders the officers to “hit his joints, hit the wrists, hit his elbows, hit his knees, hit his ankles,” which is in accordance with LAPD authorized procedures for power strokes.
King falls on his face.
He raises his torso. Briseno stomps on his shoulder, pushing him down. Wind kicks his shoulder and his back.
King submits. He puts his hands behind his neck.
Officers swarm him. Briseno handcuffs him and ties his hands and feet together behind his back into a “hogtie” position.
King is dragged on his stomach to the side of the road.
An ambulance arrives.
When Officer Susan Clemmer arrived at the scene she observed that Powell was out of breath. She heard him say “I was scared. The guy threw me off his back. I thought I was going to have to shoot him,” though she was later uncertain who the remark was addressed to. She rode to the hospital in the ambulance with King.
From the computer in his squad car, Koon sent a message to the police station that said “U[nit] just had a big-time use of force…. Tased and beat the suspect of CHP pursuit big time.”
Powell sent a message “I haven’t beaten anyone this bad in a long time.”
To Officer Corina Smith, Powell had previously sent a message that compared this situation to a domestic violence case he had just dealt with. “Sounds almost as exciting as our last call. It was right out of Gorillas in the Mist.” She replied “HaHaHaHa…let me guess who be the parties.”
An ambulance arrived and took King to Pacifica hospital in nearby Sun Valley. They found he had broken bones in his face and a fractured right leg, not to mention numerous cuts and bruises.
King was tested for alcohol, marijuana, PCP and other drugs. Five hours after he was stopped, his blood alcohol level was 0.094. Extrapolating backward, the blood alcohol level at the time of his arrest must have been about 0.19 – about two and a half times the 0.08 legal limit for driving in California. Trace amounts of marijuana (26 ng/ml) were found. No PCP or other drugs were found.
Nurses at Pacifica reported that the officers joked and bragged about the number of times they hit King. The video is grainy and dark so it is difficult to count the number of baton blows. I count about 50, but others’ estimates range from 30 to 56.
Koon later contended that he and his officers acted appropriately. He stated that they followed official LAPD doctrine, which recognizes and approves six levels of control.
1. Physical presence
2. Verbalization – commands
3. Physical contact – the swarm
4. TASER
5. Physical force – batons or kicking
6. Deadly force – chokehold or shooting
Koon claimed that they properly escalated through the first five levels of control authorized by official LAPD doctrine, thereby avoiding the sixth. Brutal though they may have seemed, he claims that they were preferable to deadly force, and were necessary to bring King under control.
King spent three days in jail and was released without charges. Even for speeding.