An accidental landmark in video history and citizen journalism before the term viral gets coined to describe internet's immediate video post reaction, this real life exposure of racism and police brutality was one of the most significant and unforgettable TV images of the 1990's, still used as reference today in the wake of many similar and worst incidents involving police abuse overreacting their zero tolerance policy against crime and/or possible suspects. Films, documentaries and obviously many news outlets used this video as a point of reference not only the aggression but also as a vehicle that condemns racial intolerance.
But let me enlighten some curious minds who haven't seen it and refresh the memories of those who remember it: This is the story of Rodney King and his beating by the LAPD captured on camera and turned into a worldwide event. On 3 March, 1991 around midnight hour, King (along with two friends) was speeding with his car when he was spotted by a couple of police officers and a chase ensued. He felt compelled to escape authorities since he was in probation for another felony. So, here's a different angle than we're used to see nowadays: he wasn't no angel. He failed with escaping, was blocked by other police vehicles and gave up. That's when an Argentinian fellow by the name George Holliday heard a whole commotion outside his window and decided to use his camera to film what happened next: King tasered twice by the officers, falling to the ground yet still brutally beaten with sticks and kicks by several officers in the middle of a slightly busy L.A. avenue. In small portions of the video, it is often said that King failed to be cooperative with the officers and that's why he received such treatment.
The aftermath: Holliday informed the police department about the video but no one cared. Later on, he sold the video to a TV station and as we say now, the footage went viral, becoming a huge landmark event in the amateur video which caused a furious uproar from the black community. The cops involved in this incident went to trial, one of the most electrifying and most awaited spectacles in the 1990's which resulted in the acquittal of all officers involved in the aggression. Final result: already hurt and damaged not just with King case but daily basis treatment by law enforcement officers, hell broke loose in the city and people went mad, causing rebellions and attacks in what would be known as the 1992 L.A. riots, which took place until a new trial was arranged. And with a lousy detention procedure came more than 50 deaths and millions of dollars lost in damaged business, prosecutions, prisons and more.
Watching this video now it makes us think what the first trial's jury failed to understand about what human rights means and how it was all disregarded with those officers conduct. What part of an already detained man who no longer offers treat or harm to dozens of officers they failed to see? Yet, those men and women attack the guy on the ground, time and again until they get bored and decide to search him again and put him in the car. It's enraging the conduct of those cops but it's even more enraging the conduct of the members of such jury in overlooking the obvious, just paying attention when King was being the nervous person in one fraction of second. It's thanks to this violent mess of an incident that today we have "copwatches" around the world, people who rightfully put their mobile cameras and record officers who are doing the wrong thing, challenging them whenever they say "You can't film this". It's your right as a citizen to have those images, they belong to you. And thanks to this incident, that in previous years when technology wasn't exactly perfected and at hand to many people that here in Brazil we had the Favela Naval incident where an anonymous resident of a poor neighborhood tired of seeing how a group of officers conducted their work in there, making themselves as "toll booth collectors" for the place, decided to film their daily routine. It was in one those routines, usually violent and aggressive with common people who didn't have anything to offer them, one cop cowardly shot and killed a young mechanic. The closest we ever got in the 1990's of a similar happening like the one with King, that hit the media and caused an outrage in society was this video.
Today, the effect it's more effervescent due to the frequency in which similar incidents happen (even more deadly than the Rodney King beating) and how people react to it. We're angry in one day, complain and demand an effective and righteous response from authorities but the next day we're seeing all over again. It's not like videos like this should stop existing - in a perfect society they wouldn't - but it's more of a case of the effect being everlasting in educating people, whatever their function at society, in seeing this as a reminder of times gone by, as an example of things to avoid and that no matter how stressful your job is or how you're life is on the line 24/7, when you have control of the situation there's no need to use more force or become deadly. The tables turned for Mr. King after the video exposure: he sued the city and won millions of dollars with. But he failed to disappear from public view, usually appearing in headlines with another arrests in between the years until his death in 2012.
George Holliday's video is a courageous act that will echo through ages to come, of historical value and importance, the images that haunted and disturbed the decade. The world was never the same after this video. 10/10
