Rodney King found dead in swimming pool

[Quiet Reflections]

meh.

[trish]

Listen asshole, you no longer have my permission to comment on my comments....you scumbag fuck.

Gee, and I only called you a twit for being a total jerk.

[top4bigbutt]

r.i.p.

[Jericho]

Gee, and I only called you a twit for being a total jerk.

I hope you had permission to post that!

[Cecil Rhodes]

Drowned ? I guess he never heard of a certain slang term or he would not have gotten into the pool .

[irvin66]

hmm ... He had probably forgotten that he could not swim.

[Quinn]

At least he died playing into racial stereotypes about the ability to swim. On a more serious note, yes, he was a complete tool. Yes, the police were excessive in their use of force (IMO). No, their actions didn't even begin to justify the riots, and, yes, his death at the age of 47 is unfortunate because it precludes the possibility of growing beyond his destructive nature.
-Quinn

[Prospero]

I have no idea if it is true that Mr King beat the shit out of his wife. However that isn't the point. The issue here is the principal - not the person. Here was an ordinary black guy beaten by the police without justification. His later abuses (or not) of his life would signal him as a pretty unpleasant person. But that does NOT justify the police attacking him. Indeed even a person suspected of murder should not be beaten up - but merely arrested.

[Stavros]

At the beginning of May King gave an interview to The Guardian promoting a book; on his own evidence his life was ruined by alcohol abuse, he was drunk the night he was arrested and beaten, drunk when he beat his wife. Maybe the core issue should be the causes of alcohol abuse, as well as its consequences. In King's case, there seems to have been a deep reservoir of rage that found expression in drinking and violent behaviour. That he could have been arrested without all that beating is not so hard to work out, as was posted earlier.

The article also claims that Los Angeles is not as violent a place as it once was, that policing has improved and 'community' relations with it, but I have no idea if this is true.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...ve?INTCMP=SRCH

[buttslinger]

In defense of the cops, black and white, they're trained to go home after a shift, not the hospital. They don't consider their job a sporting event, like the Indy 500 or Professional Boxing. High speed car chases kill lots of cops and perps and innocent victims. And if you even put your finger on a cop uniform, you're gonna get dropped like third period french. No hesitation. Automatic. Normally, King would have been told to get out of the car, drop to the ground, and then get cuffed. I don't know what happened. I have a collapsable baton in my sock drawer. You never hit anyone on the head, Never.