Rodney King found dead in swimming pool

[broncofan]

When I was in the army, I saw a white kid who was maybe 5'11 and 175 pounds -- his nickname was "Spankey" of all things -- cut through a room full of guys like they were butter in order to get at another soldier who was talking shit about him. He lacked King's size, had a lean non-muscular build, and was nowhere near the level of formal hand-to-hand training the rest of us had.

To this day, I' never seen anything like it. At the time, I was benching more than twice my body weight, curling more than I weighed, fast as hell, and had years of boxing as well as MMA experience (well before it was popular). It didn't matter, I couldn't stop him, and neither could any of the other guys -- many of whom were considerably tougher than I was.

My point -- and it's not necessarily meant to be exculpatory for the LAPD -- is this: You can never look at a guy and say X number of people should be able to handle him with certainty. The guys I was in the barracks with that night were almost certainly tougher than the cops who beat King, and we couldn't stop Spankey from getting at "Ault" (who deserved the beating by the way). Some people can take one hell of a beating and just keep coming to the point where it almost superhuman. I guess maybe it's something a person has to experience firsthand to understand.

-Quinn

Fair enough, but it doesn't call for a blanket policy of hitting people with clubs until they are completely still. Not everyone is going to resist like that and you have to periodicially try to cuff the guy. If you look at the pictures of him after the beating (face swollen and deformed-looking on one side), I bet you anything two or three guys could have subdued him and cuffed him after the first few shots with a knightstick. But it was all or nothing. He may have been resisting at the start, but what he did after the first couple of shots was much less than that.

I'm not saying police officers have to wait and feel out the exact amount of force they can use but they can't grossly overestimate for the sake of their own safety. I say that realizing it's a thankless and dangerous job they have.

[miner]

What if the police after pulling King's car to the curb and speaking to him realized that he, King was not going to cooperate with them; and the police just left the scene and let King be? Would there have been unintended consequences?

[broncofan]

What if the police after pulling King's car to the curb and speaking to him realized that he, King was not going to cooperate with them; and the police just left the scene and let King be? Would there have been unintended consequences?

This is the exact error I think a lot of people make. There are literally a million ways the situation could have been handled. This is not a good one.

But the biggest unintended consequence would be that the officers would not have been prosecuted, the city would not have been sued, and L.A would not have burned. Not to exculpate the arsonists, as I am talking in causal terms only.

[Queens Guy]

You think Americans really care about the Palestinian conflicts and who the good/bad guys are??
No one prevented Faux News from releasing the tape, if there is such a thing.

There is indeed such a tape. And The L.A. Times is preventing ANYBODY from releasing the tape. (They say if they release the video, they would burn their source. Which may be true. One could figure out where the camera was located, which could lead back to their source.)

But, the L.A. Times is also refusing to release a transcript of the audio portion of the tape. No transcript of the speeches. Nothing. They say they reported on it. You'll have to take the L.A. Times word on how they interpreted it. They won't report. You can't decide. Because they won't let you read it for yourself.

Unlike broadcast networks, newspapers do endorse political candidates. The L.A. Times endorsed Obama and chose not to report what may have been 'bad news' about Obama.

So, who is the 'Faux' news service in this case?


http://www.latimes.com/news/politics...,7568849.story

[tiramisu]

i thought its roodney moore