Freedom Writers

1. Rodney King Riots, Social and Economic Climate of 1994 Long Beach, California, USA, Wilson High School Freedom Writers

2. Rodney King Riots • On March 3, 1991, Rodney King and two passengers were driving in Los Angeles. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) attempted to initiate a traffic stop. A high-speed pursuit ensued with speeds estimated at up to 115 mph first over freeways and then through residential neighbourhoods. When King came to a stop, CHP Officer Timothy Singer and his wife, CHP Officer Melanie Singer, ordered the occupants under arrest. • After two passengers were placed in the patrol car, five Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers attempted to subdue King, who came out of the car last. In a departure from the usual procedure, which is to tackle and cuff a suspect, King was tasered, kicked in the head, beaten with batons for over one minute, then tackled and cuffed. The officers claimed that King was under the influence of PCP at the time of arrest, which caused him to be very aggressive and violent towards the officers. The video showed that he was crawling on the ground during the beating and that the police made no attempt to cuff him. • A subsequent test for the presence of PCP turned up negative. The incident was captured on camcorder by resident George Holliday from his apartment in the vicinity. The tape was roughly ten minutes long.

3. Rodney King Riots • In a later interview, King, who was on parole from prison on a robbery conviction and who had past convictions for assault, battery and robbery, said that, being on parole, he feared apprehension and being returned to prison for parole violations. • The footage of King being beaten by police while lying on the ground became a focus for media attention and a rallying point for activists in Los Angeles and around the United States. Coverage was extensive during the initial two weeks after the incident: the Los Angeles Times published forty-three articles about the incident, the New York Times published seventeen articles,and the Chicago Tribune published eleven articles. Eight stories appeared on ABC News, including a sixty-minute special on Primetime Live. • The Los Angeles District Attorney subsequently charged all five police officers with assault and use of excessive force.Due to the heavy media coverage of the arrest, the trial received a change of venue from Los Angeles County to a newly constructed courthouse in the more predominantly white and politically conservative city of Simi Valley in neighboring Ventura County.

4. Rodney King Riots • On April 29, 1992, the seventh day of jury deliberations, the jury acquitted all five officers of assault and acquitted three of the five of using excessive force. The jury could not agree on a verdict for the fourth officer charged with using excessive force. The verdicts were based in part on the first two seconds of a blurry, 13-second segment of the video tape that, according to journalist Lou Cannon, was edited out by television news stations in their broadcasts. • During the first two seconds of videotape,Rodney King allegedly gets up off the ground and charges in the general direction of one of the police officers, Laurence Powell, but this allegation is disputed due to the blurriness of the video. During the next one minute and 19 seconds, King is beaten continuously by the officers. The officers testified that they tried to physically restrain King prior to the starting point of the videotape but, according to the officers, King was able to physically throw them off himself. • Another theory offered by the prosecution for the officers' acquittal is that the jurors may have become desensitized to the violence of the beating, as the defense played the videotape repeatedly in slow motion, breaking it down until its emotional impact was lost.

5. Rodney King Riots • After the verdict, media coverage showed sharply divided reactions among the public, and both Mayor Tom Bradley and President George H. W. Bush expressed bewilderment at the verdict on national television. • The riots, beginning in the evening after the verdicts, peaked in intensity over the next two days, but ultimately continued for several days. A curfew and deployment of the National Guard began to control the situation; eventually U.S. Army soldiers and United States Marines were ordered to the city to quell disorder as well. • Fifty-three people died during the riots including 10 shot dead by the army and policewith as many as 2,000 people injured. Estimates of the material losses vary between about $800 million and $1 billion. Approximately 3,600 fires were set, destroying 1,100 buildings, with fire calls coming once every minute at some points. Widespread looting also occurred. Stores owned by Korean and other Asian immigrants were widely targeted, although stores owned by Caucasians and African Americans were targeted by rioters as well.

6. Rodney King Riots • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE0Uua7jnSA&feature=related • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXRZMGHqA7E • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCfmkAGlj0o

7. Rodney King Riots • Many of the disturbances were concentrated in South Central Los Angeles which was primarily composed of African American and Hispanic residents. Half of all riot arrestees and more than a third of those killed during the violence were Hispanic. • In the aftermath of the riots, pressure mounted for a retrial of the officers, and federal charges of civil rights violations were brought against them. As the first anniversary of the acquittal neared, the city tensely awaited the decision of the federal jury; seven days of deliberations raised fears of further violence in the event of another "not guilty" verdict. • The decision was read in an atypical 7:00 am Saturday court session on April 17, 1993. Two officers –Officer Laurence Powell and Sergeant Stacey Koon –were found guilty, while officers Theodore Briseno and Timothy Wind were acquitted. Mindful of accusations of sensationalist reporting in the wake of the first trial and the resulting chaos, media outlets opted for more sober coverage, which included calmer on-the-street interviews. Police were fully mobilized with officers on 12-hour shifts, convoy patrols, scout helicopters, street barricades, tactical command centers, and support from the National Guard and Marines.

8. Rodney King Riots • All four of the officers involved have since quit or have been fired from the LAPD. Officer Theodore Briseno left the LAPD after being acquitted on federal charges. Officer Timothy Wind, who was also acquitted a second time, was fired after the appointment of Willie L. Williams as Chief of Police. Susan Clemmer, an officer who gave crucial testimony for the defense at the initial trial, committed suicide in July 2009 in the lobby of a Los Angeles Sheriff's Station. She rode in the ambulance with King and testified that he was laughing and spat blood on her uniform. She had remained in law enforcement and was a Sheriff's Detective at the time of her death. • Rodney King was awarded $3.8 million in damages from the City of Los Angeles for the attack. King rarely discusses the incident or its aftermath, preferring to remain out of the spotlight. • Many Los Angeles residents were motivated to buy weapons for self-defence against further violence, though the 15-day waiting period in California law stymied those who wanted to purchase protection while the riot was going on.

9. Long Beach, California • Since the second half of the 20th century, the city has been a major port of entry for Asian and Latin American immigrants headed to Los Angeles. The Harbor section of downtown Long Beach was once home to people of Dutch, Greek, Italian, Maltese, Portuguese and Spanish ancestry, most of them employed in manufacturing and fish canneries until the 1960s. • According to a report by USA Today in 2000, Long Beach is the most ethnically diverse large city in the United States. Non-Hispanic White Americans made up 30.0% of the city's population. Its Asian community includes the largest Cambodian community in the United States, and the second-largest Cambodian community outside of Asia (after Paris). A neighborhood along Anaheim Street is called "Little Phnom Penh”. There are also sizable populations of immigrants and descendants from Vietnam and the Philippines.

10. Wilson High School • Wilson was one of the first schools to employ desegregation in Long Beach and because of this, many students of various ethnic backgrounds found themselves in the same school in the wake of the Rodney King Riots • Gang participation by students at Wilson was normalised and still continues to this day at the school – Melody Ross is one example • Students did not mix race at any point and race motivated violent incidents were common