Rodney King
A man named George Holliday heard sirens and went to his apartment balcony near the intersection of Foothill Boulevard and Osborne Street in Lake View Terrace. He had a camcorder. What he recorded on the night of March 3, 1991, changed Los Angeles and reverberated across the country: officers of the Los Angeles Police Department beating Rodney King — already on the ground, repeatedly, with batons — after a car chase that had ended nearby. Holliday sent the tape to KTLA, and within days it had been rebroadcast around the world. What would otherwise have been, in the assessment of one observer, 'a violent but soon forgotten encounter' became instead one of the most watched and discussed incidents of its kind in American history.
The Night of March 3, 1991
King, then 25 years old and on parole, had spent the evening watching basketball and drinking with friends in the San Fernando Valley. At 12:30 a.m., California Highway Patrol officers spotted his 1987 Hyundai Excel speeding on Interstate 210. The pursuit reached 117 miles per hour before King left the freeway near the Hansen Dam Recreation Area and continued through residential streets. When cornered, King emerged from his car and was surrounded by LAPD officers under Sergeant Stacey Koon's command. The videotape captured 33 baton blows and seven kicks connecting. King suffered a fractured facial bone, a broken ankle, and multiple bruises and lacerations. He left the scene by ambulance.
Trial, Acquittal, and the Riots
Four LAPD officers were charged with using excessive force. The trial was moved from Los Angeles County to Simi Valley after the extensive media coverage made local selection impossible. On April 29, 1992, the jury — ten white jurors, one biracial man, one Latino, one Asian American — acquitted three officers and deadlocked on a charge against the fourth. Within hours, the 1992 Los Angeles riots began. Six days of violence left 63 people dead and 2,383 injured, caused more than 7,000 fires, damaged 3,100 businesses, and produced nearly one billion dollars in financial losses. The California Army National Guard, the U.S. Army, and the Marine Corps were deployed to restore order. During the riots, on May 1, King appeared publicly and said the words he has been associated with ever since: 'Can we all get along?'
Federal Trial and Civil Judgment
The federal government pursued civil rights charges. In April 1993, a federal jury found Officers Laurence Powell and Sergeant Stacey Koon guilty; both were sentenced to 30 months in prison. The other two officers were acquitted. In a separate civil lawsuit in 1994, the City of Los Angeles was found liable and ordered to pay King $3.8 million in damages. The beating and its aftermath accelerated the formation of copwatch organizations across the United States — groups dedicated to recording police conduct in public — and altered the national conversation about police use of force in ways that continue to this day. Rodney King was born in Sacramento on April 2, 1965, and grew up in Altadena. He died on June 17, 2012.
From the Air
The pursuit and beating occurred near the Hansen Dam Recreation Area in the north San Fernando Valley, approximately at 34.27°N, 118.34°W. Lake View Terrace, where George Holliday filmed from his balcony, lies a short distance east. The area is north of the 210 Freeway and east of Foothill Boulevard. Bob Hope Airport (KBUR) is approximately 12 miles southwest. The San Gabriel Mountains rise immediately to the north.