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Fluoborate (talk | contribs) →Charges against police officers and trial: Some information about the LA prosecutor. Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit Advanced mobile edit |
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At a press conference, announcing the four officers involved would be disciplined, and three would face criminal charges, Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates said: "We believe the officers used excessive force taking him into custody. In our review, we find that officers struck him with batons between fifty-three and fifty-six times." The LAPD initially charged King with "felony evading", but later dropped the charge.<ref name=Stevenson2015/>
The Los Angeles County District Attorney subsequently charged four police officers, including one sergeant, with assault and use of excessive force.<ref name="NYT_19920306">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/06/us/police-beating-trial-opens-with-replay-of-videotape.html |title=Police Beating Trial Opens With Replay of Videotape |work=The New York Times |date=March 6, 1992 |first=Seth |last=Mydans |access-date=April 20, 2010}}</ref> Due to the extensive media coverage of the arrest, the trial received a [[change of venue]] from [[Los Angeles County]] to [[Simi Valley]] in neighboring [[Ventura County, California|Ventura County]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-simi-valley-20170507-story.html|title=An aggravating anniversary for Simi Valley, where a not-guilty verdict sparked the '92 L.A. riots|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|first=Robin |last=Abcarian|date= May 7, 2017|access-date=May 7, 2017}}</ref> The jury was composed of ten white jurors, one biracial male,<ref name="laist_20120428">{{cite news |url=http://laist.com/2012/04/28/rodney_king_juror_talks_for_the_fir.php |title=Rodney King Juror Talks About His Black Father and Family For the First Time |work=laist |date=April 28, 2012 |access-date=March 8, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120504013335/http://laist.com/2012/04/28/rodney_king_juror_talks_for_the_fir.php |archive-date=May 4, 2012 }}</ref> one Latino, and one [[Asian American]].<!-- surely not only one person's gender was identified --><ref name="NYT_19920506">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/06/us/after-the-riots-a-juror-describes-the-ordeal-of-deliberations.html |title=After the riots; A Juror Describes the Ordeal of Deliberations |work=The New York Times |date=May 6, 1992 |access-date=March 4, 2011}}</ref> The prosecutor, Terry White, was black.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/trials24.htm |title=Jurist – The Rodney King Beating Trials |publisher=Jurist.law.pitt.edu |access-date=August 11, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100826053233/http://www.jurist.law.pitt.edu/trials24.htm |archive-date=August 26, 2010 }}</ref><ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/white.jpg Law.umkc.edu] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070417235534/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/white.jpg |date=April 17, 2007 }}</ref> The prosecutor, Mr. Terry L. White, was a Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County with 8 years of experience.
On April 29, 1992, the seventh day of jury deliberations, the jury acquitted all four officers of assault and acquitted three of the four of using excessive force. The jury [[hung jury|could not agree on a verdict]] for the fourth officer charged with using excessive force.<ref name="NYT_19920506"/> The verdicts were based in part on the first three seconds of a blurry, 13-second segment of the videotape that, according to journalist [[Lou Cannon]], had not been aired by television news stations in their broadcasts.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/authors_corner/jan-june98/cannon_4-7.html |title=Online NewsHour Forum: Authors' Corner with Lou Cannon – April 7, 1998 |publisher=Pbs.org |access-date=August 11, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100812192824/http://www.pbs.org/newshour/authors_corner/jan-june98/cannon_4-7.html |archive-date=August 12, 2010 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=All 4 Acquitted in King Beating : Verdict Stirs Outrage; Bradley Calls It Senseless: Trial: Ventura County jury rejects charges of excessive force in episode captured on videotape. A mistrial is declared on one count against Officer Powell. |url=http://articles.latimes.com/1992-04-30/news/mn-1942_1_ventura-county-jury |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=April 30, 1992|access-date = November 11, 2015 |issn=0458-3035 |language=en-US |first=Richard A. |last=Serrano}}</ref>
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