officers - The Black Vault

pened out there was wrong." Though still
skeptical that any news organization
would be much interested, he called
KTLA, a Los Angeles TV station, and
dropped off the cassette. The broadcast of
the tape that night on the 10 o'clock news
quickly ignited the fire storm. (KTLA later
paid Holliday the modest sum of$500 for
the footage.)
Within a few days, as Holliday's indelible
images began to appear again and
again on network news shows, the entire
country recoiled in horror. The Los Angeles
Times called the tape ''America's Ugliest
Home Video.·· And even Darvl Gates.
L.A.'s hard-line police chief. decried the
incident as "two minutes that will go
down in infamy ... Gates did argue that the
attack on Rodney King. 25. a construction
A "[The police}
looked like savages
beating on
a wounded animal,"
said one
eyewitness.
"'Il In the light of
day, Holliday sur·
veys the area
where the assault
took place.
~Doctors say
Rodney King's
concussion may
have caused irreparable
damage.
worker who recently served time for aliquor-store
holdup. and who police
claimed had resisted arrest, was an "aberration."
But critics of the LAPD. who
have long accused the dcpartmenl of persistent
brutality against minorities. vigorously
disagreed. "It's not an aberration,"
says Don Jackson, a former Hawthorne,
Calif., police officer who had his head
smashed into a plate-glass window by
Long Beach police after a routine traffic
stop in January 1989. "It's an aberration
only in that it was videotaped."
In defense of the officers, L.A. police
officials contended that King, of Altadena,
Calif., had been spotted going 115
mph in his Hyundai Excel on the Foothill
Freeway. (A Hyundai spokesman
says, however, that the unsporty Excel
has never topped 100 mph.) When offi·
cers gave chase, police say, King took
off. King insists there was no chase and .- , i
that his only offense was going 45 rpph 1'.
in a 35-mph zone. · 1
Whatever the case, the pursuing offi- I
cers, none of whom were black, finally · f
surrounded King in front of Holliday's j'
apartment in Lake View Tj:lrrace. Mter :. ,
King emerged from the car and lay down ,, j'
on the ground, say eyewitnesses, one cop '
jolted him twice, apparently with a Taser ; 1
stun gun, which delivers a 50,000-volt ·
1
electric charge. Then the beating began; ·I
all told, there were more than 55 blows .
struck with metal nightsticks, and as many
as seven kicks. A teain of doctors assem- 11
bled by defense lawyers for ~rig found j
that his injuries included a cracked eye ·
socket, a fractured c;heekbone, a broken j:
right ankle and numerous facial lacerations.
Many of the fillings had been . i
knocked from his teeth.
Despite the outcry from civil-rights .· I
groups, King's wife, Crystal, sees the issue ,
as more domestic than racial. "I feel if he
was at home this wouldn't have hap- ~~
pened," she says. A police investigation . 1 1
into the incident may find broader implications.
The county district attorney's-office
initiated a grand-jury probe that J 1
'
1 :,
should conclude within roughly a week.
Lawyers for King are preparing a civil- .
lj
,
rights suit against the LAPD, asking un- ,.
specified damages.
For Holliday, the episode and its aftermath
have been oddly reassuring. "I've 1
gotten over a thousand calls, and every- ·
body has been so supportive and encour- . ·
aging," he says (though he did receive one ~
death threat). "Even the police told me 1.
that they are on my side." -Bill Hewitt, ~
.,
Wayne Edwards if
and Nancy Matsumoto ill Los Angeles "'