officers - The Black Vault

FD·35g._ (R~v .. 5·8·81)
..;
•
•(Indicate page, name of
newspaper, city and state.)
·COLUMN RIGHT I
' WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR.
:In-a Grim Tale,
·some Fiber for
the Defense
• Rodney King presented a host
. of unknowns to the police; still,
·their behavior is ine?'plicable.
I
(Mount Clipping in Space Below)
have come to a personal conclusion
. about the episode of the police in Los
Angeles. But•the protocols are not uninteresting,
and they require you to listen, as
the jury will have to listen, to' the case for
the defense. Is there such?
There were three men, Rodney King
'.(the principal victim) and two friends. One
of them (Freddie Helms) was remarkably
.aloof from what was going on: He slept
through the wild chase, up until the fleeing
.·car was brought to a stop by the police.
King's fugitive behavior at 'the wheel of
the car defied the understanding of King's
'third companion, Bryant Allen.
"I told him, 'Rodney, pull over, stop.' He
just kept on going, kept on driving."
' To quote the New York Times report,
'"He [Allen) said Mr. King continued driv­
:ing on the freeway for about five minutes,
-with the pat,rol car behind them, during
which time he continued to urge him to
!})Ullover.
"'I was scared,' he said, adding that he
thought his friend at the wheel was acting·
odd. 'I was thinking, why doesn't he pull
.over? He wasn't saying nothing, just driv­
·.ing."'
At ohe point during the chase, Allen
thought he had prevailed, that King was
·going to pull over; instead, the driver went
·down the off-ramp, stopped at the stop
-sign (curious reflex) then went on. "'lsaid,
-'.Rodney, pull over.' We were still driving,
~and the lights w~re flashing. I could hear a
·lot of cars. We stopped at a red light and
took off again. We came to another red
·light. I told him, 'Rodney, stop,' and he
finally went to pull over anti he stopped.'"
• The lawyer-for Allen, John Burton, said
:that the car .driven by King might have
'been going as fast as 80 m.p.h. Burton
~dded that the three men had eac~.drunk a
:~0-ounce bottle of Old English 800 malt
tiliquor.
One reasonably assumes from the above
that the JUry will be persuaded by . the
,-defense of the following:
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Date:
Edition: MON' MAR 25, 1991
METRO SECTION, PAGE 5
Title:
Character:
or
Classification:
IN A GRIM TALE, SOME
FIBER FOR THE DEFENSE
CIVIL RIGHTS
8 0-3 3 B
Submitting Office:
IDS ANGELES
Indexing:
1) That the ·driver wail under the
.influence of alcohol, 2) that the driver was
desperate to avoid being stopped by'2the
, 1 poli?e, _and that therefore- 3) the. I>QHce
mstmctlvely thought him dangerous-perhaps
he was fleeing a murder he had just
committed. . · ·
Allen: "'The police brdered us, 'Driver
· put your hands out the window.' They said'
'Ta~e your left hand outside the door and
step. ou~.' Rodney had the seat belt [on),
and 1t kmd of yanked him back. The police
were getting nervous, too. They told him to
• lie flat down, and he lay flat down.'"
1
_..:..._ ______ r-·:._·:__ ___ --
Fear and· tension a'fter a
·. fre-eway chase are 'm~re easily
understandable to men whose
job r~quires
--
them to face
desperate men at gunpoint.'.
Allen continued: "'The police put the
handcuffs on me, and that's when I hcm·d
.Rodney screaming. Be was sc1·caming like
he was" getting a whupping.'"
F,rom · which the defense is likely to
. persuade the jury that when King began to
come out of the driver's scat but suddenly
snapped back, held by the seat belt the
poliye suspected that he might be rea~hing
for a weapon. The resulting tension-when
King finally emer~ed-is more eJlsily
understandable to men whose job requires
them to face desperate men at gunpoint
- than it would be to others. ·
End the case for the defense.
_Suppose it had been just two police
officers. Their . quarry is not handcuffed.
They have chased him-for miles, concluded
SEARCHED INDEXED, ___,
S~RIALIZED
fiLED.·~-...--1
MAR 2 7 1991
FBI -
lOS ANGELES I
1/JNJ
FBitoo.J
that he was dangerous, were startled by his 1
j, J A 1 11 }/qi{Jj/'1 I \. }~
jack-in-the box action _in coming out of the ~'-(...11.-
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