This week on Hashtag History, we are discussing Rodney King, a twenty-five-year-old Black man who was captured on video camera on March 3, 1991 as he was being beaten viciously by four Los Angeles Police Department officers. The review would find that he had been struck over fifty times with a baton leaving him with fractures to the skull, a broken leg and teeth, bruises, lacerations to the face, a burn wound on his chest from a stun gun, and permanent brain damage. The officers were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force and, after a three-month long trial, a nearly all-white jury acquitted the officers. This verdict directly correlated with the start of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and reiterated the racial tension, misconduct, and police brutality many had experienced at the hands of the LAPD.
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