@tolivac
Unfortunately this is part of the American History now and it must never be forgotten, so the newer generations can learn with the mistakes from the past.
That incident happened in 1992, just a couple of blocks from where i live now. (it ended up in this thread because I was talking about my neighborhood)
As an immigrant, I did my homework to learn as much as possible about the local culture and history. I wasn't born here, I wasn't even born in the USA, but after almost three years living here in Los Angeles, I can say I'm an "Angeleno" because that's MY city, that's where I live. Los Angeles, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de Porciuncula, La La Land or simply L.A. as some people prefer to call is a magical city, a wonderful place to live but, it also has its dark sides, like everywhere else in the world.
In 1991 Rodney King was brutally beaten by several L.A.P.D. officers after a car chase. It was more than obvious that the officers abused because Mr. King was already handcuffed when the officers started using tasers, pepper sprays, batons and also kicking him. OK, Mr King wasn't exactly an innocent angel, but the police officers must do their job, not use citizens as stress relief punch pags.
An amateur video maker was playing with his video camera and coincidently filmed the action. The video because famous all over the world and nowadays is known as the very first viral video in the world, decades before Youtube, Facebook and Twitter.
To make things much worse, Mr. King was black and the police officers were white.
In 1992 the case was judged in the court.... The judge and the juri were also all white and outrageously, all police officers were considered innocent, even having an irrefutable video evidence they committed several excesses, starting by there is no need to use a taser several times against a man that is already handcuffed and on the ground
Instantly when the veredict was announced, rage motivated protests that started to pop up all over the city. At that point pacific protests but the worse was about to come on the next hour.
Things ran out of control when the L.A.P.D. chief ordered all the police officers to ignore calls and go back to their headquarters. The city of angels turned into City of hell for the next days, with an absurd aftermath: People were killed, hundreds injured, thousands of buildings were destroyed. It showed the worst part of humanity. Martial law had to be declared.
The truck driver's name is Reginald Denny if I'm not mistaked. Mr. Denny had no idea about what was going on when he stopped his truck on a red light. He had no time to react.