Essay Archive - The Power of the Situation
The Power of the Situation
A week of urban mayhem was ignited by the April 29, 1992 jury acquittal
of four white police officers who were captured on videotape beating black
motorist Rodney King. The angry response in South Central produced its own
brutal footage, most dramatically the live broadcast from a hovering TV
news helicopter of two black men striking unconscious with a brick, kicking, and
then dancing over the body of, white truck driver Reginald Denny. The final
three-day toll of what many community activists took to defiantly calling an
uprising, revolt, or rebellion, was put at 53 dead, some $....
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