[2977] in Depressing_Thoughts
Re: Riots in Los Angeles
kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (kkkken@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Apr 30 22:46:22 1992
At the risk of being massively flamed,
*** Why do you all assume they were all guilty of the crimes of which
*** they were accused?
Here is my impression of the facts of this case:
o the video tape showed one officer beating king ... from my
viewing of this tape, he should clearly be found guilty. A
mistrial was declared --- will he be found guilty in the next
trial? I dunno.)
o The other officers didn't do _anything_ (from my memory of the
tape). I'm not saying this is right, or good. However, it's
not assault either. If you're going to find them guilty of
anything, it's going to have to be english_to_legal("Being a
police officer and standing around and not doing anything
while a fellow officer beats up a helpless man.") But
whatever that is, it's not assault, excessive use of force,
etc. It's not clearly illegal to me. Unethical != Illegal.
o King wouldn't testify. Why not? He won't make any comments
about the case. Neither would his lawyer nor the judge nor
the jury. Why not? What's going on here? (I don't buy
conspiracy/cover-up easily..) Only the prosecution would
comment saying something somewhat like, "we had to get the
jury to see the point of view of the officers. I think we
succeeded and it was a fair trial."
Other facts are damn hard to come by. I read the papers, but got no
information beyond what's there. I'm very curious about this and
would love information (please not flamage, I'm honestly not racist.)
(follow-up to law?)
-ken
