This is the 20th Anniversary of the Rodney King beating and the riots that happened afterward, bringing Los Angeles to a standstill. The officers captured on that nine minutes of video made by George Holliday had the Los Angeles Police Department beating and kicking King, even in the head. Now, the LAPD wants you to know it's a changed operation, but in the age of YouTube, it seems that , more often than not, police departments try to operate above the law.
Just a search for "police beating" on YouTube (click here) shows a large number of disturbing videos and titles. For example: "Video Allegedly Shows Md. Police Beating Student," "Philadelphia Police Beating Caught On Tape," "Police beat down an old man...," "Minneapolis Police Beat Man," "Seattle Police Beating." And the last one, where a Seattle Police officer beat a 16-year-old black girl two years ago, is the most disturbing one I've seen to date, and all because she kicked her own shoes off while in jail:
The overall message that police send in this day and age of new media is that they are white men who hate black people, and especially black girls. Girls, not women. That's an awful image to allow to be formed, but that's what's happened.
And to add all that, the fact that Oscar Grant was killed by a BART police officer two years ago, and that was captured on video, and you have an awful national police image.
This has had terrible results for police departments just and a time when they need more funding. In Oakland, not a place where such beatings have been part of the news, thankfully, the Oakland police relationship with the overall community is still poor. All of this was evident at an Oakland City Council meeting last year, when person and after person expressed their lack of support for the OPD.
Police departments need to change. They need to hire people who are of various backgrounds, make sure the police force is at least 40 percent female (that's right), and help to rebuild the poor communities they patrol by hosting fundraisers, youth club organizations, and economic development initiatives. Police must become friends with their communities and stop being at war with them.