Design Practice: Police Brutality

After doing some broad initial research I began coming across articles regarding recent cases of police brutality and how shocking some of them were. I found that there was still hundreds of incidents involving the police force (the majority in the US however some cases in other countries) every year and how so few get news coverage and the the amount of injustice to those who are effected. Below is some research on some of the most infamous examples which lead to riots and tension in communities and how it is still going on in the present day.

Rodney King/1992 Los Angeles Riots

Rodney King was an American construction worker who became nationally known after being beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers following a high-speed car chase on March 3, 1991. A local witness, George Holliday, videotaped much of it from his balcony, and sent the footage to local news station KTLA. The footage shows five officers surrounding King, several of them striking him repeatedly, while other officers stood by. Part of the footage was aired around the world, inflaming outrage in cities where racial tensions were high, and raising public concern about police treatment of minorities.

A series of riots, lootings, arsons and civil disturbance that occurred in Los Angeles County, California in 1992, following the acquittal of police officers on trial regarding a videotaped and widely-covered police brutality incident. They were the largest riots seen in the United States since the 1960s and the worst in terms of death toll after the New York City draft riots in 1863.

Robert Davis

Robert Davis, a retired elementary school teacher from New Orleans, was arrested and brutally beaten by police on suspicion of public intoxication. On the night of Oct. 9, 2005, just a little over a month after Hurricane Katrina, Davis returned to New Orleans to check on his family’s property and went to the French Quarter to buy cigarettes. There, he was attacked by four police officers who said he was belligerent and resisted arrest by not allowing them to handcuff him. The beatings were videotaped by an Associated Press producer, who was also assaulted that night. The officers were either fired or suspended for their involvement, but many of the charges against them were cleared.

Recent Incidents

These are just some of the few that have been caught on film over the past months.

26 November 2014

'Tamir Rice: police release video of 12-year-old's fatal shooting' The Guardian

4 December 2014