Rodney King dead at 47

Gee, you'd think he would know black folks can't swim.

Did those cops finally get out of jail?

My Gift from Rodney is that in spite from never even hearing of the meeper at the time, because I was going to get ribs from a place on the good food side of Fresno, I was "Profiled" by the cops for being barefoot in tie-dye with my hippie woman (Pepper) on the "Darkie Side of Town". All we wanted was some good ribs and a beer. We had a couple of beers beforehand. Next thing we knew, we were being beaten by cops on the sidewalk for trying to "Attack the Black Folks and Start a Racial Incident". Guns in our faces, and broken ribs & wrists, while barefoot & tie-dyed, looking for food.

Any Cop that goes from "Boredom to Terror in Seconds" should be removed from duty, in my opinion.

Thanks a lot, Rodney!

Fresno Bee, The (CA)

April 30, 1992

POLICE: FROM BOREDOM TO TERROR IN SECONDS

For two hours Wednesday afternoon, Sgt. Mike Oliver drives Fresno streets, talking police philosophy in the wake of the Rodney King verdict - until 6:45 p.m., when terror takes over.

Somebody - officer or suspect - may be killed any second now.

Oliver, 38, in law enforcement 20 years, has been slowly cruising toward the Fresno Police Department's central dressing station on Broadway north of Belmont Avenue.

He hears something on his patrol car radio, flips a U turn, puts on lights and siren, and speeds to an officer in trouble.

Blocks away at Blackstone Avenue and Divisadero, Officer Richard Munoz and backup patrol officers have weapons aimed at two white men and a white woman in a dirty old car.

The driver has two hands thrust out the front window as ordered. Munoz and then Oliver see the man in back moving his hand toward a .45-caliber automatic on the back seat.

"Put your hands outside!" Oliver and other officers shout, aiming their guns at the three inside.

"Leave it alone! Don't ---- with me," Oliver commands. "Stay in the car."

These are long seconds that could spin this confrontation either way, bloodlessly or with killing.

The girl leaves the front passenger seat. Police put a wrist hold on her, then handcuffs her. The male driver gets out, and is handcuffed.

"Get out of the car," Oliver shouts to the man in the back seat with the .45.

Officers pull out the man, who is barefoot. One officer uses his knee to force the suspect face down. The barefoot man is then handcuffed and placed in back of a patrol car.

Oliver unwinds.

"He kept laying his hands on the gun," Oliver says. "I screamed at him. I damned near killed him."

It turns out later that the gun wasn't loaded, but police did find a billy club and knife.

Noting the irony, Oliver says the driver faces drunken driving and felony possession of a billy club.

The man with the gun, who apparently was intoxicated and may have been trying only to hide the weapon, faces no serious charge from the incident.

But moments earlier, Oliver and other officers had good reason to believe that this man would kill if they didn't.

The incident puts context to Oliver's day on the job - hours of boredom, seconds of decision, kill or be killed - and to his view of police work as it relates to the King verdict.

Oliver works nights, and says he saw a short segment of the King beating videotape for the first time Tuesday night.

"It didn't look good to me," Oliver says. "It looked from the tiny part I saw that [the officers] were out of bounds. But I wasn't there."

He talks of pain compliance locks and other alternatives to subduing a suspect with blows from billy clubs. But none of the methods is guaranteed to work in all cases.

Oliver keeps track of eight officers and two community service officers under his command, and he has told his people not to overreact to anything this evening, or, as he says, "don't overreact to their overreactions."

The King jury verdict isn't the hard part, Oliver says. Police lose either way: A guilty verdict translates that cops are no good. A not-guilty verdict translates that they get away with everything.

All of that is Oliver's analysis, minutes before he rushes from his car, gun drawn, not knowing if he or a man he's never met will be shot and killed.

From the picture: there were NO guns... just a table legs I was refinishing for my Mom, and a utility knife.

Kurt Hegre - The Fresno Bee Tense moment. Local police attempt to arrest three suspects who were stopped on suspicion of drunken driving Wednesday on Divisadero near Blackstone Avenue. Police found two guns in the car.

...no guns in the car, just a couple beers before going to get ribs before some slappy assed crack head went to court. And I got my ribs broken, Pepper got a broken wrist, and nobody even noticed.

FTP

I don't know who to believe. The dirty hippies, the dirty cops, or the meep who writes for a living.

I'm here now...the cops are lying

How do we know you're not a cop, then?

Oh, Good Lord! Really?

I can vouch.

I can vouch, too, but it would have made his previous statement into one of those cool paradox situations where you don't know if he lying about his group being liars. It seemed funnier at the time.