Rodney Glen King was an African American man who was a victim of police brutality. On March 3, 1991, he was severely beaten by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) during his arrest after a high speed pursuit for driving while intoxicated on the I-210. An uninvolved resident, George Holliday, saw and filmed the incident from his nearby balcony and sent the footage, which showed the unarmed King on the ground being beaten after initially evading arrest, to local news station KTLA. The incident was covered by news media around the world and caused a public uproar.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-largest municipal police department in the United States, after the New York City Police Department and the Chicago Police Department.
The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion or Watts Uprising, took place in the Watts neighborhood and its surrounding areas of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. The riots were motivated by anger at the racist and abusive practices of the Los Angeles Police Department, as well as grievances over employment discrimination, residential segregation, and poverty in L.A.
The Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) was a specialized gang intelligence unit of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) tasked with combating gang-related crime between 1979 and 2000. The unit was established in the South Central district of Los Angeles, California, United States, to combat rising gang violence during the period. Each of the LAPD's 18 divisions had a CRASH unit assigned to it, whose primary goal was to suppress gang-related crimes in the city, which came about primarily from the increase in illegal drug trade.
Daryl Francis Gates was an American police officer who served as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1978 to 1992. His length of tenure in this position was second only to that of William H. Parker. Gates is credited with the creation of SWAT teams alongside fellow Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer John Nelson, who others claim was the originator of SWAT in 1965. Gates also co-founded the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program.
The 1992 Los Angeles riots were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, United States, during April and May 1992. Unrest began in South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after a jury acquitted four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) charged with using excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King. The incident had been videotaped by George Holliday, who was a bystander to the incident, and was heavily broadcast in various news and media outlets.
The Rampart scandal was a police corruption scandal which unfolded in Los Angeles, California, United States, during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The scandal concerned widespread criminal activity within the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) anti-gang unit of the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division. More than 70 police officers were initially implicated in various forms of misconduct, including unprovoked shootings and beatings, planting of false evidence, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury and cover-ups thereof.
The Fuhrman tapes are 13 hours of taped interviews given by Mark Fuhrman, former detective of the Los Angeles Police Department, to writer Laura McKinny between 1985 and 1994.
The blue wall of silence, also blue code and blue shield, are terms used to denote the informal code of silence among police officers in the United States not to report on a colleague's errors, misconducts, or crimes, especially as related to police brutality in the United States. If questioned about an incident of alleged misconduct involving another officer, while following the code, the officer being questioned would perjure themselves by feigning ignorance of another officer's wrongdoing.
William Joseph Bratton CBE is an American businessman and former law enforcement officer who served two terms as the New York City Police Commissioner. He previously served as the Commissioner of the Boston Police Department (BPD) (1993–1994) and Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) (2002–2009). He is the only person to have led the police departments of the United States' two largest cities – New York and Los Angeles.
Bloody Christmas was the severe beating of seven civilians by members of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) on December 25, 1951. The attacks left five Mexican American and two white young men with broken bones and ruptured organs, and were properly investigated only after lobbying from the Mexican American community. The internal inquiry by Los Angeles Chief of Police William H. Parker resulted in eight police officers being indicted for the assaults, 54 being transferred, and 39 suspended.
William Henry Parker III was an American law enforcement officer who was Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) from 1950 to 1966. To date, he is the longest-serving LAPD police chief. Parker has been called "Los Angeles' greatest and most controversial chief of police". The former headquarters of the LAPD, the Parker Center, was named after him. During his tenure, the LAPD was known for police brutality and racism; Parker himself was known for his "unambiguous racism".
The NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) is a civilian oversight agency with jurisdiction over the New York City Police Department (NYPD), the largest police force in the United States. A board of the Government of New York City, the CCRB is tasked with investigating, mediating and prosecuting complaints of misconduct on the part of the NYPD. Its regulations are compiled in Title 38-A of the New York City Rules.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was formed in 1869, and has since become the third-largest law enforcement agency in the United States. They have been involved in various events in history, such as the Black Dahlia murder, the Watts riots, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the North Hollywood shootout, the murder trial of O. J. Simpson, and the Rampart scandal.
The 2007 MacArthur Park rallies were two May Day rallies demanding amnesty for undocumented immigrants which occurred on May 1, 2007, at MacArthur Park, in Los Angeles.
Crime in Los Angeles has varied throughout time, reaching peaks between the 1970s and 1990s. Since the early 2020s, crime has increased in Los Angeles.
Metropolitan Division, commonly referred to as Metro Division or just Metro, is an elite division of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) under its Special Operations Group. Metropolitan Division is responsible for managing the LAPD's specialized crime suppression, K-9, mounted, and SWAT units, named "platoons".
Christopher Jordan Dorner was a former officer of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) who, beginning on February 3, 2013, committed a series of killings against the LAPD in Orange County, Los Angeles County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County in the U.S. state of California. The victims were law enforcement officers and the daughter of a retired police captain. Dorner killed four people and wounded three others. On February 12, Dorner killed himself after a shootout with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department deputies in the San Bernardino Mountains.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) is the police union representing Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers up to the rank of lieutenant. LAPPL has a membership of 9,900 sworn officers.
Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old African-American man, died from multiple gunshot wounds after being shot by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers in Florence, Los Angeles, California on August 11, 2014. In the weeks and months that followed, Ford's shooting triggered multiple demonstrations and a lawsuit by Ford's family claiming $75 million in damages.
