To the editor: In 1991, Los Angeles Police Division Chief Daryl F. Gates known as for officers concerned within the beating of Rodney King to face self-discipline or felony prosecution.
Nonetheless, a Simi Valley jury disregarded that reality, the video of the beating, the cranium fractures, the damaged leg and King’s fractured cheekbone, and it acquitted 4 officers of assault and three of extreme drive. It deadlocked on the fourth officer’s extreme drive cost.
On Monday, a New York Metropolis jury deadlocked on a manslaughter cost and acquitted Daniel Penny of criminally negligent murder. Jordan Neely, a person with untreated psychological well being points, raged, menaced and threatened passengers on a subway practice. Penny choked Neely from behind and maintained that maintain for six minutes, killing Neely. The gross and graphic video was performed in court docket.
The jury resoundingly sanctioned Neely’s choking dying. In spite of everything, he was mentally ailing and homeless, and he used artificial marijuana.
That is making alive political scientist Andrew Hacker’s 1992 guide, “Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal.”
Marc D. Greenwood, Opelika, Ala.
