If anyone is to blame for the Rodney King or Ferguson riots, its not the black community or law enforcement officials, but the mainstream media.
April 29th marks the 25th anniversary of the Rodney King riots. King was a black motorist that was pulled over after a long chase. When Tasers did not bring him down the four officers beat him with batons and the entire incident was captured on video. Many news outlets are making this a chance to bemoan the lack of progress in the black community, but this is also a chance to reassess the worst practices of liberals and the media that continue to aggravate race relations.
The biggest problem lies with the media. News outlets circulated a video that widely inflamed emotions, yet the 81 second clip was edited down to 68 seconds for television viewers. The edited clip did not include the footage of Rodney King lunging at the officers. While the public wanted to convict the officers based on what they saw, the jury saw the entire clip and heard testimony about the rest of the night’s events including the 100 mile per hour car chase, refusing calls to get on the ground, King tossing a Sergeant off his back, and lunging at officers after being tased. The resulting difference between the jury and the public created a widespread sense of injustice among the black community that the unedited video and context of the night’s events mitigated.
Even then, the riots didn’t have to turn bloody but the mistakes of political leaders and law enforcement made it so. Freedom of speech is excellent, but that doesn’t give license to trespassing, vandalism, looting, and mob beatings. But the LA police department, much like Baltimore mayor in 2015, “gave space” for violent protestors. They didn’t shut down the roads leading to the center of the riots.
As a result many drivers, including the beaten Reginald Denny, drove into the midst of the worst chaos. As Thomas Sowell often says, fake hate crimes breed real hate crimes in retaliation. The inability of the police officers to crack down on law breakers in the misguided belief they needed space resulted in lives lost, and millions of dollars in damage.
Ironically enough, that damage from riots only creates economic black holes and attitudes of lawlessness that only fuels more unrest. We see this today in the Ferguson Effect. After Michael Brown was shot, a narrative developed that was just as edited as the Rodney King tape about “hands up don’t shoot.” It was called the lie of the year after DNA from Brown was found on the gun and inside the police car that along with the angle of the bullets suggested a close physical confrontation.
Not to mention, just like the Rodney King incident, the totality of the situation mitigates the officers action because Brown had committed a violent robbery mere seconds before encountering the police. Of course, I would like it if officers never had to use their weapons, but violent felons lunging at them or trying to seize their guns make it a sad necessity.
The resulting media narrative about the war on blacks and an overzealous justice department has limited proactive policing in areas that need it the most. Violent crimes and murders have sky rocketed to the point that there are so many blacks being killed in just Chicago that it outnumbers the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. The media narrative and political class which makes excuses for chronic criminal behavior and tries to stop proactive policing is to blame. 25 years after the Rodney King riots the best way to support black lives is to meet these challenges with a reasoned commitment to law and order, not more excuses for criminals.
