Fear and the Power of the Videotape

The theme that I found abundant in chapters 15-18 of Lou Cannon’s Official Negligence is the influence that fear had on the entire federal trial of the four officers. Even before the trial started, when the jury was beginning to be selected, the Los Angeles Times ran a story that gave a sort of ultimatum to those involved with the legal process. The story declared that riots would more than likely continue and worsen if these police officers escaped with acquittals again. Cannon uses specific statistics to exemplify this point, stating that only 6.3% of the roughly 6,000 people who were invited to the “undisclosed” trial never acknowledged the invitation. People in Los Angeles wanted nothing to do with the Rodney King trial because of the obvious explosive nature of the situation. It had already gotten out of hand, and nobody wanted to be responsible or accountable for any difficult decisions that may ensue.

Cannon’s argument in these chapters is to show the reader that the “humanization” of Rodney King to the jury throughout the trial and fear of the jurors are the reasons why Laurence Powell and Stacey Koon were found guilty. Cannon takes special care to document King’s testimony, in which he clearly made efforts to press the issue of race in the case. Cannon also discusses how King’s mild nature and general courtesy during his time being examined allowed him to truly state his case to the jury that he is an innocent man who was unjustly beaten.

It was very interesting to read about how the federal trial of the four police officers, with a video documenting the beating they administered to Rodney King, could contain so many ambiguous facts and accounts of the night. Thus, it is very important for Cannon to show the connection that King made on an emotional level with the jury. Because he was able to demonstrate to them that he is not out of control, the fact that there were so many different stories about the night forces the jury to make their own decisions based on what they “feel” happened. The defense always seemed to fall back on L.A.P.D. policy as the reason why the officers acted the way that they did. Despite this, the prosecution was consistently able to appeal to the moral values of the jurors and depict a man on the ground being bludgeoned time and time again.

One of the most important themes in Cannon’s account is the power of the videotape. It is easy to assume that since there is a videotape, there is really no reason for a trial because all of the facts are unquestionable. However, Cannon demonstrates that the videotape only shows one side of the story. That happened to be the side of the prosecution. Cannon writes, “The videotape’s one dimensional record omitted almost every action exculpatory to the defendants except the King charge while including every action that was damning… Koon’s perceptions were similarly honest and consistent, but his record of the incident existed only in his mind” (Cannon 450). For all that we, the reader, knows, Rodney King could have been shouting threats at the officers and could have actually been on PCP and a serious danger to the defendants, but the video only shows the opinion that he was an innocent man who was the victim of a racist attack.