forward because of the extreme power they believe
officers hold, most cases of police brutality have tra-
ditionally gone unreported.
Key Incidents Three cases were particularly trou-
bling and were national news for quite some time:
the beating of Rodney King in 1991, the torture of
Abner Louima in 1997, and the shooting of Amadou
Diallo in 1999.
King was pulled over by Los Angeles Police Depart-
ment (LAPD) officers on March 3, 1991, after a high-
speed chase. King, who had a history of drunk driving
and other crimes, resisted arrest. Three officers used
force to get King to assume a prone position, but they
continued to kick him, stomp on him, and hit him
with metal batons after he was down—while their su-
pervisor watched. The incident happened to be
caught on tape by a bystander, George Holliday, who
witnessed the event. Media outlets began airing the
tape immediately, and the entire nation witnessed
what was clearly an excessive use of force.
On August 9, 1997, New York Police Department
(NYPD) officers were dispatched to investigate a dis-
turbance outside a city nightclub, Club Rendez-Vous.
A fight broke out, and one of the officers, Justin
Volpe, was hit. Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant,
was identified as the assailant and was booked on a
number of charges. Officers beat Louima on the way
to the precinct and carried on the savagery once in-
side. At one point, he was stripped to the waist and
sodomized with a bathroom plunger that was then
shoved into his mouth, breaking some of his teeth.
He required medical attention, and an ambulance
was called. Police initially stated that he was a homo-
sexual and that they had “found” him. An anonymous
tip from within the hospital brought theDaily News
onto the scene, and the Louima case would, like the
King beating, make national headlines.
On February 4, 1999, four plainclothes members
of the NYPD Street Crimes Unit (a special unit cre-
ated to target violent crime) approached Amadou
Diallo, an immigrant from West Africa, because he
loosely resembled a rape suspect. Upon their ap-
proach, Diallo reached into his back pocket to pull
out a wallet. Fearing that he was reaching for a gun,
the officers shot Diallo forty-one times. The sheer
volume of gunfire left many wondering whether po-
lice were quick to pull the trigger and whether less
lethal methods could have been employed. Regard-
less, this was yet another case that made national
headlines and put the issue of excessive force in the
minds of the general public.Impact Public attention and embarrassment on
the part of many police departments in the 1990’s
led to a number of changes designed to hold law en-
forcement accountable. One such change was an in-
creasing number of citizen review boards created
and charged with monitoring police activities. An-
other change has been the installation of monitor-
ing devices in patrol cars that can keep an accurate
record of what transpires between the time an offi-
cer encounters a suspect and the time the suspect is
taken into custody. While isolated cases of abuse are
bound to continue, law enforcement has apparently
bent to public outcry and agreed to mechanisms
that help society to “police the police.”Further Reading
Juarez, Juan Antonio.Brotherhood of Corruption: A Cop
Breaks the Silence on Police Abuse, Brutality and Racial
Profiling. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2004.
Written by a former Chicago policeman, this
work provides an insider’s view into the behind-
the-scenes actions of some police officers and
how the “wall of silence” can perpetuate prob-
lems.
McArdle, Andrea, and Tanya Erzen, eds.Zero Toler-
ance: Quality of Life and the New Police Brutality in
New York City. New York: New York University
Press, 2001. Collection of articles that highlight
the inherent tensions created with zero-tolerance
and tough-on-crime policies that pit police
against society.
Winters, Paul A., ed.Policing the Police. San Diego,
Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1995. An anthology that
provides different insights into the problem of
police brutality. Includes a good bibliography.
Jeffrey S. AshleySee also African Americans; Conservatism in U.S.
politics; Crime; Diallo shooting; Giuliani, Rudolph;
Gun control; Hate crimes; Immigration to the
United States; King, Rodney; Los Angeles riots;
Louima torture case; Mount Pleasant riot; Race rela-
tions; Scandals; Sharpton, Al.The Nineties in America Police brutality 681