A drive ends in nightmare
Shortly before 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, March 3, Rodney King was driving fast down the
Foothill Freeway near San Fernando, at the northern edge of Los Angeles. With him were two
friends, Bryant Allen and Freddie Helms.
King, a 25-year-old unemployed construction worker with two children, had been released in
December after serving six months of a two-year sentence for robbery and was still on parole.
“In a California Highway Patrol car, a husband-and-wife team, T.J. and Melanie Singer, reported to
their headquarters that the Hyundai approached them from behind at 110 or 115 mph”, a Highway
Patrol spokesman, Sgt. Mike Brey, said later, although a number of news reports have asserted that
the small car cannot reach such speeds.
"There was no chase," King told reporters the following Wednesday night, when he was
released from jail without charges. "I may have been speeding just a little bit."
About 12:45 a.m., King pulled over and stopped on Foothill Boulevard. At least 15 officers in
patrol cars converged on him. All of the pursuing officers were white. The force is 14 percent black.
There are contradictory accounts of what happened next. The report filed by the officers on the scene
said King tried to stand up while being handcuffed, causing one officer to fall. The officers also
reported that King had reached into his pants pocket, an action that presumably would have raised
concern among the officers that he might have a weapon.
The report said King charged at the officers after standing up, and kicked and swung at them.
The full police report has not been released. Some witnesses said they did not see King reach into his
pocket, knock over an officer or charge at the police.
King said that after lying down he was handcuffed and got an electrical shock from "some
kind of device."
"After they shocked me the first time, they paused for a minute and then they struck me
across the face real hard" King said. "I was lying face down with my hands tied, and they shocked
me again on the other side of my shoulder."
THE OREGONIAN, Tuesday March 19, 1991
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