Rodney King: Racial Profiling

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Another case that has been identified to be racial profiling is the story of Rodney King’s case where he was brutally beat. On March 3, 1991, an African American motorist known as Rodney King was wrongfully beat when four white police officers struck leaving him severely injured. In this case everything was caught on tape and the footage aired around the world, leaving many African Americans in rage which then lead to the Los Angeles riots. Again, in this case an African American was wrongfully attacked by whites, which take us back to law enforcement targeting individuals based on personal characteristics. Since both cases involve African American suspects being wrongfully attacked by white law enforcement it adds more fuel to the fire in …show more content…
If a law enforcement officer confessed (which they won’t) that they targeted an individual because of race, ethnicity, religion or national origin, they will be violating the Civil Rights Acts and may fall into violation of the amendment, depending on the violation of course. The Civil Rights Act protects against discrimination in public accommodations. For example, in the Tennessee v. Garner case Garner’s father alleged the victims rights were violated (casebreifs.com). In this situation, the officer claimed to have probable, cause believing his life was in danger, which was why he shot Garner. Therefore, his action was to use his weapon which was the use of deadly force, which to the courts was seen as no violation. The conclusion of this case was the judge finding the officer’s action was to be constituted which found the officer’s action to be reasonable, falling under the fourth amendment, which is “officer had probable cause”. Moreover, this is an example of how it comes about with individuals see racial profiling as violating their rights, but law enforcement use racial profiling as a tool that they use to narrow down who might be involved in criminal