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Two things: many people forget, because it was shown so seldom or they missed it altogether, what the FULL videotape showed: an escalation in the action that led to the cops' action--refusal, resistance, fighting back...it's a whole different visual story than the 8-second clip we all saw endlessly of the mean cops wailing away on poor rodney.

A white friend of mine played for the Rams then (LA Rams, then), and one of his black teammates, seeing all the mayhem and looting--and the fact that the cops were doing nothing to stop it--hopped in his car to go pick himself up some electronics. The man who became a looter was making $900,000 a year at th time.

A white friend of mine played for the Rams then (LA Rams, then), and one of his black teammates, seeing all the mayhem and looting--and the fact that the cops were doing nothing to stop it--hopped in his car to go pick himself up some electronics. The man who became a looter was making $900,000 a year at th time.

That's one of the worst (and saddest) things I've heard in my life. Reminds me a little of the Portland Trailblazer a few short years back (his name escapes me now) who got busted with a bunch of stolen car stereos in the trunk of his car. This guy was one of the the NBA best offensive guards, and must've been making at least $4 mil/yr at the time.

An ex-girlfriend of mine lived in Ojai (about 1 1/2 hours away from L.A.) during the riots, and she overheard her nextdoor neighbors - a family of about 10 - calmly discuss their plan to head down to L.A. to do some looting. She did hear one or two of them argue against doing the deed, but they were in the minority. She doesn't know if they ever did it.

I saw the entire tape only because I ran across it at a video store. They shot him with a taser twice, and he just stood there. He took a baton to the head only because he tried to run. You could hear the cops yelling at him to stay down, but he kept trying to get up, so they kept hitting. It was ugly, but I think a few baton strikes to the back of my legs would discourage me in a hurry. He had to be on something to withstand two taser hits.