Chia's Beating Reminds Of Rodney King's 1991 Beating

If there is one thing about Chia's beating by the police 11 days ago, it clearly reminded me of the infamous Rodney King beating in Los Angeles on March 3 1991. There was no fellow policemen at the night of the incident that stopped their colleagues from beating.

Rodney King's beating was so sensational that the LAPD could not afford to turn their eye away from that video that was broadcast worldwide. Were Chia's beating was recorded by someone like George Holliday, the eyewitness on that, the police force cannot turn away from that episode, for even if government media decides to ignore it due to against BN policy, the video would eventually find itself in alternate channels, even Youtube as well.

Here's the enhanced clip of the beating:

As the internal investigation proceeds, the four officers involved, among them Stacey Koon - the supervising officer and Laurence Powell, the first officer who started beating King was charged was acquitted on 29 April 1992. This triggered the Los Angeles riots because the cops who beat people down are let go scott free. One critical reason was because, there was a 13-second segment clip that was edited out by the television station.

Some civil societies here are very angry too, for like King's case, the four policemen, that Chia identified in the line up were let go pending court case trial. But there are still many people out there who have no clue whatsoever to this matter, for the main media themselves never dared to put it up there for the fear of reprimand by the Home Ministry or the Communications Ministry. Where that to happen, another riot could happen really.

The police's biggest mistake was the refusal to accept the IPCMC recommendations. Until this time, the perception was the IPCMC was on the big eye of the police, not other enforcement agencies as well, coupled with the provisions that could conflict with Article 140 / 145 of the Constitution, as what Nazri said at the end of June 2009. There is the fear of taking in new ideas, and because of this phobia, more and more people are facing the fear of third-degree interrogation by the police for over crimes not amounting to costing deaths of other person. And look what happened on the way: deaths in custody, beatings in interrogation and etc..by some rotten apples in the police force.

In the case of King's beating, most of the officers involved quit or sacked from the LAPD following the reinvestigation of the case by the Department of Justice. Koon and Powell were sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. The LAPD police chief at that time, Daryl Gates quit following the scandal. 

And if King's beating is not enough, then there is the RAMPART scandal in 1998. Singer / artist, Notorious B.I.G was the main casualty in that case, shot dead by CRASH LAPD officers at that time. What's more, CRASH officers would do the dirty side of the police job: unprovoked shootings, unprovoked beatings, planting of evidence, framing of suspects, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury, and covering up evidence of these activities. Sounds familiar here, do civil societies here keep track of possible activities that happened?

At that time of the scandal, the LAPD chief was Bernard Parks. His tenure was not renewed in 2001 because of the scandal. The mayor at that time, James Hahn lost to Manuel Villaraigosa in the 2005 re-election because of the scandal. Both police department chiefs at that time of the scandals quit, at least there is some sense of respect and pride in quitting for what is wrong. 

In the case of Chia's beating, the policemen involved fall under the jurisdiction of Petaling Jaya. This means, that the Petaling Jaya chief, Arjunaidi Mohamad (was responsible for the stopping of assembly on several occasions in Amcorp Mall) will have to at least apologize for all the problems or in worst case scenario, resign.

We too have ourselves to blame for not changing things by replacing incompetent politicans with those who can get the job done and not by talking too much by the mouth. What it means is that we made the mistake of keeping the bunch of old men who are not likely to change things, and we too succumbed to their temptations of keeping them despite the clear fact that they are in the wrong. You know what I mean by that?