06-17-2012, 12:55 PM
(06-17-2012, 11:40 AM)Duchess Wrote:
What happened to the cops that beat him almost to death? Anything?
Nearly a year later, the four officers stood trial in federal court on civil rights charges. Two African-Americans were picked for the jury, and King testified. He hedged, however, on whether police used racial slurs during the beating. He told CNN in 2011 that slurs were used, but said he vacillated on the stand because his mother had told him to avoid talking about race.
Koon and Powell were found guilty and sentenced to 30 months in prison. Briseno and Wind were acquitted.
"It was like ... I just hope we just get one," King said. "I hope we just get one on that. If we get one, we're good. So to get the two, I was really happy."
King also sued the city of Los Angeles.
"Half of them had no sympathy whatsoever," Kelly, his fiancee, told CNN earlier this year about her fellow jurors. "... They just didn't care. Like, 'He broke the law. He deserved what he got.' I told them they were crazy. It was about justice for what happened to him. No one deserves to get beat like that."
The other jurors came around, and King was awarded $3.8 million in damages.
In later years, King had several more run-ins with the law, including a 90-day jail stint in 1996 for a hit-and-run involving his wife at the time. On the 20th anniversary of the beating in 2011, he was pulled over and ticketed for a minor traffic violation.
"The trouble that (people) see me in is a part of my life that I'm working on," he said in 2011. "I'll always have an issue when it comes to alcohol. My dad was an alcoholic. The addiction part is in my blood. What I've learned to do is arrest my addiction -- arrest it myself, so I don't get arrested."