L.A. Justice: Lessons from the Firestorm

The great drama began routinely enough. State Highway Patrol and L.A. police were chasing a suspected drunk driver in the early morning hours of Sunday, March 3, 1991. After the driver, Rodney King, was stopped, however, history-making events unfolded. In what appeared to be a display of excessive force, captured on a home videotape, the officers hit King repeatedly with their batons. They kicked him as well, and King had to be hospitalized for treatment of his injuries. Assistant Chief Bob Vernon was on duty as acting chief the day the story hit the news, and in L.A. Justice he provides the inside view of how the LAPD responded to those events. When the tape was televised, cries of outrage rained down on the LAPD. In the weeks and months that followed, many people, including Mayor Tom Bradley, portrayed the department as racist and demanded the resignation of Chief Daryl Gates. Some in law enforcement, including Bob Vernon, knew that civil unrest was likely to occur at the end of the trial of the four officers charged in the King incident. So plans were made and training was ordered to ensure the police were prepared. Now, for the first time, those plans are described -- along with why most weren't carried out. Why were the verdicts acquitting the officers followed by explosive violence that rocked the nation and left 58 people dead? What smoldering tensions ignited the powder keg and transformed the City of Angels into a raging inferno? And what caused the chaos to spread like wildfire from city to city? These questions are of vital concern to us all, because what happened in L.A. could soon happen across America. We must learn from these tragic events. Fortunately, there is real hope. Bob Vernon sifts through the rubble of American dreams, examining the societal ills that fan the flames of unrest across our land. Then he offers thought-provoking solutions for a nation of families in crisis.…