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March 3, 1991 in Los Angeles, California, several California Highway Patrol cruisers chase Rodney King, a robbery parolee, speeding over 110 miles per hour down the Los Angeles strip. King, an African American, was eventually forced to stop after running through several red lights at intersections. The other two passengers of the car complied with the requests of the police to exit the car and were subdued with minor resistance, King refused to exit the car, so a beating was administered by three Caucasian officers, at the order of their sergeant who is on the scene. He was subsequently stricken over 56 times by metal batons, kicked at least 6 times, and shot twice with a electronic stun gun, holding over 50,000 volts of electricity per shot. While twenty-three other officers stood watching none made an effort or suggestion to stop the cruel beating. King suffered extensive injuries including 11 skull fractures, broken bones, and nerve damage to his face and body. Many people fail to realize the nation-wide increase in police brutality and the fact that very few cops are actually prosecuted for their crimes. People of color become automatic suspects. The police are stereotyped as enforcers of this agenda. Police brutality has always been a problem, but in the past few years there has been a dramatic rise in police murders and brutalization of citizens. Police brutality is not limited to large cities, it is a national problem. The fact that district attorneys will not prosecute the police basically promotes all of this police brutality. .
Police corruption falls into two major categories-- external corruption, which concerns police contacts with the public; and internal corruption, which involves the relationships among policemen within the works of the police department. External corruption is explained more in-depth because it is the larger center of attention. The external corruption generally consists of one or more of the following activities: 1) Payoffs to the police, by people who essentially violate non-criminal elements, who fail to comply with stringent statutes or city ordinances.