In Chapter 2, the authors call the Rodney King incident : (A) An act of vigilantism (B) A symbolic lynching (C) A wilding (D) An example of the 3 rd degree

Thesis: Contemporary police brutality is both historically and sociologically related to lynchings. Parallels:  Both rely on legal authority to exonerate the extralegal UOF  Both respond to perceived threats and fears aroused by outgroups  Both regard the legal process as too slow, etc.  Both are used to “teach a lesson”.

US has a long history of past violence to achieve social control based in racism and nativism.  This violence is spurred by groups whose aim has been the preservation of some existing order of social arrangements.  All these groups are willing to break the law to achieve their social goal since LE is seen as inadequate and the legal order cannot deal with “the problem”.

 Emerged from the American frontier, which produced a tradition of self-help  Danger/insecurity of newly settled areas brought a crude style of vigilante justice  Since there was no organized LE (or what existed was inadequate), volunteer groups filled the gap

While necessary, this system set up dangerous precedents:  Even when legal order was adequate, people could avoid these to achieve “law and order” (which is a misleading phrase in this context)  Private violence came to be used as a means of enforcing a system of social, political, economic, and cultural arrangements against those who were seen as threatening this system

 San Francisco Vigilance Committee (1851)  KKK (1860s and resurgence in the 1920s)  NYC draft riots of 1863

Often vigilante and official justice were congruent prior to 1960’s:  Police participated in lynchings and other violence  Lynchings and executions were often substitutes: people were executed formally or lynch informally (e.g., murderers were executed, rapists were lynched)

How does this relate to police brutality?  There are inescapable similarities between the motivations of southern police in the first half of the century and the LAPD in the second half  Both seek to “teach a lesson” to people who resist police authority and “keep them in their place”.  Adolph Archie case

Police must use force in their job on occasion  Force should be proportional to suspect resistance (UOF continuum)  Not all cases where too much force is used should be labeled police brutality or vigilante justice; only a small % fall into this category  Some policies can actually encourage force  Example: LAPD allowing choke-holds as “control holds” and not deadly force techniques.