Monday and Tuesday - 9/15/14 - 9/16/14

In the beginning of this week in our small group, we finished up the law and society presentations and started watching on Labels and what they mean and how they can affect people. We also spoke about labels that have been given to you and why were those given to you. The documentary we watched was about Football players, mainly Samoan football players and how many of these men went into the NFL and it was not just because they were "big" or " tall". It was interesting to see how this young men were raised and how they became such strong and amazing football players. During this we had to read a article on LABELS on Edmodo and write a reflection on what labels you might have been given, why they were given to you and how they made you feel. We then moved on to a movie called Sellebrity which we have just begun.

In the large group we continued watching the video on the Rodney King incident. In the documentary, a video was shown that someone had recorded the police beating Rodney King while he was laying on the grown helpless just trying to stand up. In this video we saw that during the first trial where the police were charged with Assault charges, attempt to cover up as well as attempt to bodily harm, were not convicted by the jury and all chargers were dropped for them minus one, the attempt to cover up. Because of this vote, many people in Down Town LA were quite angry and began to riot and basically start a war. These riots turned into mobs and these mobs began to loot and set fire to many stores in the down town area. Around 37 people were killed during these three days and it got so horrible that the President had to bring in the national guard and he also charged the officers who attacked king with Federal Charges, saying that they had broken his Civil Rights. After three days of rioting, the mob began to calm down just a little. The new trial was a little different than the first as well. The prosecutor used different tactics than before. So did the DA. Now Mr. King was brought into this trial as well while during the first round he was not a witness they called to the stand and this did change the case and trial. In the end the 2 of the officers were found guilty and so was the commanding officer. The riots stopped once happened. The community felt that justice had been done. This is what happened on Monday and Tuesday, 9/15/14 and 9/16/14