By Andrea Almond, The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The televised police beating of an unarmed black man during an arrest is sparking comparisons to the 1991 Rodney King incident and prompting a slew of investigations.
The man led police on a chase after he was stopped for allegedly driving a stolen car Wednesday. He appeared to have surrendered when video from a TV news helicopter showed him being struck 11 times by an officer wielding a metal flashlight.
Police said the man was treated at a hospital for a nose injury but was not seriously hurt.
Stanley Miller, 36, of Compton, was arrested for investigation of grand theft auto and was jailed on $30,000 bail, Officer Jason Lee said.
Law enforcement sources told the Los Angeles Times that Miller’s record included five prior convictions for various crimes, including burglary, attempted burglary and weapons charges.
Police Chief William Bratton said the department launched criminal and internal investigations.
“There is no denying that it looks very bad from what is seen on the video,” Bratton, who was in Hartford, Conn., told the Times by telephone Wednesday. “But there should be no rush to judgment before the investigations are completed.”
Assistant Chief Sharon Papa said the FBI and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office also were investigating.
The incident prompted comparisons to Rodney King, the black motorist who was pulled over for speeding in the eastern San Fernando Valley and beaten by four white police officers.
The officers said he acted menacingly and refused to follow their orders.
The beating was caught on videotape by a nearby resident. After a jury acquitted the officers of state charges in 1992, riots broke out across Los Angeles and lasted four days, leaving 55 people dead and more than 2,000 injured.
The videotape of the King beating ran about 10 minutes. In Wednesday’s incident, the blows were struck within about a 20-second span.
The incident came a week after the LAPD said it had implemented reforms mandated by a federal consent decree after the Justice Department identified a “pattern and practice” of civil rights violations.
“What I saw jeopardizes the work that we have done to try to build that bond of trust between the (police) department and the community,” Mayor James Hahn said. “Now is the day that bond of trust is going to be tested.”
The incident began about 5 a.m. when officers began chasing a suspected stolen Toyota Camry in an area patrolled by the Southeast Station.
The chase ended on a Compton street and the driver took off on foot. After a short pursuit, the man appeared to get down on his hands and knees. Several other officers arrived and the man was forced to the ground, where the news videotape showed an officer striking him in the upper body with a flashlight.
In a departure from past incidents, police declined to release the names of the officers involved, citing legal advice by the city attorney’s office.
LAPD South Bureau Deputy Chief Earl Paysinger said several officers had been assigned to their homes and would be put on administrative leave.
The three officers seen as most aggressive on the videotape are white, Paysinger said, and none are rookies.
Los Angeles police are permitted to use metal flashlights to strike suspects but they are supposed to use only as much force as needed to overcome resistance.