Law and Race Commons^™

Justice For Rodney King, Scott C. Burrell, Alan R. Dial, Thomas W. Mitchell

Faculty Scholarship

May 1992 letter from three Howard University School of Law students to President George H.W. Bush advocating that the United States Department of Justice invoke the Petite Policy to initiate a criminal action against the Los Angeles Police Department police officers responsible for brutally beating Rodney King despite the fact that these offers had been acquitted in a California state court. The letter, which was read in front of the White House by Thomas Mitchell to hundreds of people who had gathered to urge the federal government to take action, sets forth a clear legal basis to permit the Justice …