Most people who got to hear about Henry “Kiki” Watson was when they watched aerial footage of the Los Angeles riots showing a white van driver being pulled from his construction vehicle and attacked.
Or else it was when the former marine, then aged 27, was arrested and mug-shotted, along with five other young black men and agreed a plea deal to only a modest charge. Or when he appeared with that driver, Reginald Denny, on The Phil Donahue Show after being released from jail, shook his hand and apologised “for my participation in the injuries you suffered”.
Today, Watson, who was involved in one of the most notorious incidents in the riots and civil unrest that followed the acquittal of four white police officers over the beating a year earlier of black motorist Rodney King, says he has no regrets about what he did. Asked if the 55-year-old Watson would have responded in the same way as his younger self, he says he would have.
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I would say if they thought they could get away with murder, this guy would've been in the ground a long time ago....just sayin', ya' know....
ReplyDeleteI would like to hear his vision for change.
ReplyDeletePerhaps he could fire up the flying pyramids and call for the end to affirmative action.
I'm a retired OTR trucker. After I saw the video of Reginald Denny getting hammered by those POS, it inspired me to carry a pump shotgun with me. I was an OO so it was easy to stash it, although after over 30 years of driving I never had my cab searched. It's good to be armed.
ReplyDeleteMy attitude was/is that if a pack of animal/proto humans attacked me I may get killed, but I would die laying in a pile of spent 12 gauge buckshot husks. I'm not going to get beaten like that poor bastard.
Damn' right.
DeleteShoot one, the rest will run like hell.
What I remember most about those riots was the fact that the city did not burn down to the ground. Watching the coverage, I could not believe they were going to be able to put out all of those fires.
ReplyDeleteAnd some wonder why I prejudge people.
ReplyDeleteWe've one (at least) of those "angry Black men " in my community. He was always and still is an example of the word that Ken won't let us use on his blog. His sibling however is a man I'm proud to know.
The riots broke out the night of the Country Music Awards, being broadcast from Universal Studios. Back then, I was an exec with one of the two Country-formatted Radio stations in L.A. and my station rented a limo and brought a few clients.
ReplyDeleteWe knew nothing about what was happening just a couple of miles away, nothing was said after the show either.
As luck would have it, our limo driver had been tuned into the back seat teevee and all the L.A. stations were wall-to-wall on the riot outbreak.
If he hadn't been paying attention, we would have driven right into the mob that had completely closed down the 101 (or was it the 405).