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Tim Wind was one of the LAPD officers videotaped kicking and striking Rodney King on a dark stretch of Foothill Boulevard in Lake View Terrace back in 1991. A rookie at the time, he was acquitted of criminal charges twice, then fired from the department. He has fallen on hard times, but he did recently graduate from law school and has a family, so the lede of the story about Wind in today's Times seems a bit overwrought.
FISHERS, Ind. — Timothy Wind has no job, no money, no friends.His ulcers remind him daily of his one overwhelming regret: ever stepping foot in Los Angeles.
"I'm kind of tired of being me, I guess," Wind said quietly from his home in this Indianapolis suburb.
His reputation has cost him jobs and a good internship, he says. And since everybody has an opinion on the more recent Stanley Miller arrest and beating, Wind's is that "they didn't learn the lessons of Rodney King." By the way, he still insists the force applied to the staggering, belligerent King was justified. His own department, the feds and a federal court disagreed — and of course, the officers' acquittal by a Simi Valley jury sparked several days of rioting here and around the country in 1992 — but hey, I know y'all want to argue about it some more, so click on "Comments" and have at it. Just be nice to each other.