Attack on Reginald Denny

In July 2006, LANS sued the site YouTube in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, for copyright infringement. LANS alleged in the lawsuit that, in the space of one week, a version of the video uploaded by a YouTube user was viewed over 1,000 times via the site. They argued this hurt their ability to license the video. YouTube requested summary judgment based on DMCA safe harbor, which was denied. LANS voluntarily dismissed the case without prejudice, planning to join a class action against YouTube in New York. YouTube appealed both the dismissal and the summary judgment ruling. However, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed the appeal.

In 1997, Damian Williams was released from prison early for good behavior, but in 2003, he was sentenced to 46 years to life in prison for the 2000 murder of drug dealer Grover Tinner. As of 2017, he is incarcerated at Centinela State Prison. After his trial, Watson appeared on The Phil Donahue Show where he apologized to Denny and shook his hand. Watson was re-arrested and sentenced to three years for a narcotics conviction, and after his release, owned and operated a limousine service in Los Angeles. On February 1, 2004, Antoine Miller was shot outside of a Hollywood nightclub during an altercation and died in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on February 8 at the age of 31. Gary Williams, Henry Watson, and Damian Williams gave interviews about the riots for John Ridley's 2017 documentary Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982–1992.

LANS sued nearly all of them in federal court for copyright infringement; at least one of these lawsuits was successful. The last case was finally settled in 2004. Only a handful of stations, mostly in California, already had preexisting agreements with LANS or waited to negotiate agreements before airing the footage, and thus were not sued.

Edi M.O. Faal was Damian Williams' defense attorney, and Earl C. Broadly was Henry Watson's. On July 28, 1993, Watson's and Williams' trial began. The two were charged with the assault of Denny as well as five other motorists and two firefighters who were driving past the intersection of Florence and Normandie shortly after the start of the Los Angeles riots on April 29. At the trial, Denny faced his attackers for the first time since they had assaulted him. On August 12, 1993, a jury of five whites, three blacks, three Latinos, and one Asian was chosen. As in the Rodney King police trial, the prosecution relied heavily on video shot by a third party, this time in a helicopter. They also planned to build up portraits of Watson and Williams as criminals, antisocial, and beyond likelihood of rehabilitation and redemption. On August 19, Deputy District Attorney Lawrence Morrison delivered the opening statement and a week later, the videotape of the beating was shown. The doctors who treated Denny testified, describing his wounds and their efforts to repair them. Next to testify were witnesses of the beating and Denny's rescuers. The prosecution rested on September 17, 1993. The defense began pleading on September 20, making a case for unpremeditated assault, with Faal challenging the video evidence and portraying Williams as a victim of poverty and racism. In the closing arguments, the defense attorneys claimed that Williams and Watson were being used as scapegoats for the L.A. riots. The prosecution counter-argued that the two had knowingly tried to kill Denny and were not victims.

After a few jury changes, a hung jury resulted for all charges except a felony count of mayhem for Williams and one misdemeanor assault charge for both Williams and Watson on October 18. Watson was given credit for time served and was sentenced to three years' probation for the assaults of Denny and truck driver Larry Tarvin. Williams was denied bail and sentenced to a maximum of ten years for the assaults of Denny and four other people on December 7, 1993. As the families of the defendants celebrated the lesser sentences, Denny surprisingly approached Williams' mother, Georgiana, and hugged her. For weeks afterwards, public debate about racism and whether the verdicts were just or unjust raged on.

The attack on Reginald Denny was a racially motivated hate crime in the 1992 Los Angeles riots in which Reginald Denny, a white construction truck driver, was beaten nearly to death by a group of black men who came to be known as the "L.A. Four". The attack was captured on video by a news helicopter, and broadcast live on US national television.

On April 29, 1992, at 5:39 pm, Denny loaded his red dump truck with 27 short tons (24 t) of sand and began driving to a plant in Inglewood, where the sand was due. He left the Santa Monica Freeway and took a familiar shortcut across Florence Avenue to get to his destination. His truck had no radio, so he did not realize that he was driving into a riot. At 6:46 pm, after entering the intersection at Normandie, rioters threw rocks at his windows, and he heard people shouting for him to stop, forcing him to do so in the middle of the street.

The best available footage of Denny's beating on April 29, 1992, was filmed by Marika Tur from a helicopter piloted by her then-spouse, reporter Robert Tur. Together, they operated a company called Los Angeles News Service (LANS). In the rush to cover the riots as they developed, dozens of television networks and stations around the world simply copied and aired the LANS footage without permission.

On March 3, 1991, plumbing salesman and amateur videographer George Holliday recorded motorist Rodney King at the end of a police pursuit, being beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers. The outrage resulting from the acquittal of these police officers was the principal cause of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Damian Monroe Williams (born March 17, 1973) was a 19-year-old with a criminal record including arrests for battery, robbery, resisting arrest, and hit-and-run but no convictions. A football star in high school, he dreamed of becoming a professional football player and briefly played in a semi-professional league. When he was 16, he dropped out of school and became a member of the 71 Hustlers (an affiliation of the 83 Gangster Crips) and had a three-month-old son at the time of the incident. Less than an hour before his attack on Denny, he witnessed his older brother being arrested by police and was seen at the intersection assaulting and robbing an Asian man. Williams became one of the more recognized participants of the L.A. riots due to the live news broadcast of his attack on Denny and his somewhat memorable nickname, which was repeated frequently in news media.

Antoine Eugene Miller (May 5, 1972 – February 8, 2004) was a 19-year-old who lived with Damian Williams' family. Miller's mother was a drug addict, so as a child, Miller was sent to live with his grandmother. When he was 12, his grandmother killed his grandfather during an argument and was convicted of his murder, leaving Miller homeless. Miller had previously been arrested for misdemeanor drug charges, joyriding, and failing to appear in court. Before the attack on Denny, Miller was seen looting several motorists of their belongings.

Reginald Oliver Denny, born (1956-01-22 ) 22 January 1956 (age 64) , was a 36-year-old construction dump truck driver on the first day of the rioting. He was attacked by several men, pulled from his International Road Tractor and brutally beaten, sustaining serious head trauma and other injuries. Denny's ability to speak and drive were affected by the attack, and he had to undergo years of rehabilitative therapy. During his recovery, he received over 27,000 get-well cards from supportive members of the community.