It all started with a traffic stop.
On Aug. 11, 1965, California Highway Patrol Officer Lee Minikus responded to a report of a reckless driver in the Watts section of Los Angeles. Shortly after 7 p.m., he pulled over 21-year-old Marquette Frye near 116th Street and Avalon Boulevard. Frye failed sobriety tests as a crowd of about 50 people began to gather nearby.
Police were going to tow Frye’s car, so his older stepbrother, Ronald, brought their mother, Rena, to the scene to claim the vehicle. When she got there, Rena Frye began berating her son for drinking and driving, according to police and witness accounts.
Marquette Frye had been talking and laughing with Minikus and other officers who had reported to the scene, but after his mother’s arrival he began “cursing and shouting that they would have to kill him to take him to jail,” according to a report later issued by a state panel.
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