Who could have imagined we would look back on the prosecutions of the officers who assaulted Rodney King and say, “Gee, they really got things right?”

As it turns out, the Rodney King case provides a lens through which to examine how the criminal-justice system is dealing with police brutality today. In the wake of last year’s officer killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford, and Tamir Rice, that resulted in zero indictments of officers who used deadly force on unarmed black men and/or boys, it’s obvious that the environment has changed. Looking at these incidents, the police appear to be more violent, the public appears to be more at risk, with a system that’s less equipped to deal with it.

On March 3, 1991 the California Highway Patrol pulled over Rodney King for speeding after a brief chase. He was subsequently Tased and beaten by four L.A.P.D. officers, while another 10 or so stood by and watched. He was unarmed.

The beating was captured by amateur video. The beating was brutal. A baton strike to the face took Mr. King to the ground almost immediately. As he tried to get up, dazed and outnumbered throughout, he was beaten again and again. His attempts to turn around or stand up were met with strike after strike by the responding officers. Once he was on the ground, limp and compliant, the strikes continued. He was struck by batons over 50 times, often in what were described as “power strokes,” where the officers swung the batons like baseball bats, putting their entire strength into each blow. In the end, Mr. King suffered multiple skull fractures, a broken ankle, and bruises all over his body. It was later revealed that one of the officers, after learning that Mr. King worked at Dodger Stadium, said to him, “We played a little ball tonight, didn't we Rodney? . . . You know, we played a little ball, we played a little hardball tonight, we hit quite a few home runs. . . . Yes, we played a little ball and you lost and we won.”

On March 8, 1991, only five days after the incident, the district attorney in Los Angeles impaneled a grand jury, asking for indictments for assault and excessive force by a police officer against four officers. On March 14, the grand jury returned indictments for all four officers—11 days after the incident.

The criminal trial began on February 3, 1992. A motion for change of venue by the officers’ attorneys had been eventually granted, transferring the case for trial to the East County Courthouse in police-friendly Simi Valley, Ventura County. The jury had no black people on it. Three of the officers were acquitted on April 29, 1992 at about 3:15 P.M. Rioting in Los Angeles started at 5:00 P.M. the same day. Eventually, 53 people died, over 2,000 people were injured, over 7,000 were arrested, and over $1 billion of property damage was caused.

The day after the verdicts, President George H.W. Bush ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate possible federal charges against the officers. William Barr was attorney general. Bush said when he watched the video of Rodney King he “felt anger, [he] felt pain,” and he wondered, “How am I going to explain this to my grandchildren?” Los Angeles Chief of Police Daryl Gates said after watching the video, “It was a very, very extreme use of force--extreme for any police department in America. But for the L.A.P.D., considered by many to be the finest, most professional police department in the world, it was more than extreme. It was impossible.”