Official Negligence How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LA

From the Prologue: "Two stark and brutal videotapes symbolize the Rodney King beating and the deadly riots that broke out in South Central Los Angeles in the spring of 1992. The first videotape, taken on March 3, 1991, by an amateur cameraman who had been awakened after midnight by sirens and the noise from a police helicopter, is of the King incident. It shows uniformed officers swarming around a large man who writhes on the ground and attempts to rise, but is clubbed and kicked into submission while other policemen watch with folded arms. The second video, shot from a news helicopter hovering over the intersection of Florence and Normandie Avenues during the riots a year later, shows the driver of a cement truck, Reginald Denny, being dragged from his cab by neighborhood toughs, then kicked and smashed in the head with a brick until he lies near death while one of his assailants does a jig."