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Originally published in Sublation Magazine Read it in its entirety and watch the video essay here : https://www.sublationmag.com/post/rodney-king-the-la-riots-and-the-perils-of-police-reform

I can still remember staring at the screen and listening to the verdict that the officers had been acquitted. I felt utter shock, on one hand, and deja vu, on the other. I, like millions of Americans, watched the video footage ad nauseam of the brutal beating of Rodney King at the hands of the LAPD and thought to myself there was no way these cops would get off. Yet many, including in my neighborhood of Richmond, California, were less sanguine about the prospect of justice being delivered. Such skepticism proved well-founded. The acquittal of the officers involved in the King case set off a wave of popular unrest, the so-called LA Riots of 1992 which cost 64 lives, caused over 2,300 injuries, and resulted in damages estimated at between $800 million and $1 billion.

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The Rodney King case was visual proof that we lived in a society with a two-tiered justice system. As the video made the rounds of a burgeoning 24-hour news cycle hungry for content, pundits…