by John DeSantis

About the author: John DeSantis is a reporter for United Press International and the author of The New Untouchables: How America Sanctions Police Violence.

The social climate has changed in the few years since people first cringed at the videotape of the beating Rodney King received on a Los Angeles street in 1991. Death and destruction visited southern California once again in 1994, when an earthquake ravaged highways and homes and claimed almost as many lives as the Rodney King riots. In the wake of that cataclysmic event, it appeared that issues of race and class and abuse of authority were made invisible by the shadows of helping hands extended from one Angeleno to another. As would be expected, the various local police departments performed admirably, providing whatever assistance they could to alleviate...