Photos: A look back at the police beating of Rodney King and the 1992 LA riots
The family of Tyre Nichols and their lawyers say a video being released today will show officers savagely beating Nichols for three minutes. The legal team likened the assault to the infamous 1991 beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King.
Here's a collection of images from the days that followed King's beating and the riots that unfolded upon the acquittal of the officers charged in the case.
March 6, 1991
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FILE - This file photo of Rodney King was taken three days after his videotaped beating in Los Angeles on March 6, 1991.
March 6, 1991
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Rodney King, 25, shows a bruise on his chest during a press conference at the Los Angeles County Jail on Wednesday, March 6, 1991 prior to his expected release on Wednesday by police without being charged. King was the subject of a videotaped and nationally televised beating by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department on Sunday. One of King's attorneys, Bob Rentzer, looks on. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
March 8, 1991
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Steven Lerman, attorney for Rodney King, displays a photo of his client during a press conference at his office in Beverly Hills, California, Friday, March 8, 1991. King's doctor outlined the extent of man's injuries for reporters during the meeting. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
March 14, 1991
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FILE - This combination of March 14, 1991 booking photos shows the four police officers indicted for brutalizing black motorist Rodney King in a videotaped attack. From left are Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, Officer Theodore J. Briseno, Officer Timothy E. Wind and Officer Laurence Powell. Two served time in prison and all four lost their careers.
Feb. 3, 1992
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Los Angeles Police Officer Theodore Briseno looks around the Simi Valley, California Courtroom during pretrial motions, Monday, Feb. 3, 1992. Briseno and three other officers are charged with the videotaped beating of Rodney King. (AP Photo/POOL)
March 19, 1992
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California Highway Patrolman Timothy Singer, right, uses defense attorney Michael Stone as a stand-in for Rodney King, to demonstrate how Los Angeles Police officer Laurence Powell struck King on the right side of his face with his baton, March 3, 1991. The trial of four Los Angeles police officers charged with assault, continued in Simi Valley, California on Tuesday, March 10, 1992. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terill)
April 3, 1992
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Los Angeles police officer Theodore Briseno, demonstrates during court testimony Friday April 3, 1992 in Simi Valley, Calif., how motorist Rodney King put up his hands after exiting his vehicle at the conclusion of the high speed chase last March. Briseno is one of four LAPD officers charged with assault against King. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
April 29, 1992
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Los Angeles police officer Ted Briseno, left, is held by an unidentified man as they react to Briseno's acquittal in the Rodney King assault case in a Simi Valley court, April 29, 1992. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
April 29, 1992
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Los Angeles police officer Laurence Powell, center, is hugged by former LAPD officer Timothyn Wind as Sgt. Stacy Koon looks on from the background, right, after the verdict in the Rodney King beating trial was read in Simi Valley, California, on Wednesday, April 29, 1992. All defendants were acquitted except one count against Powell in which the jury could not decide. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
April 29, 1992
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Looters go in and out of a swap meet in South Central Los Angeles on Wednesday, April 29, 1992. Violence broke out in the area after four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted on all but one charge for the videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
April 29, 1992
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This April 29, 1992 file photo shows several buildings in a Boys Market shopping center fully engulfed in flames before firefighters can arrive as rioting erupted in South-Central Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)
April 29, 1992
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The ABC Swap Meet in south central Los Angeles burns Wednesday, April 29, 1992 after rioters set fires in reaction to the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police officers on all but one charge for the videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
April 29, 1992
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In this April 29, 1992 file photo, demonstrators protest the verdict in the Rodney King beating case in front of the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
April 29, 1992
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An unidentified protester, right, kicks the door of Parker Center in Los Angeles on Wednesday, April 29, 1992 as other protesters threw rocks and dirt at the doors to express their anger after four Los Angeles Police Officers were acquitted on all but one charge in the videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
April 30, 1992
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Looters mill in the parking lot of the ABC Market in South Central Los Angeles, April 30, 1992, as violence and looting ensued on the first day of riots following the verdicts in the Rodney King assault case. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
April 30, 1992
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A Korean shopping mall burns at Thrid Street and Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles Thursday, April 30, 1992, on the second day of rioting in the city following the Rodney King assault. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
April 30, 1992
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Spray-painted slogans on the wall of a small building in Los Angeles on Thursday, April 30, 1992 are indicative of the community's frustration over the acquittal of four police officers in the Rodney King beating trial. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac)
April 30, 1992
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An unidentified owner of a clothing store reacts to seeing her burning business in Los Angeles, Thursday, April 30, 1992. Her store was one of more than 300 burned by rioters after the acquittal of four police officers in the Rodney King beating trial. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
April 30, 1992
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Smoke covers Los Angeles in this Thursday, April 30, 1992 file photo as fires like this one on Vermont Avenue burn out of control. The worst riots in modern U.S. history began when outnumbered police were faced down by a crowd angered by the acquittals of four white police officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
April 30, 1992
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FILE - In this April 30, 1992 file photo, a man removes a couch from a store in South-Central Los Angeles as looting and rioting continued throughout the area. The acquittal of four police officers in the videotaped beating of Rodney King sparked rioting that spread across the city and into neighboring suburbs. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
April 30, 1992
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In this April 30, 1992 file photo, a Los Angeles police officer takes aim at a looter in a market at Alvarado and Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles during the second night of rioting in the city. (AP Photo/John Gaps III, File)
April 30, 1992
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Looters carry a television from a Fedco store at La Cienega and Rodeo in Los Angeles April 30, 1992 as rioters continued to loot and burn business throughout the city. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
April 30, 1992
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An unidentified man runs with stolen goods looted from a drug store on the corner of Venice and Western in South Central Los Angeles April 30, 1992, during unrest that began after verdicts were handed down in the Rodney King beating trial . (AP Photo/Chris Martinez)
April 30, 1992
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A National Guardsman lies on the ground at a gas station near Vermont Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles April 30, 1992 as rioters continued a second day of looting and burning businesses in the city. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)
April 30, 1992
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In this April 30, 1992 file photo, a fire burns out of control at the corner of 67th Street and West Boulevard in South Central Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
April 30, 1992
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A fireman walks through burned wreckage of a shopping mall in Los Angels, Thursday, April 30, 1992. The mall was burned by looters and rioters in the wake of the acquittal of four police officers who were videotaped beating motorist Rodney King. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
April 30, 1992
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Police stand over a group of handcuffed looting suspects in Los Angeles Thursday, April 30, 1992 as rioting continued throughout the area. The worst riots in U.S. modern history began when outnumbered police were faced down by a crowd angered by the acquittals of four white police officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King. Few lives in the city were untouched by the 1992 riots, but some were nearly destroyed. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
April 30, 1992
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The Rev. Al Sharpton speaks to news people from the steps of New York's City Hall on the jury verdict in the Rodney King case, April 30, 1992. (AP Photo/Chrystyna Czajkowsky)
April 30, 1992
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A commercial building is left to burn as firefighters protect nearby buildings from fire damage in the South central section of Los Angeles, Wednesday, April 30, 1992. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
April 30, 1992
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Protesters burn an American flag during a demonstration in front of Los Angeles Police Department headquarters Wednesday night, April 30, 1992 in response to the acquittal of four police officers charged in the beating of motorist Rodney King. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
April 30, 1992
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Los Angeles police officers push demonstrators back inside a home on Osborne Street near the Foothill Division in Los Angeles, Wednesday, April 30, 1992. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
April 30, 1992
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A Los Angeles police officer holds his gun on seven men on Thursday, April 30, 1992 in the Westwood area of Los Angeles near UCLA. The men from South Central Los Angeles, whose cars had no license plates on them, were detained and later released. Store windows were broken and merchandise was stolen in the upscale college community following the Rodney King beating trial verdict. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac)
May 1, 1992
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Three men push a car away from a burning building to prevent it from going up in flames behind a Mexican restaurant on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles on Thursday, May 1, 1992. (AP Photo/John Gaps III)
May 1, 1992
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A Los Angeles Police officers arrests looters May 1, 1992 on Alvarado and Sunset in Los Angeles on the first night of a curfew following the Rodney King police beating verdict. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
May 1, 1992
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In this May 1, 1992 file photo, a Los Angeles police officer holds a shotgun on two looting suspects as another officer puts handcuffs on them near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in South Central Los Angeles during rioting after the Rodney King beating verdicts. (AP Photo/John Gaps III, File)
May 1, 1992
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Looters move on a liquor Store Friday, May 1, 1992, near the Campus of Atlanta University as violence continued for the second day after the Rodney King decision. (AP Photo/Charles Kelly)
May 1, 1992
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Rodney King, center, enters a press conference in Los Angeles surrounded by an entourage and his attorney Steven Lerman, second from left, May 1, 1992. King made an appeal for a return to peace in his first appearance since last year. (AP Photo/John Gaps III)
May 1, 1992
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Rodney King, center, and attorney Steve Lerman, left, speaks with reporters in Los Angeles, Friday, May 1, 1992. King made a plea to end the rioting and looting that has plagued Los Angeles for the last three days. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
May 1, 1992
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This May 1, 1992 file photo shows Rodney King, right, accompanied by his attorney Steven Lerman, making his first statement, pleading for an end to the rioting in South Central Los Angeles, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/David Longstreath, File)
May 3, 1992
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Bill Staten pauses, while working with other Good Samaritans helping to clean up his block, to talk about the Rodney King beating trial and the violence that followed in South Central Los Angeles, Saturday, May 3, 1992. (AP Photo/Babeto Matthews)
May 4, 1992
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Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton tours the devastation in Los Angeles, California, May 4, 1992, following rioting after the Rodney King verdict. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)
July 16, 1992
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Rodney King, whose videotaped beating by four white Los Angeles police officers shocked the nation, is escorted from jail, July 16, 1992, in Santa Ana, Calif., after he was arrested for investigation of drunk driving. Shadowed by trouble since uttering his famous plea "Can we all get along," King spent the 10th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots in a Pomona rehabilitation center. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
March 3, 1993
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Theodore Briseno, one of four Los Angeles police officers charged with, violating the federal civil rights of motorist Rodney King, answer reporters' questions during the lunch break in Los Angeles, Wednesday, March 3, 1993. Background is his lawyer Harland Braun. A police use of force expert testified that Laurence Powell violated Los Angeles Police Department policy when he continued beating a fallen King. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
March 9, 1993
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Television and still photographers stand outside a window at the federal courthouse in Los Angeles on Tuesday, March 9, 1993 in an attempt to get a picture of Rodney King. King took the stand in the trial of four Los Angeles police officers charged with violating his civil rights. (AP Photo/Chris Martinez)
March 10, 1993
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Television and still photographers, held back by police lines, photograph police officer Stacey Koon as he arrives at Federal Court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, March 10, 1993. Motorist Rodney King will continue his testimony on Wednesday in the civil rights violation case stemming from his beating. (AP Photo/Julie Markes)
July 20, 1993
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This July 20, 1993 file photo shows Rodney King speaking during an appearance on KFI-AM radio's "Bill Handel and Mark Whitlock" show in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, file)
March 23, 1994
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This March 23, 1994 file photo shows Rodney King, second from right, leaving the Federal Courthouse in Los Angeles with his lawyer Wilton Grimes, far left, and two unidentified men. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, file)
April 13, 2012
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This April 13, 2012 file photo shows Rodney King posing for a portrait in Los Angeles. King, the black motorist whose 1991 videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers was the touchstone for one of the most destructive race riots in the nation's history, died June 17, 2012. He was 47. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, file)
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From police brass and the Memphis district attorney's office to the White House, officials said Nichols' killing points to a need for bolder reforms.
The Memphis Police Department has disciplined an officer involved in the arrest, beating and death of Tyre Nichols, the department said Monday, widening the circle of punishment for a killing that has already led to the murder indictment of five officers and outraged the nation with another display of police brutality.
As Memphis police officers attacked Tyre Nichols with their feet, fists and a baton, others held Nichols down or milled about, even as he cried out in pain before his body went limp. Just like the attack on George Floyd, a simple intervention could have saved a life.
