"In the weeks immediately following the beating of Rodney King by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, the community and the local press were [a whirl] in rhetoric, recriminations and finger-pointing. KCET, continuing its role as a clearinghouse for ideas, opinions and diverse points-of-view, decided to focus a single, 90 minute, live broadcast on the history of and possible future of police-community relations in Southern California. The resulting special edition of our 'By the Year 2000' series combined several elements: five major documentary segments; a studio panel of civic leaders and, in a unique appearance, the embattled Chief of Police, Daryl Gates. "Under the direction of Producer/Co-host Jeffrey Kaye and Series Producer Leo Greene, the documentary segments...broke new information on the audio content of the King 'tape'... presented the opinions of several African-American LAPD officers reflecting on whether the King incident was an unfortunate, but isolated incident...used archival footage to document the history of post-WWII community control over the LAPD...profiled two LAPD officers, one a young Latina, the other an experienced Anglo...and, in a final segment, examined the political power of the police department. "Timely and enterprising, POLICING THE POLICE deserves consideration because it provided a deeply troubled community with calm voices, new information and an often ignored historical context in which to judge the ever-changing..."--1991 Peabody Awards entry form excerpt. Included is footage of the King beating, transcripts of police radio broadcasts shortly after the arrest, and an excerpt of an interview with King after the arrest.
