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Slow Burn

The L.A. Riots | 5. The System

Slow Burn

Slate Audio

Politics, Society & Culture, History, News, Documentary

4.625.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A year after they were caught on tape beating Rodney King, four LAPD officers went on trial. None were convicted.  How did the prosecution make its case against the cops? How did the officers hold up under questioning? And what happened when the verdict was announced?  Want more Slow Burn? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately access all episodes of Slow Burn (and your other favorite Slate podcasts) completely ad-free. Plus, you’ll unlock subscriber-exclusive bonus episodes that bring you behind-the-scenes on the making of the show. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/slowburnplus to get access wherever you listen. Season 6 of Slow Burn is produced by Joel Anderson, Jayson De Leon, Ethan Brooks, Sophie Summergrad, and Jasmine Ellis.  Mixing by Merritt Jacob. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:30.0

A quick warning.

0:31.0

This episode has some explicit language.

0:35.0

John Barnett got a phone call one night in March 1991.

0:39.0

It was a friend of his telling him to turn on the local news.

0:42.0

The video of four police officers beating

0:44.4

Rodney King had just come out. And he says you see the the cop who's kicking the

0:50.7

guy on the ground that's your client. Barnett's friend was a lawyer for the LAPD's officers union.

0:56.0

He wanted Barnett to represent Theodore Brissino, one of the four cops on the tape.

1:01.0

Barnett watched the video and formed his own

1:04.0

opinion about what he was seeing, the same way everyone else did. I thought then and I

1:09.8

think now that it was a shocking display. You can see the brutality of it.

1:17.0

Still, Barnett accepted the job. He had never handled a case that got as much attention as this one would.

1:24.0

When we went to court, we met in an underground place and they told us to put on flack jackets.

1:31.0

That was my first big clue that this was going to be different because they wanted the lawyers to wear vests and not before and not since has there been a case where they were taking such safety precautions for the defense lawyers.

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