This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

On January 3rd 1979, two officers from the Los Angeles Police Department

went to the home of Yula May Love, a 39-year-old African-American

mother. The officers were there because of a dispute over an unpaid gas bill.

They had been called to her home by the gas company because she had hit the utility's bill

collector with a shovel. Mrs Love was overdue with her $69 payment. The officers

approached her and the encounter quickly turned violent.

Love allegedly threatened the officers with a knife.

They fired 12 times and killed her.

Her neighbors in Watts couldn't believe it.

They could have sedued this lady without using the weapons that they used.

They could have took her alive.

Plain it simple, because it was two cops against one lady with a butcher knife.

Neither of the two officers involved were prosecuted for the killing.

That's George Lavender, a criminal justice reporter at KCRW in Los Angeles.

The shooting sparked protests and calls for the resignation of the chief of police.

In the months since, blacks and liberals have become intensely critical of what they charge

is excessive use of force by the Los Angeles Police Department. The American Civil Liberties

Union says that in the last four years officers here have shot over 300 people

killing nearly half of them.

Even though police shootings had been happening for years

and of course still happening today,

...