Rodney King got his tale kicked and they were acquitted from any wrong doing. So you tell me. 
WRONG--Two police officers went to prison, and two others were fired.
Reasonable people do not care what happen before the parts of the tape were shown. What we care about is what we saw on the tape. Even if he did not listen to police and their direct orders, the police had ample opportunity to take control of the situation and choose to continue to beat them. I have seen many times just on the show “Cops” how several officers take over a situation rather quickly and do not need to constantly beat an individual they way they did Mr. King.
WRONG AGAIN--Reasonable people are the only ones who care about the what happened on the whole tape. The people who are uninformed and narrow minded and want to shape every situation into something that will benefit them, are the people who only care about what we saw on the news.
Please don't tell me that you form your opinion of law enforcement from watching COPS. That is like forming your opinion of athletes by watching WWF. COPS is a television show produced for entertainment, please take it for what it is.