DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: A look back at one of the many stories that we, here at CNN, have covered in the past 20 years: the Rodney King beating case.</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MARCH 3, 1991) BERNARD SHAW, CNN ANCHOR: The Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates and the FBI are launching separate investigations into an apparent incident of police brutality in Los Angeles. CNN's Robert Vito has the story. But, first, this word of caution: Some of you may be disturbed by the violent nature of the pictures contained in this report.</s>ROBERT VITO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This videotape touched off a fire storm of outrage.</s>ANNE MCDERMOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: One of the strangest things about that tape, I felt, was how eerily calm the scene looked, at least through my eyes. The person there, getting beat again and again and again. There was almost like a rhythmic quality to it; an officer would step forward, hit the man, he would step back, another would come forward and hit the man. It was, in some ways, so sad, so terrible, so awful. And everybody was talking about it everywhere you went: the Rodney King beating tape. That's all anybody talked about, including, I might add, several police officers who were just as sickened by it as everybody else seemed to be. Everybody had opinions. And it just -- it was one of those, sort of, a turning point in the city. Something had happened that captured everyone's imagination. And the story took on a life of its own. The cops went on trial. They were, for the most part, acquitted. And then: the riots.
CNN 20: Rodney King Beating, March 3, 1991