American Notes Violence

The videocamera, long the weapon of choice among obsessive parents, is finding favor with crime fighters these days. The Los Angeles police's grisly beating of Rodney King, videotaped by an amateur and aired on national television in March, was only the first of a growing number of America's Unfunniest Home Videos. At a Washington trial last month, prosecutors introduced a videotape of five men robbing and beating victims during a 1989 crime spree, which was recorded for posterity by one of the defendants.

Last week, during a fireworks display in Detroit, an amateur photographer videotaped a gang of young black women beating two older white women while police stood by. After the tape aired on national television, six attackers were arrested and charged with unarmed robbery and assault. And in Fort Worth a woman standing in a friend's yard recorded a police officer beating a handcuffed car-theft suspect 28 times with his baton. The officer is under criminal investigation, and the suspect is free on bail.