When rioting erupted in Los Angeles after the 1992 acquittal of four police officers who were videotaped beating motorist Rodney King, Barr deployed 2,000 federal law enforcement agents to the city on military planes. He argued that federal civil rights charges should have been brought against both the rioters and the police officers who assaulted King. “We could have cleaned that place up,” he lamented. “Unfortunately, we just brought the federal case against the cops and never pursued the gangsters.”
