Biden proposed 'Police Officer's Bill of Rights' two months after Rodney King beating

Nearly 30 years before a bystander with a cellphone caught a Minneapolis Police Department officer restraining George Floyd with his knee on Floyd's neck, police in Los Angeles were covertly taped beating a criminal suspect. And Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, proposed legislation siding with police.

The Police Officer's Bill of Rights, sponsored by Biden in May 1991, came halfway through his 36-year career representing Delaware in the Senate and while he was at the peak of his power on Capitol Hill. With Democrats in the majority,...