Before the airing of the Rodney King beating on national TV, most Americans had no idea that police could act so brutally. This sort of incident seemed to exist "out there" as someone else's problem.

But the national outrage spurred by the amateur video may just change that, said Don Carlos Jackson, a Penn State graduate student and crusader against police violence. King, who did not appear to resist the officers, sustained severe injuries -- including a broken eye socket and nerve damage -- during the May 3 beating.

"I think he'll get a large settlement. There's going to be changes in the police departments because of this," Jackson said in an telephone interview from his father's Los Angeles home Tuesday night. "Cops have never been caught this dirty -- ever."

On Tuesday, four Los Angeles police officers identified on the King tape pleaded not guilty to charges of assault with a deadly weapon, use of excessive force and falsifying reports.

On the same day Jackson concluded nearly three weeks of testimony in a Los Angeles municipal courtroom in his own police brutality case, stemming from a 1989 undercover "sting" investigation of police abuse against black Americans.

Just before the interview, Jackson was videotaping the evening news, which featured a story about his testimony. He was getting ready to go to a basketball game. He said he has been consulting attorneys working on the King case, and that he may appear before a congressional subcommittee to discuss his experiences.

Jackson, a former Long Beach, Calif., police officer, was pulled over while driving through a predominantly white Long Beach neighborhood in 1989. A hidden NBC-TV camera captured the two arresting officers as they roughed him up, swore at him and apparently threw him headfirst through a storefront window before slamming him onto the hood of a squad car.

The "Today" show televised the incident, and Jackson has since testified as an expert witness in several police brutality cases. He will appear in 12 more trials over the next two months. He testified three months ago on behalf of a white teenager who allegedly was beaten after a punk rock concert.

An aide to U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said Jackson may be asked to testify before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights.

Jackson resolved to work against police brutality three years ago, when his father, a retired Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, was himself stopped by police and harrassed. Jackson chose to come to Penn State because he found administration of justice faculty members receptive to his ideas about the problem of police brutality.

Jackson says the King incident is another in a long list of brutal acts by members of the Los Angeles Police Department. What set it apart from hundreds of other cases is that this incident, like his own, was captured on videotape.

"I wasn't surprised in the slightest," Jackson said about the first news he'd heard of the incident. "I was appalled, I was disgusted, but I was not surprised. I was also not surprised by the half-baked explanations they tried to use to cover this up."

In his own case, the officers were charged with misdemeanor assault charges because Jackson was not seriously hurt in the incident. But the department has been fighting the charges. During cross-examination, Jackson said, the defense tried to establish that he is a racist, paranoid publicity-seeker.

Originally, the Long Beach police charged Jackson with assaulting police officers and resisting arrest. The charges were dropped under pressure from members of the Los Angeles African American community, including Rep. Waters and singer Dionne Warwick.

Spurred by the national outrage at the King incident, many members of Los Angeles' African American community have called for the resignation of police chief Daryl Gates. Jackson said he thinks Gates stands in the way of reform by tacitly condoning such abuses.

"He is the head of the snake. That's where it's at. He sets a tenor in the department that says that it's OK to abuse," Jackson said. "Officers know that they can beat someone up and get away with it."

California Gov. Pete Wilson defended Gates on a Sunday morning talk show, saying his embattled chief was the victim of an "attempted lynching."

Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, however, has said he would like to see Gates step down. Bruce Bullington, acting head of the University's Administration of Justice department, agreed.

"It seems to me that policy is set at the top, and Gates is ultimately responsible for what happened," said Bullington, who spent 14 years researching drug crime in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s.

According to the New York Times, the Los Angeles Police Departent is reported to have paid $8 million to settle excessive-force suits in 1990. These cases are not isolated incidents, but "institutional realities" of the Los Angeles police structure, Jackson said.

"That's money that the city really can't afford to be paying out all the time," Bullington said.

Although Los Angeles has become notorious for its drug-related and gang violence, excessive use of force is not necessary for law enforcement, Jackson said.

"Police racism and police violence has never been associated with a rise in crime. The worst abuses happened before gangs were ever an issue," he said, adding that police often dole out blows when they think they're not getting enough respect, but know they can get away with a beating. "It is the crime of 'contempt-of-cop.' It's called 'attitude adjustment' on the streets that I came from."

Eliminating police racism and police violence requires concrete steps, Jackson said: Departments must hire more minority group members, educate officers to accept cultural diversity, and strictly prosecute all cases of abuse.

Citizens also must learn to speak out for their rights if they think police are harassing them or abusing them, he said.

"The public is entirely misinformed about the police. They are fed Rambo-type images through the TV, and they develop this idea of the omnipotent police officer," he said.