The stunning turnaround of South LA’s ‘Killer King’ hospital

When it opened in South Los Angeles in 1972, the hospital now known as MLK was thought to be a step forward for the Watts community. But soon it became the poster child for poor patient care, earning the nickname Killer King. The hospital shut down in 2007 after a woman died on the floor of the emergency room after no one helped her when she was vomiting blood. Since then, members of the Watts community have fought to reopen the hospital. In June they succeeded, and the hospital, now a state-of-the-art medical facility, reopened under the Affordable Care Act. In this America Tonight excerpt, Michael Okwu reports on the community’s life-or-death battle for basic services.