I never heard about anything like this until a couple years ago, either. But I’m guessing that it has more to do with the ubiquity of cellphone cameras than anything else.
We rarely heard about racially motivated police violence back in the day, but I’m sure it was going on (probably even more than now).The difference is that now it gets filmed, and goes viral. Think about Rodney King: the only reason that incident became news is that somebody just happened to randomly videotape it.
Most of these stories become a big deal because there is video evidence. Which as far as I’m concerned makes this a great time to be alive.
Look at Golf Cart Gail: She’s old as dirt. I’m sure she pulled crap like this in the olden times, and simply got away with it.