Before its recent closing, Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital functioned as a public hospital in Los Angeles, CA that was operated by the LA County Department of Health Services. For quite some time, there had been widely disseminated problems related to general incompetence and mismanagement, which ultimately caused the available number of hospital beds to be reduced to only 42. Over the last three years, over 200 hospital staffers had either been fired or transferred for various reasons.

In 2000, prior to its crisis and closing, the hospital had 537 beds and was the teaching hospital for Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. Situated near areas of high crime, the hospital had a very involved trauma unit. In 2003, it treated over 2,000 gunshot wounds and other such often deadly injuries.

Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital's founding was due to the 1965 Watts Riots when it was determined that inadequate access to basic healthcare was one of the contributing factors to the unrest. At that time, the nearest public trauma center was located over ten miles away.

One year later, in 1966, a medical task force was formed to look into the matter. Actual construction began in April 1968. It opened in 1972 as a full-service medical center and was a source of pride and jobs in the community.

Despite the good start, after 2000 a variety of problems rocked the hospital. It was known by the dubious nickname of 'Killer King' and was the object of a number of special investigations by local newspapers.

On August 10, subsequent to failing a comprehensive review by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 200 million dollars in federal money was canceled. The emergency room was closed later that day and the rest of the hospital by August 27. Employees were reassigned to jobs at other county facilities.

At a later Los Angeles County board meeting, a 124-page report compiled by federal inspectors was revealed that detailed dozens of errors and failures by hospital employees during the fateful review.