Los Angles, CA – Rodney King, the black motorist whose 1991 videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers was the touchstone for one of the most destructive race riots in the nation’s history, died Sunday. He was 47.
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King’s fiancé called 911 at 5:25 a.m. to report that she found him at the bottom of the swimming pool at their home in Rialto, Calif., police Lt. Dean Hardin said.
Officers arrived to find King in the water and unresponsive, with no signs of foul play. He was transported to Arrowhead Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:11 a.m, Hardin said.
The San Bernardino County coroner will perform an autopsy within 48 hours.
The 1992 riots, which were set off by the acquittals of the officers who beat King, lasted three days and left 55 people dead, more than 2,000 injured and swaths of Los Angeles on fire. At the height of the violence, King pleaded on television: “Can we all get along?”
The 1991 tape showing LAPD beating King.
King was stopped for speeding on a darkened street on March 3, 1991. Four Los Angeles police officers hit him more than 50 times with their batons, kicked him and shot him with stun guns.
A man who had quietly stepped outside his home to observe the commotion videotaped most of it and turned a copy over to a TV station. It was played over and over for the following year, inflaming racial tensions across the country.
It seemed that the videotape would be the key evidence to a guilty verdict against the officers, whose trial was moved to the predominantly white suburb of Simi Valley, Calif. Instead, on April 29, 1992, a jury with no black members acquitted three of the officers; a mistrial was declared for a fourth.
Violence erupted immediately, starting in South Los Angeles.
Police, seemingly caught off-guard, were quickly outnumbered by rioters and retreated. As the uprising spread to the city’s Koreatown area, shop owners armed themselves and engaged in running gun battles with looters.
During the riots, a white truck driver named Reginald Denny was pulled by several black men from his cab and beaten almost to death. He required surgery to repair his shattered skull, reset his jaw and put one eye back into its socket.
The police chief, Daryl Gates, came under intense criticism from city officials who said officers were slow to respond to the riots. He was forced to retire. Gates died of cancer in 2010.
In the two decades after he became the central figure in the riots, King was arrested several times, mostly for alcohol-related crimes. He later became a record company executive and a reality TV star, appearing on shows such as “Celebrity Rehab.”
In an interview earlier this year with The Associated Press, King said he was a happy man.
“America’s been good to me after I paid the price and stayed alive through it all,” he says. “This part of my life is the easy part now.
This was indeed a tragedy, as Rodney King had just written a book about the 1991 incident, and was interviewed on television, on the 20th anniversary of the L.A. riots, only a few weeks ago. He stated that he was at peace with the past, although he still suffered from flashbacks, and nightmares. He was not responsible for the anarchy and lawlessless, which prevailed for several days in L.A. In fact, he appealed for calm, and stated “Can’t we all just get along”. On the other hand, unlike its pristine image as portrayed by Sgt. Joe Friday in the tv “Dragnet” series, the L.A. Police Department (during the riots) was shown to be totally incompetent in containing the disorders. The California Army National Guard, also did nothing for several days, in ending the hooliganism, destruction of property, and arson, which followed. I’m sure that there will be some on this board who will say some very uncomplimentary things about Mr. King; however, to them I’d like to state, give it a rest! Let him rest in peace!
The write-up is designed to make him sound a like a nebech’dig “innocent” victim.
It fails to mention the other side of this “person”.
1) A later federal trial for civil rights violations ended with two of the officers found guilty and sent to prison for about 3 years.
2) His beatings (while he was legally drunk + had drugs in his system + he resisted arrest) actually made him in to a Millionaire as a civil Law Suite awarded him 3.8 Million for his “innocent” beating.
3) The Makeh Bepatish:
Most recently he attempted to re-ignite Race Riots against Yidden in the following story:
On April 12, 2012, King released a statement to the media regarding the Trayvon Martin shooting. King said he was “grieving for Trayvon Martin” and stated how the scream on the audio of George Zimmerman’s 911 call reminded him of his own screaming during his beating by the LAPD
Speak no ill of the dead. May he rest.
what did he die of?
His death comes 21 years too late.
To #2 - I fail to understand your point. You stated that “he attempted to instigate race riots against Yidden? Please! The latter statement was totally false and accurate! It is incredible that you actually mentioned something as absurd as that. However, it is true that two L.A.P.D. cops were found guilty of civil rights violations, and were sent to prison. Regarding the other cops involved in the incident, in an administrative hearing, the L.A.P.D. fired the remaining cops, for failure to control the situation. Even veteran cops stated that an arrest could have been made, without the excessive force (continuous clubbing), being used.
to tell you the truth, Rodney King means little to me although I don’t think he was a bad guy. My motto, however is “can’t we be consistent?” In 1991 cops in New York were letting the savage blacks run wild in an orgy of violence known as the Crown Heights pogrom.” In LA the cops were all ganging up on one man. Why can’t we have consistent police work? I do know one thing, though. If I had a to choose between a New York cop and an LA cop I would choose the latter. If you call a NY cop a racist he goes all to pieces and starts apologozing. An LA cop might just give you another shot with his club.
The LA riots affected the yiddin greatly as many stores along Beverly were heavily damaged.
The real reason the used excessive force had nothing to do with him being black but because he insulted the dignity of the cops by giving them a long chase and then not respecting them when they ordered to ,,,, after he was finally stopped.
The exact same thing would have happened in NY or if he was white, if he behaved the same way. Of course cops are wrong here
Reality is that all cops have a total Lack Anger Management.
If anyone really cared, it would require a sting operation for undercover actors to put up a sting, doing some minor infraction, then insult the cop like crazy or even just do a minor traffic infraction and then give the cop a long chaise and watch every single one of them go wild and crazy and totally out of control.
That is not professional behavior and none of NYPD’s are professional and none can control their temper.
I dare anyone to try and sting any NYPD cop to be highly insulting to him verbally only and watch the cop loose his temper and become physically violent.
Every single NYPD cop has a total lack of Lack Anger Management ability and no self control.
There is no point in arguing the theory in this – just try it and you will see.
After all, the riots changed things…
Police brutality is still a problem, but we have come a long way , its much better than it was in 92.
Given his lifestyle he outlived all realistic expectations. He will not be missed.