LOS ANGELES — Rodney G. King, whose 1991 videotaped beating by the Los Angeles police became a symbol of the nation’s continuing racial tensions and subsequently led to a week of deadly race riots after the officers were acquitted, was found dead Sunday in a swimming pool at the home he shared with his fiancée in Rialto, Calif. He was 47.More at the link.
There was no evidence of foul play, the Rialto police said.
Mr. King, whose life was a roller coaster of drug and alcohol abuse, multiple arrests and unwanted celebrity, pleaded for calm during the 1992 riots. More than 55 people were killed and 600 buildings destroyed in the violence.
In a phrase that became part of American culture, he asked at a news conference, “Can we all get along?”
“People look at me like I should have been like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks,” he told The Los Angeles Times in April. “I should have seen life like that and stay out of trouble, and don’t do this and don’t do that. But it’s hard to live up to some people’s expectations.”
Mr. King published a memoir in April detailing his struggles, saying in several interviews that he had not been able to find steady work.
He said he had once blamed politicians and lawyers “for taking a battered and confused addict and trying to make him into a symbol for civil rights.” But he was unable to escape that role. On Sunday, the Rev. Al Sharpton, said in a statement, “History will record that it was Rodney King’s beating and his actions that made America deal with the excessive misconduct of law enforcement.”
And more recently, Mr. King seemed to embrace the role himself, saying that his beating enabled others to succeed and “made the world a better place.”
“Obama, he wouldn’t have been in office without what happened to me and a lot of black people before me,” he told The Los Angeles Times. “He would never have been in that situation, no doubt in my mind. He would get there eventually, but it would have been a lot longer. So I am glad for what I went through. It opened the doors for a lot of people.”
Though Mr. King wrote in his memoir that he still drank and used drugs occasionally, he insisted that, with his fiancée, Cynthia Kelley, who had been a juror in a civil suit he brought against the City of Los Angeles, he was on the road to reclaiming his life.
“I realize I will always be the poster child for police brutality,” he said, “but I can try to use that as a positive force for healing and restraint.”
Mr. King said he was essentially broke, though he said he received an advance for his book, “The Riot Within: My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption,” published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the riots.
He still walked with a limp and several of his scars were visible. His best outlets for relaxation, he said, were fishing and swimming.
King is quoted saying that he didn't think Barack Obama would have been elected had he not been beaten in 1992.
Lefty blogger Kathy Kattenburg commented at my earlier post, objecting to me pointing out the truth about the left and Rodney King. See: "Rodney King Dead: Fiancé Finds Him at Bottom of Swimming Pool."
And more at Twitchy, "Left uses Rodney King’s death as an excuse to bash Republicans," and "Twitter debates whether Rodney King was a civil rights hero."
BONUS: From Steve Lopez, at the Los Angeles Times, "Rodney King was tragic figure, unlikely symbol."
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