Rodney King found dead in Calif. swimming pool
LOS ANGELES — 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, was declared dead early Sunday after being pulled from the bottom of his swimming pool. He was 47.
King’s fiancée called 911 at 5:25 a.m. to report that she found him in the pool at their home in Rialto, Calif., police Lt. Dean Hardin said.
Officers arrived to find King in the deep end of the pool and pulled him out. King was unresponsive, taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:11 a.m., police said.
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.
King, a 25-year-old on parole from a robbery conviction, was stopped for speeding on a darkened street on March 3, 1991. He was on parole and had been drinking — he later said that led him to try to evade police.
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. REGINALD DENNY The white truck driver who was pulled by several black men from his cab and beaten, underwent numerous operations. After the beating, he publicly forgave his attackers. He has remained out of the limelight, living quietly in Arizona. GEORGE HOLLIDAY A plumber, awakened by a traffic stop outside his San Fernando Valley home, went outside to film it with his new video camera, catching four officers beating and kicking black motorist Rodney King. Holliday declined to discuss the 20th anniversary of the riot. A friend, Roby Massarotto, told The Associated Press he is busy working on a documentary about the making of the famous video.