Los Angeles (CNN) -- Rodney King, whose beating by Los Angeles police in 1991 was caught on camera and sparked riots after the acquittal of the four officers involved, was found dead in his swimming pool Sunday authorities and his fiancee confirmed. He was 47.

King's beating after a high-speed car chase and its aftermath forever changed Los Angeles, its police department and the dialogue on race in America.

King was 25 and on parole after a robbery conviction in April 1991. In an interview in 2011, he recalled he had been drinking and was headed home from a friend's house when he saw a police car following him and panicked, thinking he would be sent back to prison. So he attempted to flee.

"I had a job to go to that Monday, and I knew I was on parole, and I knew I wasn't supposed to be drinking, and I'm like 'Oh, my God,'" he told CNN.

He realized he couldn't outrun the police, but looked for a public place to stop. "I saw all those apartments over there, so I said, 'I'm gonna stop right there,'" he said. "'If it goes down, somebody will see it.'"

An amateur cameraman caught the scene as four white police officers struck King more than 50 times with their wooden batons and used a stun gun on him.

King said as the officers beat him, they yelled, "We are going to kill you, n***er," although the officers denied using racial slurs.

The video shows King cowering on the ground and attempting to crawl away as he is surrounded by a crowd of police officers. Four of them used their nightsticks to strike him.

King was beaten nearly to death. Three surgeons operated on him for five hours.

The video of the beating appeared on national television two days later, focusing attention on the issue of racially-motivated police brutality.

"We finally caught the Loch Ness Monster with a camcorder," King attorney Milton Grimes said.

Four LAPD officers -- Theodore Briseno, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind and Sgt. Stacey Koon -- were indicted on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force by a police officer.

But following a three-month trial in the predominantly white Los Angeles suburb of Simi Valley, three of the officers were acquitted of all charges. The jury, which had no white members, deadlocked on one charge of excessive force against Powell, and a mistrial was declared on that charge.

Powell's attorney, Michael Stone, said earlier this year the unedited video worked against King and helped prove the officers' case.

"Most of the nation only saw a few snippets where it's the most violent," Stone said. "They didn't see (King) get up and run at Powell."

But African-Americans in Los Angeles exploded in outrage. Rioters ran through the streets -- looting businesses, torching buildings and attacking those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The violence was responsible for more than 50 deaths and $1 billion in property damage.

On the third day of rioting, King emerged from seclusion to make a plea: "People, I just want to say, can we all get along? Can we get along?"

(06-17-2012, 12:03 PM)OnBendedKnee Wrote: but to believe his beating was a near death experience is patently false.

(06-17-2012, 11:40 AM)Duchess Wrote:

What happened to the cops that beat him almost to death? Anything?

his girlfriend, Ms Kelley, one of the jurors in the civil rights case that gave King $3.8 million in damages, is understood to have told friends he had been drinking all day and had also smoked marijuana.

According to TMZ, she was woken by the sound of him screaming in the back yard.

She said that he was naked and banging on the glass.

When she asked him what was wrong, the divorced father-of-three did not respond. Shortly afterwards she heard a splash and went out to discover him in the swimming pool.

TMZ

Two close friends of Rodney King think his fiancée isn't telling the truth about what happened leading up to his death ... and they've voiced their suspicions to cops, TMZ has learned.

As TMZ first reported, King's fiancee, Cynthia Kelley, says she was awakened by the sound of King banging on the window of their home just after 5:00 AM on Sunday ... and then heard him fall in the pool.

But sources close to King tell TMZ they heard Kelley tell the story several times to friends ... only the story changed a little bit each time and it seemed to them that she was lying about something.

We're told two of Kelley's friends who spoke with her in the hours following King's death have gone to police and spoke to a detective. Our source says the detective took down their story and their information and said he would be in touch.

(06-18-2012, 09:34 PM)HairOfTheDog Wrote: I feel badly about Mr. King's passing. I know I'm in the minority in that regard, at least amongst those who have weighed in here. Rodney King got the holy shit beat outta him by LAPD all those years ago (rightly or wrongly, just a fact) and the man battled addiction and was in and out of rehab often. I never made excuses for Mr. King or the LAPD Officers (didn't like what I saw on that video, but wasn't there for the whole showdown either); I'm just not joyful that the man is dead.

(06-18-2012, 11:10 PM)Tammy75 Wrote: I watched him on Dr Drew and I truly believe he knew was wrong from minute one but he could never get over the stigma of his name.