Rodney King found dead

[Lady Cop]

just breaking, i have no details yet.

King's beating was the catalyst for L.A. riots.

[IMaDick]

Living large off the phony lawsuit money, Good bye shitbird.

[OnBendedKnee]

Next, his family will declare his 'beating' was a catalyst to his demise.

I see a seven figure payout in the making.

[QueenBee]

Aww..Why can't we all just get along.

[Lady Cop]

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?"

[QueenBee]

Here is a link to an article and video report

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/17/us/obit-ro...?hpt=hp_t1

[Duchess]

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

[Duchess]

Never mind

[OnBendedKnee]

Duchess, I get where you're coming at. I honestly do.
But a little digging will reveal the true lack of injuries Rodney King received.
I am in no way condoning or excusing the poor behavior on law enforcement's part, but there is more to the story
than that what was told in the media. (In other words, the cops where beating him wrong- their technique was off, allowing for much less injury than had they
been using their night sticks correctly, as horrific as that sounds. Couple that with injury that appears much more critical than it truly is and you have a recipe for sympathy, mixed with hatred.)

We caught the 10 minutes or so on video, but didn't see the twenty minutes leading up to it all.
Again, it was wrong- absolutely wrong, as two trials sifted through all the evidence, agreeing as such and awarded a final outcome, but to believe his beating was a near death experience is patently false.

[Duchess]

but to believe his beating was a near death experience is patently false.

I got the "beaten almost to death" from the opening post, although when I went back to reread it I see the term used was "nearly" not "almost" as I used.

[Lady Cop]

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

Nearly a year later, the four officers stood trial in federal court on civil rights charges. Two African-Americans were picked for the jury, and King testified. He hedged, however, on whether police used racial slurs during the beating. He told CNN in 2011 that slurs were used, but said he vacillated on the stand because his mother had told him to avoid talking about race.

Koon and Powell were found guilty and sentenced to 30 months in prison. Briseno and Wind were acquitted.

"It was like ... I just hope we just get one," King said. "I hope we just get one on that. If we get one, we're good. So to get the two, I was really happy."

King also sued the city of Los Angeles.

"Half of them had no sympathy whatsoever," Kelly, his fiancee, told CNN earlier this year about her fellow jurors. "... They just didn't care. Like, 'He broke the law. He deserved what he got.' I told them they were crazy. It was about justice for what happened to him. No one deserves to get beat like that."

The other jurors came around, and King was awarded $3.8 million in damages.

In later years, King had several more run-ins with the law, including a 90-day jail stint in 1996 for a hit-and-run involving his wife at the time. On the 20^th anniversary of the beating in 2011, he was pulled over and ticketed for a minor traffic violation.

"The trouble that (people) see me in is a part of my life that I'm working on," he said in 2011. "I'll always have an issue when it comes to alcohol. My dad was an alcoholic. The addiction part is in my blood. What I've learned to do is arrest my addiction -- arrest it myself, so I don't get arrested."

[Lady Cop]

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.

[Duchess]

That pool area has huge potential & he didn't maximize it at all.

[Jimbone]

Yeah, he was a real pillar of society. One less dirtbag on the planet. Someone should check the gold digger juror/fiancee out and see if she murdered him.

[Lady Cop]

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.

[Jimbone]

HA! I knew my spidey senses were tingling on this one.

[HairOfTheDog]

I'm curious to hear more about the reported inconsistencies in the fiancee's story and about the investigation. The story I read in the LA Times left me believing that Mr. King was probably highly intoxicated and depressed and that he accidently or purposely drowned. But, things aren't always as they seem and I'm open to all possibilities until the evidence and autopsy results are revealed.

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.

I don't see how his fiancee can possibly gain financially from his death, unless he constructed a will cutting out his children or reducing their inheritance. He had not been with Ms. Kelley in many years when they re-united a couple of years back (so no "common law" status should apply). Unless he had a special will drawn, I don't believe the fiancee is entitled to anything and I believe that the $3.8 million awarded over 20 years ago was pretty much gone.

Waiting for confirmations from LE...

Today's LA Times article:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/20...-home.html

[Tammy75]

I will never forget talking with some of my cop friends after this happened. One thing I will never ever ever forget is something a BLACK officer told me. It has haunted me forever. "There is a fine line between doing your job and police brutality". Haunted me because it is VERY true!

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.

I am not joyfull either. 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.

RIP Rodney King. Hope you find the peace you so wanted!

[Cracker]

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.

I did, too. He seemed to have a sweet disposition by that time in his life, just could never get ahold of himself.

Many people raise their kids to be criminals. Once they start on that path, it's hard to get off it. Bad parenting caused by selfish behavior is destroying a large segment of our society. People think they are getting away with their bad behavior if they aren't behind bars. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every lie grows and every bad behavior has consequences, just not always legal ones.

[OnBendedKnee]

Rodney King was about as unstable as pigmy shit on the ceiling of a Barstow bungalow.

Perhaps he's in a better place now.