The Story of Rodney King

Rodney King was a survivor of police brutality in America. Just over twenty years after the cruel attack, King died under suspicious circumstances in his pool. The construction worker was involved in a high speed chase with the LAPD on March 3rd, 1991, as he was drunk driving. Once stopped, King was brutality beaten while on the ground by police after trying to avoid getting arrested. The unarmed man was beaten and kicked by officers for several minutes. He suffered many broken bones, including his leg, 11 skull fractures, broken teeth, kidney failure and emotional trauma which led him to suffer from night terrors for many years after the attack. The incident was filmed by a civilian that was nearby, which recorded King being struck by the batons of officers between fifty and sixty times.

The four officers that were involved were tried at court for police brutality but were acquitted. Soon after the charges were dropped, riots broke out in Los Angeles, which are now known as the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Sixty-three people died and over 2,380 people were injured. At the riots, King famously stated, “Can we all get along?”. A new case was later opened and two of the four officers were were sentenced to prison, while the other two were acquitted of the charges for a second time. In 1994, King was awarded almost $4 million in a civil lawsuit as compensation for the attack in 1991. He later went on to release a memoir of his life. King invested some of this money into a record label, which inevitably went out of business. He then struggled with drug addiction and alcoholism. On one occasion he was involved in a car crash while under the influence, where he was fined, enrolled in a rehabilitation programme, and put on probation. Unfortunately, this was not the only time King had been arrested. In 1995, he was involved in a hit and run incident involving his wife and spent 90 days in jail. There was another incident that King was driving while intoxicated and ran a red light. After not stopping for the police, he drove into a house and broke his pelvis. King was victim to another crime when he was riding his bike and a man and woman demanded he give them his bicycle. They shot him multiple times, including in the back, arms and face.

Years later, in 2012, King was found dead in his swimming pool. It was his partner, Cynthia Kelley, that found him lying at the bottom of the pool on Father’s Day. This was exactly twenty-eight years after his father was found dead in a bath. She called the police at around 5:25 that morning. When they arrived, they removed King from the pool and performed CPR on him. He was then transported by ambulance to Arrowhead Regional Medical Centre in Colton, California. When he arrived, he was pronounced dead on arrival at 6:11 am. King’s autopsy report found that he died of accidental drowning and police found no evidence of foul play. It was believed the drugs and alcohol present in his system at the time were contributing factors to his death.