By TOM GODFREY
It was one of the first police beatings of a Black man that was captured on grainy videotape before the Internet age and it sparked the deadliest racial riots in Lost Angeles, which is still simmering 26-years later.
The name Rodney King still brings back to many haunting memories of a Black man laying bleeding in the middle of Florence and Normandie Sts. in South Central L.A. as he was pummelled, kicked, beaten and Tasered by four police officers in March 1991.
Bystander George Holliday videotaped the vicious beating and released it to the Media, where it spread like wildfire worldwide, way before the age of Facebook or Twitter.
Even though the 81-second video showed the officers kicking and clubbing King 56 times as he laid on the road, all four were found not guilty of any offences on April 29, 1992, despite the many witnesses. The video showed 20 Los Angeles police officers standing around the scene.
Seventeen of the cops were not indicted or disciplined for failing to intervene to help King as he was being assaulted.
King, then 25, suffered multiple cuts and bruises, 11 fractures, a black eye, broken leg and a scar from a stun gun which jolted him with 50,000-volt shocks.
Within hours, thousands of outraged African Americans in South Central began taking to the streets to protest the all-white jury verdict. The looting, shooting, burning and stealing went on for five days. I had never seen such brazen acts of vandalism in my life.
City leaders introduced a strict dusk-to-dawn curfew that was in place for a week and enforced in the city and county of Los Angeles.
Some 1,100 Marines, 600 Army soldiers, and 6,500 National Guard troops were dispatched to quell the riots, which by then had led to the deaths of 55 people and injury to 2,000 others. More than 1,100 buildings, including 700 retail stores, were torched or destroyed by fire. Damages exceeded $1 billion.
The story made major news in Canada and across the world. At the Toronto Sun newspaper, myself and photographer Fred Thornhill were dispatched that Friday night to cover the lawlessness.
Large tracts of L.A. were covered in smoke when we arrived. We were able to secure a cabbie at the airport and headed to the hotspots. We saw a pick up truck ram into a gas station, where culprits loaded the vehicle with batteries and other parts, before setting the place on fire as they sped off.
Thornhill then had a bottle thrown at him that smashed a passenger side window of the taxi where he sat. We also watched as armed cops escorted and guarded emergency workers as they restored power in some areas. It turned out gangbangers were firing at the hydro workers.
In time, King refused a $200,000 scholarship from the city and launched a lawsuit instead. He settled a civil suit with the city for $3.8 million and went on to live a relatively quiet life.
He still had a number of drinking and driving type run-ins with police over the years. He last known DUI was in 2011.
Ironically, it was during his lawsuit against the city when he met his fiancée, Cynthia Kelly, who was a juror at the proceedings.
King at one point wrote a book, “The Riot Within: My Journey From Rebellion to Redemption,” about his experience during the riots and being in the media spotlight.
He also made a movie about his life and invested some of his settlement in a record label, Straight Alta-Pazz Records, hoping to employ minority employees, but it went out of business.
He sobered up during the last stages of his life and helped others by becoming a celebrity rehab speaker known for shaking off alcohol and drugs.
King was found dead in his swimming pool in June 2012 at the age of 47. His death was the result of accidental drowning, with alcohol and drugs being contributing factors, authorities said.
“Some people feel like I’m some kind of hero. Others hate me,” King once told the BBC. “They say I deserved it. Other people, I can hear them mocking me for when I called for an end to the destruction, like I’m a fool for believing in peace.”
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