The True Story Of What Happened To Rodney King

Before Eric Garner and George Floyd, there was Rodney King. While he wasn't the first Black man to be a victim of police brutality, his beating was one of the first to be captured on video and broadcast nationwide. And when, despite the vicious behavior seen in the video, the officers involved in the assault were found not guilty, their acquittal sparked what would become known as the Los Angeles Riots of 1992.

Through it all, Rodney King was just a man trying to find his way in the world. Some would see him as a hero and a martyr, while others would maintain that he was a criminal and a villain, but the police's infringement on King's rights and dignity would become a lasting symbol of the reality of police brutality. King's assault and the subsequent trials of the officers would lay bare the racism and injustice that ran through Los Angeles and its police department, becoming a catalyst for demands of police accountability.

According to Famous Trials, in the early hours of March 3, 1991, King and two friends, "Pooh" Allen and Freddie Helms, decided to go out after watching a basketball game. They'd all been drinking, and King was behind the wheel when two California Highway Patrol officers, Tim and Melanie Singer, spotted them speeding down the 210 freeway. King reportedly led them on a high-speed chase, running a red light and nearly causing an accident before finally stopping near Hansen Dam Park. By the time King stopped, Officers Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno, Rolando Solano, and Sergeant Stacy Koon had all arrived at the scene.

The police ordered everyone out of the car, but only Allen and Helms complied. King stayed in the vehicle until police yelled at him a second time to get out. According to Melanie Singer's testimony, when King did get out of the car, he displayed erratic behavior, such as waving at the police helicopter and waving his butt at the officers.

The officers would write in their report that due to his behavior, they suspected King of being under the influence of PCP, which was believed by the police to give people under its influence superhuman strength. This belief is actually a crude regurgitation of a myth started by Dr. Hamilton Wright in 1910, which claimed that Black people experienced superhuman strength under the influence of cocaine. In the end, King's toxicology report was negative for PCP.

After the beating, the police called an ambulance, and King was taken to Pacifica Hospital with officers riding along. Doctors gave King several stitches, noting in his medical records that he suffered from a broken cheekbone and broken right ankle. Afterward, King was moved to a jail ward at County-USC Medical Center, where he was booked for evading and resisting arrest.

Alcohol and drug tests would later show that King had been over the legal limit while driving and had a trace amount of marijuana in his system, but not much else was noted by doctors at the time. Martha Esparza, a nurse who worked at the jail ward, would later testify that King was "calm and cooperative," while the officers who brought him in were bragging and joking about the number of times King had been hit.

After prosecutors were unable to find sufficient evidence to prosecute, King was released after having been held for four days. In the claim King later filed with the city, he reported having suffered multiple skull fractures, broken bones and teeth, kidney damage, brain damage, as well as physical and emotional trauma.

The LAPD report would later become an issue of controversy due to its misrepresentation of the events of King's arrest. While the reports that were filed mentioned the beating and the use of batons, various inconsistencies arose when compared with Holliday's video.

Powell's report would leave out several important details, such as the presence of Allen and Helms in the car and civilian witnesses at the scene. He would also write that King was only struck about seven times. However, according to Human Rights Watch, in reporting the incident on his car radio, Powell claimed, "I haven't beaten anyone this bad in a long time."

In Koon's report as well, the use of force was downplayed and justified. Both Koon and Powell would later be charged with filing false police reports, since neither of their accounts mentioned the blows to King's head, nor the fact that he was on the ground for most of the time while he was being beaten.

The acquittals were considered a gross miscarriage of justice, with the mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, calling the verdict "senseless." Residents of Los Angeles erupted into a fury that had been mounting over the years, especially towards the police, who were seen as an oppressive rather than protective force. Residents of the city would riot for six days, during which time there was also widespread looting, a tactic that has been used often to protest the valuation of property over human life. 

According to CNN, the riots began in South Central Los Angeles, at the intersection of Florence and Normandie. A state of emergency was quickly declared by Mayor Bradley, and Governor Pete Wilson called in the National Guard, although LAPD Chief Darryl Gates reportedly told police officers to retreat and offer no helpful response to the violence and looting. 

Citywide curfews were instated from April 30 to May 4 in an attempt to subdue the disturbances. Marines, Army soldiers, and the National Guard were also brought in to monitor the streets. The riots resulted in more than 2,000 injuries, 50 deaths, and 6,000 arrests. Rodney King himself would speak out publicly on the third day of the riots, proclaiming what would become an iconic statement: "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along?"

During this time, Rodney King was involved in his own litigious activities with the city. In his memoir (via NPR), King describes how Mayor Bradley had offered him college tuition in lieu of going to trial, an offer that came out to about $200,000. Rejecting that offer considering that he'd almost lost his life, King sued the city for $56 million, amounting to approximately $1 million for every strike by the officers.

The city of Los Angeles eventually reached a settlement with King, paying him $3.8 million for pain, suffering, and medical bills. With the settlement, King was able to buy a home for his mother, as well as one for himself. However, most of the money would end up going to lawyers' fees and the music label King tried to start.

Alta-Pazz, according to King, was meant to be a label that brought opportunities to young Black and Hispanic people who were struggling with employment. But despite the fact that everyone at the label was well-intentioned, few had knowledge of the music industry, and the label soon went under.

After repeatedly spending time in and out of rehab, King would continue to waver between sobriety and relapse. During this time, with the help of a ghostwriter, King wrote his memoir, The Riot Within: My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption. The book traces his own life and the impact his case had on civil rights in the United States and offers his own testimony on learning how to forgive through time. The role that the assault played in King's life and the role it played in the civil rights movement were inextricable, but King's book gave him a chance to separate "Rodney King the man" from "Rodney King the movement."

However, just a few months after the book came out, King was found dead in his pool at age 47 by his fiancée Cynthia Kelly. According to CNN, King's death was ruled to be an accident, caused by alcohol as well as a variety of drugs in his system.

Despite his untimely death, King's daughter Lora King continues to fight for his legacy. In 2019, she launched the "I am a King" scholarship, which works toward offering financial support to Black fathers in order to relieve financial insecurity and provide opportunities for the entire family.