rodney king trayvon my attack video
Just days before the 20 year anniversary of the L.A. riots, King was in NYC promoting his new book in which he describes his journey through the violence … from the infamous beating at the hands of LAPD officers to his public plea for peace.
“It’s not one day that goes by that I don’t think about the incident … I get these headaches … when I [sniff], my sinuses start burning,” he told the website.
Regarding the Trayvon Martin case, in which the unarmed teen was killed by a self-proclaimed Neighborhood Watch captain, King says the judicial system is a “slow process,” and adds, “I’m hoping he gets justice for his family … ’cause he’s no longer here, so for his family.”
King went on to talk about how his own life is finally heading in a positive direction, but noted, “Luckily I got [my attack] seen on tape.”
In an interview with USA Today to try to sell his book, "The Riot Within: My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption," the beating victim says the cases are the same.
"It's about bullying a black man," says King, 47, who is traveling the country to promote his memoir.
"This time, a young man was bullied to death. I'm still alive; Trayvon Martin is not here."
Rodney King is again back in the new as we approach the 20-year anniversary of the Los Angeles riots, sparked after the police officers charged with assaulting King were acquitted by a California court.
Will we see another round of riots if George Zimmerman, the man accused of second-degree murder in the Martin case is cleared?
This week, Trayvon’s parents attended a rally in Los Angeles, three days before the anniversary of the riots and their lawyer seem to indicate he thought violence and riots was a possibility.
“You want to believe change has happened,” Crump says.
“We will get a more definitive answer when the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case is rendered.”
King and Cynthia Kelley said they felt sparks after meeting each other in a Newport Beach pizzeria the day after the controversial 1994 jury award, but both were married at the time.
King and his wife separated around the time he joined the cast of VH1′s “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew” following multiple arrests for using PCP.Four months ago, the 44-year-old called Kelley on a whim and found out she was single as well.
“We hadn’t spoken to each other for many years, and it just so happened that we reconnected….It was like we were never apart from one another,” Kelley told Radar.
“She is a godsend, a blessing in my life,” King told the website. “I don’t know what I would have done without her in my life…I can’t wait to make her my wife.”
King became a national symbol of police brutality when a video camera caught a group of white cops repeatedly striking the black cab driver while he was on the ground following a high-speed chase. Four officers were tried for using excessive force but later acquitted, sparking race riots that left 55 dead, more than 2,000 injured, and King’s infamous quote, “Can’t we all just get along?”
If you recall, it all started after a jury acquitted four police officers in the vicious beating of King a year earlier. The acquittals unleashed an onslaught of pent-up anger.
There were 54 riot-related deaths and nearly $1 billion in property damage . It was not a good time for Los Angeles, the USA and Rodney King.
King remembers. He rubs his right cheek, numb since the beating, and describes what it was like to be struck by batons, stung by Tasers.
“It felt,” he says, “like I was an inch from death.”
Later he confides that he is at peace with what happened to him.
“I would change a few things, but not that much,” he says. “Yes, I would go through that night, yes I would. I said once that I wouldn’t, but that’s not true. It changed things. It made the world a better place.”
He is 47 now — jobless and virtually broke. Gone is the settlement money he got after suing the city for violating his civil rights. All $3.8 million of it. Huge chunks went to the lawyers, he says, some to family members, some he simply wasted.
The settlement did provide a down payment on the inconspicuous rambler that is his home in Rialto. He says he cobbles together mortgage payments. Every so often he gets hired to pour concrete at a construction site. He has earned small paydays fighting in celebrity boxing matches. He received an advance — less than six figures, he says, but significant nonetheless — for allowing his story to be told in a book set to go on sale Tuesday: “The Riot Within: My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption.”
Rodney King redeemed?
He inhabits a world stocked with heartache and struggle. He calls himself a recovering addict but has not stopped drinking and possesses a doctor’s clearance for medical marijuana. He says he is happy and hopeful, content enough now to forgive the officers who beat him. But he tenses when they are mentioned and admits to being burdened by the weight of his name. He suffers nightmares, flashbacks and raw nerves that echo the symptoms of a shell shocked survivor of war.
“I sometimes feel like I’m caught in a vise. Some people feel like I’m some kind of hero,” he says of the beating. “Others hate me. 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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