Rodney King, motorist whose beating by Los Angeles police officers sparked deadly US race riots, dead at 47

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Rodney King, motorist whose beating by Los Angeles police officers sparked deadly US race riots, dead at 47

Updated at 12:11 p.m. ET: Rodney King, the black motorist whose videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers in 1991 sparked some of the deadliest race riots in U.S. history, was found dead on Sunday, police said. He was 47.

Police in Rialto, Calif., found King's body in a swimming pool after getting a 911 call from his fiancee, Rialto Police Capt. Randy Deanda told NBC News. Officers pulled King from the pool and began doing CPR but he was unresponsive.

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King was transported to Arrowhead Hospital in Colton, where he was pronounced dead at 6:11 a.m. PDT, Deanda said.

The death was being investigated as a drowning and there were no signs of foul play, police said. The San Bernadino County coroner will perform an autopsy.

King was beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers on a dark street on March 3, 1991, after he was stopped for speeding. Four officers hit him more than 50 times, kicked him and shot him with stun guns. A bystander videotaped much of the incident from a distance.

Twenty years after Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of charges they brutally beat motorist Rodney King, TODAY's Lester Holt looks back at the case and how it changed the Los Angeles police department and how Americans view the justice system.

A year later, a California jury acquitted the four officers, three of whom were white and one Hispanic.

The riots that erupted on April 29, 1992, were among the most lethal in U.S. history. By the time order was restored, more than 50 people had died, nearly 3,000 were injured and thousands of businesses were damaged or destroyed.

In one of the most searing images from the riots, a 33-year-old white construction worker named Reginald Denny was pulled from his vehicle and beaten unconscious by four men at a Los Angeles intersection. Twenty years later, he has still not recovered from his injuries.

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Edited June 17, 2012 by kennard

[MyLittlePony 340]

he was provoked by thugs cant trust the police.

[X Factor 1,112]

He definitely was a troubled man.