Rodney King
African American police brutality victim (1965–2012)
Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965 – June 17, 2012) was an African-American man who on March 3, 1991 became a victim of police brutality when he was severely beaten by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) during his arrest after a high-speed pursuit on California's state freeway, Interstate 210 having initially evaded arrest. George Holliday, an uninvolved resident, saw and filmed the incident from his nearby balcony and then sent the footage, which showed an unarmed King on the ground being beaten, to KTLA, a local news station who broadcast the film, which was then rebroadcast by other stations casting a worldwide spotlight on the LAPD and King.
King was taken to Pacifica Hospital after his arrest where he was found to have suffered a fractured facial bone, a broken right ankle, and multiple bruises and lacerations. Nurses later reported that the officers who accompanied King openly joked and bragged about the number of times they had hit him. Blood and urine samples taken five hours after his arrest measured King's blood alcohol content at 0.075%, below the legal limit of 0.08%. The LAPD initially charged King with "felony evading", but later dropped the charge.
Upon his release, King spoke to reporters from his wheelchair, with his injuries evident: a broken right leg in a cast, his face badly cut and swollen, bruises on his body, and a burn area on his chest where he had been jolted with a stun gun. King described the beating and also stated that he was scared for his life when the officers drew their guns on him.
Three of the four officers were charged with excessive force. Within hours of their acquittals the 1992 Los Angeles riots started, sparked by outrage among minorities over the trial's verdict as well as long-standing societal issues.
The public source identifies “Rodney King” as african American police brutality victim (1965–2012). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Rodney, King and African.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q338389. VIAF identifies the subject as 173548440. The Library of Congress control number is n2008032573. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1965, 2012, 1991 and 1992.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rodney King” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.