The public life of Rodney King begins on March 3, 1991, when the African-American man was clubbed and kicked relentlessly by a gang of LAPD officers during a traffic stop. It ends on June 17, 2012, when he was found dead in his swimming pool at age 47. The autopsy showed that King an “alcohol and drug-induced delirium” led to his drowning. Before that point, he had been revolving in and out of rehab for substance abuse, a problem he attributed to trauma from the beating he took from cops. His death was ruled both accidental and self-inflicted, which is a common ending for the concussed.
Riots are also a common feature of communities that have been beaten down and traumatized by racism and poverty. Such was the case for South Central Los Angeles, which erupted in flames and violence on April 29, 1992, hours after a jury refused to convict the four LAPD officers who attacked King. The police got off the hook even though the beating had been captured on home video: That clip hit the local news, then CNN, and achieved pre-internet virality. [...]
A common refrain when unrest grips black communities is that black rioters are only hurting themselves by burning and looting businesses in their own neighborhoods. That wasn’t the whole story in the ‘92 riots, though. Much of the damage was done in Koreatown, where over 1,700 businesses were destroyed, compared to 2,800 African-American businesses elsewhere. Koreans were targeted because they owned and controlled so much real estate across South Central, while African Americans felt they didn’t have the same entrepreneurial opportunities. The Harlins killing only accentuated the disconnect between these two communities. One Asian-American man captured in a news clip in the doc tries to make the connection, though, noting how no fire trucks were coming to Koreatown to put out the fires. “This is no longer about Rodney King,” says the man, who’s not identified. “This is about the system against us, the minorities.”
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