Rodney King poses for a portrait in Los Angeles. King, the black motorist whose 1991 videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers was the touchstone for one of the most destructive race riots in the nation's history, has died, his publicist said Sunday, June 17, 2012. He was 47.
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The Los Angeles Police Department, after the King beating and other scandals, has instituted new policies including community policing that have resulted in crime drops, but continued complaints about racial profiling. Many of the hardest-hit areas in South LA, like King, have struggled. In the area around the Florence and Normandie intersection that was one of the riot's flash points, high school dropout rates are higher than in the rest of the city and incomes remain dramatically lower than in other sections of Los Angeles.
In his autobiography, King described his uneasy feelings about the events of his life.
"For many years I felt that I had been involuntarily burdened as the victim and resultant universal symbol of police brutality," King wrote. "I wanted no part of it, just wanted to stay home, drink and watch TV. ...The fact that this footage was sent out to be viewed by the entire world certainly didn't help my recovery."
"We may be scarred," he wrote, "and we may not be able to forget, but we can keep going, one step at a time, until we get to a better place."
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Dillon reported from Rialto and Linda Deutsch, Chris Weber and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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