THE REAL RODNEY KING
April 30, 2002Yesterday marked 10 years since the start of the Rodney King riot in Los Angeles.
The outburst killed 50 people while causing more than $1 billion in property damage - and in some respects the city has yet fully to recover.
There was a lot of double-domed ana- lyzing and such yesterday, much of it aimed at explaining away the rioters' actions - or calling for additional "investment" in the neighborhoods where the violence began.
Funny thing, there wasn't much said about King - whose beating by four cops, after all, was the underlying cause of the riot.
At the moment, he's doing a bit in a rehab center, following his latest arrest - a PCP-possession bust last September.
Prior to that - and after the riot, of course - he'd been picked up for drunken driving, for assaulting his wife with a deadly weapon (his car), for beating his wife and for running over two cops who nabbed him for soliciting a transvestite hooker.
This is a dangerous guy.
In 1991, the cops who encountered King - a parolee stopped while driving drunk at speeds in excess of 100 mph - figured that out pretty quick.
They did what they had to do to subdue him.
The rest is history.
Not that it's being taught anywhere.
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