20 Years after Not Guilty Verdict Rodney King Found Dead

The nine-minute and twenty second videotape turned what would otherwise have been a violent, but soon forgotten, encounter between Los Angeles police and Rodney King into one of the most widely watched and discussed incidents of its kind. [VIDEO HERE] [full version HERE] and [HERE] Rodney King, the black man who came to symbolize racial tensions in the United States after his 1991 beating by police led to riots in Los Angeles a year later, was found dead in a swimming pool on Sunday in Rialto, California, police said. He was 47. "Preliminary indications are that this is a drowning with no signs of foul play," Rialto police said in a statement.

King was discovered by his fiancée, Rialto police Captain Randy De Anda said. The San Bernardino County Coroner's office will conduct an autopsy, authorities said. King's death was reported to police Sunday morning in Rialto, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. Police pulled his body from the swimming pool but were unable to resuscitate him, De Anda said.

King became known around the world after he and some friends were stopped by Los Angeles police on March 3, 1991, after a high-speed chase. King was beaten by baton-wielding white police officers while a bystander videotaped them. The video prompted a national debate on police brutality and race relations. When the officers were cleared of brutality charges a year later, riots broke out in Los Angeles, resulting in 53 deaths and an estimated $1 billion in damage. During the riots, King made a famous televised appeal for calm, saying: "Can we all get along?"

Two of the officers were later convicted on federal charges of violating King's civil rights and were sentenced to prison. A jury ordered the city of Los Angeles to pay King, who was unemployed at the time of the beating, $3.8 million in damages. [MORE]