Free Republic

Today marks the 20th anniversary of America’s last major race riot. It took place in Los Angeles following the acquittal of three white LAPD officers on brutality charges in the beating of black motorist Rodney King. Unbeknownst to the officers, King’s beatdown was captured on videotape by eyewitness George Holliday. The video went “viral” in an age long before YouTube, with repeated airings by television newscasts around the world. The L.A.riot resulted in 53 deaths and nearly 2,400 injuries. The toll also included 7,000 fires, damages to some 3,100 businesses and nearly $1 billion in economic losses suffered by the...

On Friday in response to a Fox News reporter's question about Obamacare, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), a University of Virginia Law graduate, invoked the name of Rodney King calling him a "great philosopher." Not since Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) expressed concern that the addition of 8,000 service personnel and their families onto the island of Guam might cause it to tip over have Americans heard such moronic craziness. Do we really pay the Queen of Racism $174,000 per year?

LOS ANGELES — Henry Keith Watson remembers April 29, 1992, as if it happened just last week. History won’t allow him to forget it. It was a day that marked the beginning of one of the deadliest, most destructive race riots in the nation’s history, and one in which Watson’s spur-of-the-moment decision to take part made him one of the enduring faces of the violence....

(VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH BOB TUR AT THE LINK) Bob Tur, the L.A. Riots’ Eye in the Sky, on Reginald Denny & More by Matthew DeLuca Apr 26, 2012 9:00 PM EDT Bob Tur invented the news helicopter—and used it to film the beating of Reginald Denny on live TV. He tells Matt DeLuca about his strange souvenir, his wife's warning, and more. Well before the Los Angeles riots broke out on April 29, 1992, Bob Tur knew what was missing from television news: images. Footage of what was happening as it was happening. Not shot from a news van or...

Henry Keith Watson remembers April 29, 1992, as if it happened just last week. History won't allow him to forget it. It was a day that marked the beginning of one of the deadliest, most destructive race riots in the nation's history, and one in which Watson's spur-of-the-moment decision to take part made him one of the enduring faces of the violence... As the liquor store at the intersection of Florence and Normandie was being looted and white passersby were fleeing a barrage of rocks and bottles, Denny stopped his big rig to avoid running over someone. He was quickly...

Rodney King, the man whose videotaped beating by police led to the 1992 Los Angeles riots, was found dead at the bottom of his pool, police said. Mr. King's fiancée found him at the bottom of the pool on Sunday morning at his home in Rialito, Calif. He was 47. "The preliminary investigation indicates that this is a drowning and there are no signs of foul play," said Rialto Police Sgt. Paul Stella. In 1991, a video of police beating Mr. King after a freeway chase in Los Angeles rocketed across the world, stoking national tensions over race and police...

Rodney King's fiancée is telling friends Rodney had been drinking all day Saturday ... and had smoked weed in the hours leading up to his death ... sources close to King tell TMZ. According to our sources, King's fiancée, Cynthia Kelley, is telling friends King was at the house all day drinking, and he smoked marijuana at some point, before she went to went to bed at 2:00 AM.