Rodney King

The Way We Burned

The 20 Worst Albums Of The '90s: 10-1

The 20 Worst Albums Of The '90s: 20-11 Sure, you had the Bill Clinton blowjob scandal, OJ, Pakistan and India going nuclear, mad cow disease, the Rodney King decision, and Titanic. But what made the '90s truly awful was its music. That's not to say that there weren't bright spots -- early Beck, say ... More >>

The 20 Worst Albums Of The '90s: 20-11

Sure, you had the Bill Clinton blowjob scandal, OJ, Pakistan and India going nuclear, mad cow disease, the Rodney King decision, and Titanic. But what made the '90s truly awful was its music. That's not to say that there weren't bright spots -- early Beck, say, or Ok Computer and much of hip-hop's g ... More >>

Rodney King Compared LAPD Beating to Abuse Suffered by Slaves

Updated at the bottom with complete audio of the show. First posted at 12:53 a.m. KPFK (90.7 FM) says it probably has the last interview given to the press by Rodney King, who drowned June 17 in his backyard pool in Rialto. The interview will air this morning and stream on its website at 7 a.m., a ... More >>

Rodney King Was Smoking Weed Before His Death -- Report

Rodney King's fiancee is reportedly saying the 47-year-old was smoking weed before his death yesterday morning. But don't blame it on the marijuana just yet. While cannabis is a depressant, Cynthia Kelley also told friends, according to TMZ, that he had been drinking -- a lot. King had a long an ... More >>

Rodney King Dead at 47

Rodney King, whose beating by Los Angeles police helped spark the 1992 riots, died early this morning in an apparent drowning, police said. He was 47. His fiancee found him unconcious in the swimming pool of his Rialto home about 5:25 a.m., Capt. Randy DeAnda told City News Service. Cops said he w ... More >>

L.A. Rappers Speak On The Riots: Our Complete Coverage

Over the past week, West Coast Sound has brought you interviews with local rappers whose music and lives have been profoundly affected by the L.A. riots. Today we present all of them together, beginning with a rare video of Tupac Shakur (above) giving his thoughts on the riots, a week after they ... More >>

L.A. Riots: 5 Most Disturbing Videos on YouTube

While we were talking to LA Weekly photographer Ted Soqui about his coverage of the L.A. Riots, he mentioned that he'd only recently realized how much riot footage was up on YouTube. "I didn't get to see much live TV coverage because I was either shooting or processing; I was in a bubble with my ph ... More >>

L.A. Riots: LAPD Tried to Displace its Racism Problem And 'Put it On a Korean Merchant,' Says Former Times Reporter John Lee

The riots that were sparked on April 29, 1992 put L.A.'s burgeoning Korean American population in the spotlight. It seems that for every generation there's a group of immigrants green-lit for no-holds-barred hatred, and Koreans in 1992 were it. John Lee covered the community and the riots for the L ... More >>

Thurz: The L.A. Riots Were The Most Historic Event In The City's History

See also: *Tupac on the L.A. Riots: "I Hate to Say I Told You So, But I Told You So" *Thurz on Reinventing Himself and U-N-I's Break-Up [Editor's note: All this week West Coast Sound is speaking with rappers and writers whose work has been influenced by the L.A. riots, to coincide with their 20th ... More >>

Events Leading Up To L.A. Riots Being Live Tweeted on 20th Anniversary of Uprisings

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the L.A. Riots on Sunday, NBC Los Angeles has started an account to live tweet the events of April, 1992. The Twitter account is already up and running and tweeting about what was happening that week before the unrest, when the final court happenings in the tr ... More >>

Man Shot by Cops Near Ignition Point of L.A. Riots on 20th Anniversary of Rodney King Beating

Steve LyonAn officer involved shooting happened last night in South L.A.​We know there are two sides -- actually many more -- to each story. But if true, we have to really have to urge anyone thinking about it never do this: Police say a man drove up to two officers, screamed at them, waved a ... More >>

Rodney King Beating: 20 Years Later, Here Are 5 More Violent California Cops Caught on Video

Before there were cell phones​Today's the 20th anniversary of L.A.'s infamous brush with rock bottom: The 1991 brutal police beating of Rodney King, an act of unabashed racism by a group of four white LAPD officers whose 1992 "not guilty" verdicts gave way to the devastating L.A. riots. As th ... More >>

Rodney King To Wed Juror In His Civil Suit

After the beating.​Rodney King, the forever famous victim of a horrific, videotaped police beating that set off the 1992 riots, is marrying juror number five from the civil trial that awarded King $3.8 million, RadarOnline reports. Apparently King began dating the woman, Cynthia Kelley, shor ... More >>

SOMETHING RANDY NEWMAN CAN SING ABOUT

Protesters Show Up At Hearing Of Bay Area Transit Cop Who Shot Unarmed Man

​The murder trial of white Bay Area Rapid Transit cop Johannes Mehserle was moved to Los Angeles because of concerns about the high-level of emotion and strong opinions surrounding his New Year's Day 2009 shooting of an unarmed black man on an Oakland subway platform, but the change of venue d ... More >>

Project Blowed Celebrates Its 15th Anniversary Tonight at Little Temple

Tonight at Little Temple in Silver Lake, the legendary, influential hip hop night Project Blowed will celebrate its 15th anniversary with an appearance by the Freestyle Fellowship. The club, which grew out of The Good Life open mic night in Leimert Park ... well, hell, since the late Brendan Mul ... More >>

LAPD Detective, Who Testified at Rodney King Trial, Kills Self at Sheriff's Station

The Los Angeles Police Department detective who killed herself in the Santa Clarita sheriff's station has been identified as Susan Clemmer, one of the first officers to testify during the Rodney King trial. She was last assigned to LAPD's gang and narcotics division. She started at the LAPD in 1989 ... More >>

LA-ist Looks Back on L.A. Riots and Rodney King Today

Caleb Bacon of LAist has posted a thoroughly engaging and sympathetic piece on Rodney King, the now-44-year-old black motorist whose savage beating by LAPD cops in 1991 would result a year later in citywide rioting. That 1992 violence, which exploded 17 years ago today, has been eradicated from the ... More >>

The Verdict: After Rodney King

Weiss' Summer Jamz 08-G'Z Up, Prose Down

Summer Jamz '08: G'Z Up, Prose Down http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4NBDRWLQ 1.Parliament-“Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker) 2.N.W.A.-“Alwayz Into Somethin’” 3.Dr. Dre-“Nuthin’ But a G Thang” 4.Above the Law ft. 2Pac & Money B-“Call It What U Want” 5 ... More >>

East Versus West

Fifteen years later, L.A. is still divided between served and servers

Film Reviews

Including this week's pick, Edmond

My Urban Paradise

It takes a village to raise a city

Raging Against a Homophobe

Mr. Miller�s Tea Party

The ceremony of another L.A. police beating

Cracking the Clubbing Code

K-Town after dark

The Interregnum Riots

Was the uprising of �92 the end of black power?

Initiation by Fire

Hard lessons learned by a paper and a journalist when the city burned

Quiet Riot

Inglewood didn�t burn after the Jeremy Morse acquittal, but was it supposed to?

Our Dark Blue Places

Ellroy via Shelton, plus Till Human Voices Wake Us

The Bum Blockade, Zoot Suit Riot and Bloody Christmas

An anecdotal history of the LAPD

Copland

How blue is my valley

Just the Facts, Ma'am

Everything you wanted to know about the LAPD

Spiking the Punch

Everyone But the Gloved One

The usual suspects of black leadership, and then some, give it their all in Inglewood

Law and Disorder

The roughing-up of a handcuffed 16-year-old in Inglewood

Letters

The Burning Tree

Smoke Signals

'We Need Help'

History in Posters

Can�t Claremont Just Get Along?

Of Rodney King, Jesse Jackson and Irvin Landrum Jr.

Beating History

Hahn better hope voters forget his mistakes dealing with Daryl Gates and Rodney King

Rampart 2

The cowboy culture inside the LAPD�s 77th Street Division

Philadelphia Story

Like L.A., the City of Brotherly Love had to confront cowboy cops

The Rampart Street Gang

Where�s the chief? Where�s the mayor?

Wavemakers

At work and play in musical L.A.

Polls, Pols and Propositions

Twenty years of political coverage

91 Timeline