King in rehabilitation as fortune drains away

Shadowed by trouble since uttering his famous "Can we all get along" plea, Rodney King will spend the 10th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots in a Pomona rehabilitation center.

Rodney King during a 1992 press conference. (A.P.)

The drug use and indecent exposure charges that sent him there are just the latest in a long string of legal entanglements for the man whose name will be forever linked to the race riots that left 54 people dead and caused $1 billion in property damage.

His constant run-ins with law enforcement have frustrated African-Americans who hoped he could have become something else, a hero in the struggle against police brutality. Instead, King seems to have reinforced the image many non-African-Americans held of him, as an incorrigible hoodlum.

"He's a tragic figure," said Renford Reese, a political science professor at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, who has counseled King. "He had a chance to do great things but was shackled by missed opportunities ... He is literally oblivious to what his name means."

King is halfway through a 12-month sentence at the American Recovery Center after pleading guilty last October to three misdemeanor counts of being under the influence of PCP and one count of indecent exposure. Police say he exposed himself in a park.

In the decade since the riots, the soft-spoken janitor's son and former usher at Dodger Stadium has had repeated problems with alcohol, drugs and domestic violence.

His legal battles and short-lived effort to start a rap recording label have consumed most of the $3.8 million settlement he received from the city of Los Angeles for the March 3, 1991, beating at the hands of four white LAPD officers.

Between scrapes with the law, King, now 36, has tried to make his life better. He earned his high school-equivalency degree, honed his surfing skills and went to work for his brother's construction company.

He even moved from Pasadena to San Bernardino County to escape the spotlight, but it seemed he couldn't outrun his problems or his notoriety.

Reese once had King speak to his political science class.

"A black woman asked why he couldn't stay out of trouble," Reese recalled. "He didn't answer the question."

King did not respond to a written request for an interview sent to the rehabilitation center. His lawyer, Renee L. Campbell, said he was not granting interviews.

Acquaintances hope King can find a way to turn his life around at the center.

"The last time I talked to him, he was very determined to shake the monkey off his back," said attorney Antonio Bestard, who represented King in the drug and indecent exposure case.

Reese attributed King's recurring problems to a lack of positive support, especially among African-American organizations.

"They should have been the ones to embrace Rodney King," he said. "They should have known he would become an icon of racial reconciliation and police reform."

King's Arrests

Rodney King has had numerous run-ins with the law since his March 1991 beating by four white Los Angeles police officers:

May 1991. Arrested on suspicion of trying to run down a police officer who allegedly saw a transvestite prostitute get into King's car in Hollywood. No charges filed.
June 1992. Arrested after his wife called police during a domestic dispute. No charges filed.
July 1992. Arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in Orange after backing up quickly and skidding to a halt in a parking lot. No charges filed.
August 1993. Arrested on suspicion of drunken driving after backing his vehicle into a wall outside a nightclub in Los Angeles. Pleaded no contest, placed on three years probation, fined $1,500 and sentenced to community service.
May 1995. Arrested in New Union Township, Pa., on suspicion of drunken driving after the vehicle got stuck in a muddy yard. Tried on charge of drunken driving despite conflicting information about who was behind the wheel. Acquitted by jury.
July 1995. Booked for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon and domestic violence after allegedly using his car to try to run down his wife in Alhambra. Acquitted of those charges but convicted of misdemeanor hit-and-run and sentenced to 90 days in Los Angeles County Jail.
June 1999. Pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor charges that he struck his 16-year-old daughter and her mother and vandalized property. Placed on four years probation and ordered to spend 90 days in San Bernardino County Jail.
October 2001. Pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of being under the influence of PCP and one count of indecent exposure. Ordered to spend one year at a live-in drug treatment center in Pomona.

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