Rodney King, 20 years after L.A.'s riots

On the 20th anniversary of the L.A. riots, the victim of now-fabled LAPD abuse talks about life and its lessons.

In 21 years, his name has appeared in the Los Angeles Times on more than 7,000 occasions. Sometimes it's as himself, Rodney King, the victim of now-fabled LAPD abuse the world got to see, the plaintiff in a civil lawsuit, the hapless guy getting stopped yet again on some speeding or DUI beef, the man on the celebrity rehab show. And sometimes it's as "Rodney King," the accidental symbol and the rallying cry on police abuse issues. Some of the biggest institutions in Southern California — the Los Angeles Police Department, the city itself — were changed because of the beating King took in 1991 and the beating the city took in 1992 in the riots that followed the acquittal of the officers charged in his beating. Has the man himself changed? On the 20th anniversary of the riots, his book, "The Riot Within,"' written with Lawrence J. Spagnola, is letting us, and King himself, find out.

silk plants fifty flowers table decorations