California police say 1990s beating victim Rodney King was found dead on Sunday. King was found in a pool. There were no signs of foul play.
King was at the centre of a controversial case that triggered the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
He was 26 years old when a group of white police officers brutally beat him while a bystander videotaped them from his apartment window on March 3, 1991.
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A year later, on April 29, 1992, an all-white jury acquitted four police officers over his assault.
Hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets in anger, igniting a wave of deadly violence and arson that swept through large areas of Los Angeles.
There were 54 riot-related deaths and nearly $1 billion in property damage as the seams of the city blew apart.
In later years, King said he was at peace with what happened to him.
“I would change a few things, but not that much,” he told the Los Angeles Times last year on the 20th anniversary of the riots. “Yes, I would go through that night, yes I would. I said once that I wouldn’t, but that’s not true. It changed things. It made the world a better place.”
King was 47.
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