LA reporter: Broken Rodney King really did want everyone to get along
Jun 18, 2012, 10:14 AM | Updated: Oct 11, 2024, 1:30 pm

![]() A man made famous |
A man made famous after his videotaped beating by police
sparked one of the nation’s worst race riots, has been in
and out of the spotlight for the last two decades. With
stints on Celebrity Rehab and an occasional boxing match,
Rodney King has been perceived many different ways.
A reporter who spent a good deal of time with him says of
all the images people might have, the truest picture of
Rodney King came from his famous statement, ‘Can we all
get along?’
“That’s Rodney King,” LA Times writer, and Roosevelt High
School grad, Kurt Streeter tells 97.3 KIRO FM’s Ross and Burbank Show.
“That deep down is Rodney King, that guy. That is his core
self.”
King was found dead around 5:30 a.m. Sunday at the bottom
of the swimming pool at his Rialto, Calif. home.
His death at age 47 is being treated as an apparent
drowning and there are no signs of foul play, but Capt.
Randy De Anda says autopsy results will be needed to
determine whether drugs or alcohol were a factor.
King who once appeared on the TV show “Celebrity Rehab”
with Dr. Drew, wasn’t shy about his challenges with drugs
and alcohol. Streeter says in their meetings, King was
often nursing a drink of some kind.
“He drank around me, which I found surprising,” says
Streeter. “I would think he might be on a little better
behavior around a reporter. But he had no problem with
it. He was very, very candid about the things that he had
gone through with addiction.”
In Streeter’s observation, King used alcohol and drugs as
a coping mechanism.
“He told me he felt like he needed to have a little
something in his system to kind of take the edge off,”
says Streeter. “All that he’d been through, it was really
rough. It really weighed on him heavy. You could see the
way that alcohol or a little bit of pot could just make
everyday go a little bit easier.”
Streeter, who met with King on several occasions,
including a fishing outing, says they got along well. He
says being a black male, around the same age, they had a
good deal in common. Hearing news of King’s death,
Streeter says, was difficult.
“I really liked Rodney King,” says Streeter.
While King was good company in their meetings where they
would often just shoot the breeze, Streeter says it was
also clear that he was a very complicated guy.
“On the one hand, I was really surprised at how happy he
could be and how fun loving he was,” says Streeter. “But
underneath it all, there was a deep sadness that was just
clear for everybody to see, a fragility, brokenness to
him, that was really sad to see.”
Expectations from the public, and the public’s perception
also seemed to have an impact on the man who really just
by accident became a public figure.
“To some, he was a hero, to some he was vilified,” says
Streeter. “Some people didn’t like to hear, ‘Can we all
get along?'[…]They’re like, ‘Can we all get along? What?
With everything we’ve been through.'”
“Many people feel he let them down because in their eyes
he could have been this icon, this healing force, like
Rosa Parks. They wanted way too much of him and he was not
able to deliver,” says Streeter. “He got arrested time and
again. He got hooked on PCP, all of those things. People
felt like, ‘Oh man, we’d invested hopes and dreams in this
guy.'”
Another reporter who interviewed King around the same time
says she asked him if he would have opted out of the whole
experience if he could have.
“The one thing he said that I thought was fascinating is,
‘If it had to happen to somebody, I’m glad it happened to
me,'” National Public Radio Reporter Karen Grigsby Bates
tells 97.3 KIRO FM’s Ross and Burbank
Show. “He said, ‘What I mean is, look at me. I’m a big
guy. If they’d done that to somebody your size, we
wouldn’t be talking about it, because you’d be dead.'”
King told her that most people couldn’t have survived the
beating and he was proud that he had lived to be able to
talk about it.
Putting himself in King’s place, Streeter says he doesn’t
know if he could have lived through it all in as admirable
a way.
“He could joke and laugh, and I was surprised for all that
he’s been through,” says Street. “I came away many days
with him thinking, man if that was me, would I be that
happy? Would I be able to put that kind of game face on? I
don’t know. I probably would be just under the covers
depressed everyday. So he was remarkable that way.”
By JAMIE GRISWOLD, MyNorthwest.com Editor
The
Associated Press contributed to this report.