After his 1991 videotaped beating by four white Los Angeles police officers whose acquittal touched off the 1992 riots, Rodney G. King became an overnight celebrity who symbolized for many the perception of unfair treatment of young black men by police.
But, since then, the spotlight has shifted to King's long series of run-ins with police and domestic disputes.
Television cameras swarmed his house once again Thursday after an incident Wednesday night in which he told authorities that he was riding his bicycle after 11 p.m. in a dicey area near the border of San Bernardino and Rialto and was sprayed with pellets from a shotgun.
He reportedly pedaled his bike for roughly a mile to his Jackson Street home in Rialto before calling police and heading to the hospital in an ambulance.
Rialto police, who were the first to respond, said King was intoxicated when they arrived and that it was difficult to decipher what had happened.
"We sent a couple of officers out to his address here in Rialto, but he didn't really tell us a whole lot other than he'd been shot," said Rialto Police Sgt. Don Lewis. "It looked like birdshot, looked like a long-distance shot."
On Thursday morning, San Bernardino Police Lt. Scott Paterson said police were still trying to determine what "was factual."
In interviews with investigators who visited him Thursday afternoon at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, King reported that a man and a woman approached him and demanded his bicycle.
When he rode away, King told investigators, someone sprayed his shoulder with pellets from a shotgun. King had pellet wounds on his face, arm and back, Paterson said.
Police still seemed puzzled by the incident late Thursday.
Paterson said King offered few details about the suspects. "We are hoping somebody witnessed the incident."
The 1992 L.A. riots erupted after a jury acquitted the LAPD officers in the videotaped beating. King was launched into the media stratosphere with his famous "Can we all get along?" plea to stop the riots.
For a moment, he seemed headed toward a public role as a voice against police brutality -- speaking to students in Southern California and at rallies intended to draw attention to police abuse. He ruminated to Los Angeles Times Magazine in the late 1990s about aspirations to start a summer surfing youth foundation in which children of different races could spend time together and "make this world a better place to live."
