Rodney King spoke candidly of death. I recall a time last March when he and I were walking through his Rialto home. He looked at photos of the LAPD officers who'd beaten him. Without prompting, he opened up. "I'm just glad I survived what he did to me," he said, speaking of one of the officers, Stacey Koon. He held his two fingers about a quarter-inch apart. "I was this close to death," he said. "This close."He went on to say there were long moments that night in Lake View Terrace in 1991 when it felt as if he had, in fact, died. Moments when it seemed he was outside his body, looking down at a scene of horror below. King explained how, as boots and batons fell, as electricity from Tasers ripped through his body, he thought of what it was like for African slaves to withstanding whippings. The thought of what they went through helped him stay alive.Make no mistake, that wasn't the only time Rodney King could have died. He was extremely candid about his addiction to drugs and alcohol; about the damage he'd done to his body and how addiction could have cost him his life on several occasions. He felt lucky to have survived moments like the time in 2003 when he sped down a street in Rialto, high on PCP , and crashed into a tree.He compared himself to a cat. "They've only got nine lives," he said. "I don't want to get to nine."He was a man who wanted badly to get his life together. In my handful of visits with him this year it seemed as though he was headed in a positive direction. Sure, he was jobless and basically broke. But he had a loving fiance, and he was working hard to mend personal relationships that had frayed during two decades of instability and trouble.When I interviewed him, the 20th anniversary of the riots was coming up and also the release of a book — "The Riot Within: My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption" — he'd worked on with author Lawrence Spagnola. Because there were parts of the book I had to tell King about, I was never quite sure he'd read it. Or maybe he'd read it and couldn't remember. Still, a book tour was planned and he was excited. He told me he thought this year could be a new beginning for him. He thought maybe one day there would be a movie made about his life.Even when he imagined things going well he spoke of how nothing is promised to anyone, how any day might be his last. He didn't want to take his time on Earth for granted. Rodney King was raised by a deeply religious family of Jehovah's Witnesses. He said that before he passed on he needed to get closer to "Jehovah God." He said he was working on this. He promised he'd get there one day — even though to him that would mean giving up things like drinking.Right now, nobody knows what killed him. I do know that he hadn't stopped drinking. Of course, I couldn't know the full truth of his life in this regard. That was something only he had a handle on. But he told me he still smoked pot — for medical reasons. What I witnessed was a man still struggling against alcohol. He wasn't buying the notion that addicts cannot imbibe. "All addicts are different," he said. "And I'm different. I've learned that I'm one of those who can manage it."When I showed up at his house one morning about 9:30, he was carefully using a finger to dab peanut butter on his teeth. He explained that it was an old drinker's trick. Peanut butter masks the smell. When I pulled up at a Chevy's restaurant in Ontario for a lunch interview, I noticed him running to his car. He came back, breathing hard from the exertion, and explained that he'd gone back to his car to get his flask of apple cider and champagne. He had to make sure to have it before we spoke.Around me, those few times, his drinking was always just a sip here, a sip there. He was never out of control. When he offered me some and I turned him down he laughed at me. "Kurt, you're such a square," he laughed.He didn't want to be a square. He told me drinking helped take the edge off, helped keep a haunting past at bay.Rodney King had a striking physical presence. He was handsome, tall and strong. But underneath it all he seemed fragile. He spoke haltingly. When he talked about his life and all that had happened, it was clear that he cared deeply about others. He couldn't let go of the fact that 54 people died in the 1992 upheaval that he ruefully noted were known as "the Rodney King riots."On a wall in his backyard pool he used black tile to inscribe the dates of both the beating and the riots: 3/31/91 and 4/29/92.One day in March, I watched him sweeping leaves from the pool. He told me that he'd considered adding another inscription. He looked at the pool. "I thought of putting the number of people who died down there on the wall, the number 54," he said. "But that would be too much. Just too much death." ||||| On a dark street, what began as a private moment between a citizen and the police became a national outrage. 
 
 Rodney Glen King grew up in the Altadena Pasadena section of Los Angeles with four siblings, a loving mother, and an alcoholic father. Soon young Rodney followed in Dad's stumbling steps, beginning a lifetime of alcohol abuse. 
 
 King had been drinking the night of March 3, 1991, when he engaged in a high-speed chase with the LAPD, who finally pulled him over. What happened next shocked the nation. A group of officers brutally beat King with their metal batons, Tasered and kicked him into submission—all caught on videotape by a nearby resident. The infamous Rodney King Incident was born when this first instance of citizen surveillance revealed a shocking moment of police brutality, a horrific scene that stunned and riveted the nation via the evening news. Racial tensions long smoldering in L.A. ignited into a firestorm thirteen months later when four white officers were acquitted by a mostly white jury. Los Angeles was engulfed in flames as people rioted in the streets. More than fifty people were dead, hundreds were hospitalized, and countless homes and businesses were destroyed. 
 
 King's plaintive question, "Can we all just get along?" became a sincere but haunting plea for reconciliation that reflected the heartbreak and despair caused by America's racial discord in the early 1990s. 
 
 While Rodney King is now an icon, he is by no means an angel. King has had run-ins with the law and continues a lifelong struggle with alcohol addiction. But King refuses to be bitter about the crippling emotional and physical damage that was inflicted upon him that night in 1991. While this nation has made strides during those twenty years to heal, so has Rodney King, and his inspiring story can teach us all lessons about forgiveness, redemption, and renewal, both as individuals and as a nation. ||||| Rodney King Friends Are Not Buying Fiancee's Death Story 
 
 EXCLUSIVE 
 
 Two close friends ofthink his fiancée isn't telling the truth about what happened leading up to his death ... and they've voiced their suspicions to cops, TMZ has learned.As TMZ first reported, King's fiancee, Cynthia Kelley, says she was awakened by the sound of King banging on the window of their home just after 5:00 AM on Sunday ... and then heard him fall in the pool.But sources close to King tell TMZ they heard Kelley tell the story several times to friends ... only the story changed a little bit each time and it seemed to them that she was lying about something.We're told two of Kelley's friends who spoke with her in the hours following King's death have gone to police and spoke to a detective. Our source says the detective took down their story and their information and said he would be in touch.Rialto PD say so far they have discovered no signs of foul play, but they are conducting a drowning investigation and will perform an autopsy at some point.
– Two of Rodney King's close friends think his fiancée, Cynthia Kelley, is lying about what happened in the hours before his death. Kelley says King, who had reportedly been drinking and smoking weed, banged on the window of their house around 5am yesterday and then she heard a splash. But friends heard her tell the story a few times and say she altered it just a bit each time, and they've told both TMZ and the police they fear she's hiding something. Meanwhile, in the Los Angeles Times, Kurt Streeter recalls his series of interviews with King this year, and writes that King was still drinking and still smoking pot (for medical reasons, he said). "What I witnessed was a man still struggling against alcohol," Streeter writes, though King always appeared in control when the two saw each other and insisted he could manage his addiction. Despite his continuing struggles, Streeter writes, King appeared to be "headed in a positive direction," with a new book coming out, hopes for a movie about his life, and a loving fiancée. Hauntingly, Streeter also recalls that in the pool where he would eventually drown, King had inscribed two dates: 3/31/91, when he was beaten by police, and 4/29/92, when the resulting LA riots occurred. "I thought of putting the number of people who died [in the riots] down there on the wall, the number 54," King once said. "But that would be too much. Just too much death." Click to read Streeter's full piece.