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Rodney King, who caught international attention in1991 after he was beaten up by four Los Angeles police officers on video tape, is now recovering from being shot in California on Wednesday.
According to police, King’s wounds are not life-threatening. He was hit in the face, arms, back and torso by birdshot fired from a shotgun when he was on a street corner, Los Angeles Times reported.
42-year-old King called the police to report about being shot while he was riding his bicycle in the Los Angeles suburb of San Bernardino late Wednesday.
"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," Rialto Police sergeant Don Lewis said.
"He took some pellets to his face, back and upper torso ... It looked like birdshot, looked like long-distance shot."
According to King, he was approached by a man and a woman who asked for his bicycle. As he rode away, he felt pellets from a shotgun gushing on his shoulders. However, it was not immediately clear who fired the shot.
"(King) and the whole house were very intoxicated and very uncooperative," Lewis added.
On Thursday morning, San Bernardino Police Lt. Scott Paterson said police were still trying to determine what "was factual," as King offered few details about the suspects. "We are hoping somebody witnessed the incident."
Following his 1991 amateur videotaped beating by four white police officers, whose acquittal led to race riots that devastated the city, King became an overnight celebrity who symbolized for many the perception of unfair treatment of young black men by police. He sued the city over the beating and obtained a $3.8 million settlement.
King’s run-ins with the law ever since have made headlines, including his 2003 arrest for punching one of his girlfriends and the 2006 scandal when he threatened to kill his daughter and his daughter’s mother, after the two got into a brawl with his then girlfriend.
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