Where are they now?

A look back at the key figures in the 1992 Los Angeles uprising

The beating victim: Rodney King is spending a year in a Pomona, Calif., drug treatment center after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges, including driving under the influence of PCP and indecent exposure. At the time of his arrest, he was on probation for spousal abuse. The city of Los Angeles settled a civil suit by paying King $3.8 million for his 1991 beating. Since then, King has had numerous run-ins with the law, and also worked in construction, took up surfing and started his own rap music label.

The convicted officers: Stacy Koon, left, served 30 months in

federal prison for supervising the King beating. After his release, he became a house husband in the Southern California town of Castaic. During his trial, he made millions off a book and a direct-mail appeal. He reportedly is employed.

Laurence Powell, right, has made few, if any, public statements since serving his 30-month federal prison term; his current status is unknown.

The acquitted officers: Ted Briseno, left, works in private security in Southern California.

Timothy Wind, right, is a law student at Indiana University.

The federal prosecutors: Steven D. Clymer has been teaching law at Cornell University law school and working part time in the U.S. attorney's office in the northern district of New York on health care fraud. Lawrence Middleton is chief of the public corruption and government fraud section of the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles. Barry Kowalski is special legal counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, where he has participated in a number of police misconduct and racial and abortion violence cases. His reinvestigation of the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination ended with a June 2000 report but no new charges. Since Sept. 11, Kowalski has been coordinating the response to hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims.

The riot victim: Reginald Denny is living and working in Arizona as a boat mechanic, having been forced to give up driving big rigs due to seizures and medication stemming from his beating. Attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. represented Denny and other riot victims in a $40 million civil lawsuit accusing racist police of abandoning the inner-city streets where they were injured. The suit was thrown out. Denny's story is featured in Fame for 15, a new cable series on TNN.

The riot assailant: Damien Williams is in jail awaiting trial on murder and robbery charges for a 2000 slaying in South Central Los Angeles. The case could bring the death penalty to Williams, who served about four years of a seven-year prison term for the Denny beating. He has pleaded innocent to the murder and robbery charges.

The videotaper: George Holliday owns his own plumbing business in Southern California.

- Gale Holland

Gale Holland is a freelance journalist in Los Angeles. She writes a monthly media column for the Los Angeles Times Sunday Opinion section.

Copyright Crisis Publishing Company, Incorporated Mar/Apr 2002
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