King, Rod ‧ ney /ˈrɒdni $ ˈrɑːd-/ BrE AmE
(1966–) an African-American man who was violently attacked by a group of white police officers in Los Angeles in 1991. The attack was filmed by a member of the public, and this film was later shown on US television. When the police officers were judged in a court of law in 1992, the ↑ jury decided that they were not guilty of being too violent, and this led to ↑ riot s (=violent public protests) in Los Angeles. Many people in the US thought that this event proved that African Americans were still not being treated fairly by the legal system.