Rodney King's finance cites he was drinking prior to his death

Rodney King passed away today from an apparent drowning in his pool. He was 47 years old.

"Can we all just get along?"

Rodney always seemed like a sad man to me even though I've read that he was a rather happy go lucky kind of guy at one point but the events surrounding his life were very sad.

In 1991 at the young age of 25 he was thrust into the limelight after the LAPD threatened him,  "we're going to kill you, nigger" and then they viciously beat him.  55 kicks later, King suffered internal injuries, a fractured skull and underwent 5 hours of surgery.

The beating was captured on tape and turned over to a local TV network. Four of the officers were later charged. King learned to forgive and move on with his life.

Rodney King's fiancée is telling friends Rodney had been drinking all day Saturday ... and had smoked weed in the hours leading up to his death ... sources close to King tell TMZ.

We will forever associate his name with the LA Riots and King became a symbol of civil rights and brought the issue of police brutality to light on a national scale. He suffered with alcohol addiction, was in and out of trouble and I'm pretty sure that things were never really the same for him after the LA incident.

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