By David Bradvica

Staff Writer

POMONA -- Rodney King, whose videotaped beating at the hands of police officers led to the 1992 Los Angeles riots, has been arrested in the Inland Valley for the third time in the past six weeks.

Officers arrested King about
1 a.m. Saturday morning after they found him trying to start a vehicle near the corner of 9th and Parcells streets while under the influence of PCP, Lt. Darrell Cummings said.

Officers were responding to a report of a man who appeared intoxicated. They found King to display objective symptoms of PCP intoxication, Cummings said.

King, a 36-year-old Altadena resident, was booked into Pomona City Jail on suspicion of driving under the influence of a controlled substance. He was released Saturday afternoon after posting $2,500 bail, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department booking records.

He was ordered to appear in Pomona Superior Court on Tuesday.

Saturday's arrest was the second by Pomona police in the past two weeks and is the latest in a series of run-ins with the law in the past few years for King, who was thrust onto the world stage when an amateur photographer videotaped members of the Los Angeles Police Department beating him at the end of a chase in the San Fernando Valley on March 3, 1991.

The 1992 riots began after a jury in Simi Valley acquitted the four officers involved in King's beating. Two officers were later convicted in federal court of violating King's civil rights.

King got a $3.8 million settlement from the city of Los Angeles in 1994 but has since spent the past few years embroiled in legal disputes with the civil attorneys who helped him win the settlement.

Since that settlement, a series of run-ins with the law have kept King in the news.

He already is scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 9 regarding two separate misdemeanor charges of being under the influence of PCP and a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure. One of the drug charges and the indecent exposure charges stem from a Sept. 29 arrest by Pomona police at Ganesha Park, where visitors had complained that he was jumping on an ice chest and exposing himself.

The other drug charge stems from an Aug. 28 arrest by Claremont police after King complained to a motel clerk that his car had been stolen. His car wasn't stolen - his girlfriend had taken it out to run an errand - but the clerk called police after noticing that King appeared intoxicated, police said.

Those charges - even before Saturday morning's arrest - have prompted San Bernardino County prosecutors to say that they intend to file a petition revoking his probation, a move that could result in jail time for King. King was placed on five years of unsupervised probation in June 1999 after he admitted to abusing the mother of his teen-aged daughter.

He spent 90 days in jail as part of the plea bargain for that incident.

David Bradvica can be reached by e-mail at d_bradvica@dailybulletin.com or by phone at (909) 483-9381.