He Videotaped the Rodney King Beating. Now, He Is Auctioning the Camera

When Rodney King was on the ground, getting kicked, hit with batons and shot with Tasers by several members of the Los Angeles Police Department in 1991, the episode was captured on video by a man who lived across the street from the attack and happened to have a new camcorder.

There were police sirens, cars screeching to a stop and the sound of a helicopter “circling super low right above us,” the man, George Holliday, recalled recently. It woke up him and his wife.

Mr. Holliday didn’t realize exactly what the commotion was, he said, but he instinctively grabbed his video camera, which he had bought about a month earlier, and went out on his balcony to record the scene. “You know how it is when you have a new piece of technology,” he said. “You film anything and everything.”

Now Mr. Holliday, 61, is auctioning the camera he used to capture the attack on Mr. King. The starting bid is $225,000.