Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 9, 1991 TAG: 9103090299
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
The district attorney's office said that instead of filing charges itself, it would begin presenting its case before a grand jury Monday "in order to get the matter to trial as soon as possible."
The widely televised amateur video showed several officers taking turns beating and stomping on the man, who offered no apparent resistance and weathered the barrage lying on the ground.
Witnesses said King pleaded throughout the beating for officers to stop.
"The decision to take the matter to the grand jury was made to avoid a lengthy and time-consuming preliminary hearing of any charges against the officers involved," district attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said.
Also Friday, a doctor for Rodney King, 25, said King suffered a fractured eye socket, broken cheekbone, broken leg, bruises, facial nerve damage, a severe concussion and burns from a Taser stun gun in the March 3 beating.
"It is a horrible, horrible, brutal beating," said Dr. Edmund Chein.
"I don't think Saddam Hussein treated our POWs any worse than this."
He said King may never recover from some of the injuries.
Police Chief Daryl Gates on Thursday had asked that criminal charges be filed against three officers. Those officers have been suspended with pay and were to be suspended without pay "once the criminal complaints and the administrative charges are filed," Mayor Tom Bradley said Friday.
Charges against the three likely would include assault with a deadly weapon and assault under color of authority, Gates said. At least 12 other officers at the scene face possible departmental disciplinary action, he said.
Gates acknowledged that King was hit with batons more than 50 times, kicked at least seven times and shocked with a stun gun.
Prosecutors refused to file charges against King, a construction worker from Altadena.
The beating was videotaped by George Holliday, an amateur photographer trying out a new camera.
American Civil Liberties Union lawyers called for Gates to resign, and said Bradley and the City Council should take action to remove him.
Gates said Friday that he wouldn't resign because "the nature of this job is that you're going to take a lot of heat."
Official police accounts of King's arrest differed sharply from accounts from King and witnesses.
Police said King resisted arrest, while King and witnesses say he did not. The video showed no resistance.
by CNB