Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 10, 1993 TAG: 9303100378
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
KING SAYS BEATING UNPROVOKED
Rodney King took the witness stand Tuesday for the first time since his videotaped beating and said he was "attacked" by police officers, including one who screamed racial insults and told him, "We're going to kill you."King, speaking in a soft voice, said he never attacked the officers accused of violating his civil rights.
"I was trying to stay alive," King, 27, told the jury.
King's testimony was his first detailed public account of the night the black motorist's speeding car was pursued by police officers until he stopped and then was beaten.
In cross-examination, two defense attorneys challenged the truthfulness of previous statements King made about the beating. King acknowledged he had lied to his parole officer in denying he was drunk and speeding when police chased him down.
"I was scared of going back to prison," he explained repeatedly. King had served time for robbery.
He also said that when he led police on the long chase, refusing to stop, "I was hoping the problem would go away. . . . I stopped at all the stoplights and stop signs and when I saw the problem wouldn't go away, I pulled over."
Defense attorney Michael Stone, who was cross-examining King when court recessed for the day, said King's testimony "hurt us a lot."
He promised to undermine the testimony when he resumes questioning King today.
The testimony in the federal trial of four white policemen came two years after the March 3, 1991, beating. Acquittals on almost all charges in a state trial last year led to three days of rioting.
King said the officers asked at one point how he felt. "I said I felt fine. I didn't want them to know what they were doing to me was really getting to me. I didn't want them to have the satisfaction."
Under questioning by prosecutor Barry Kowalski, King insisted he never resisted arrest and suggested that a female state Highway Patrol officer who first tracked him down for speeding could have handcuffed him if Los Angeles police had not intervened.
King said he was lying face down, trying to cooperate, when officers leaped on him and "one of them applied pressure like he was trying to snap my wrist in half." He said he screamed in pain, and then heard someone shout "Back!"
"They all backed away from me and I'm still on the ground waiting to be handcuffed and shortly after that I was shocked by a Taser."
Asked what the stun-gun darts felt like when they hit him, he said, "I got shocked and it felt like my blood was boiling inside of me."
Moments later, as he was on the ground, he said, he heard the shout: "`We're going to kill you nigger, run!' "
"I ran closer to the Hyundai [his car] and I was struck across the right side of the face again," King said, pointing to his temple. "To this day there is a bump right here."
Kowalski asked what King heard while being clubbed and kicked.
"I'm not exactly sure, but I heard while they were hitting me chants of `killer, nigger, how do you feel, killer?' "
He was asked Tuesday whether he truly remembered the officers say "nigger" or "killer." King said he wasn't sure.
Outside court, defense attorney Harland Braun noted that no other witness had reported hearing racial epithets, and so King couldn't be believed.
"His case will rest and fall on the question of whether there were any racial epithets," Braun said.
Two defense attorneys opened the door to damaging testimony from a doctor who said King's injuries were caused by baton blows to the head.
"Someone suggested it could be from a fall to the pavement. That is out of the question," said Dr. Charles Aronberg, chief of ophthalmology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
\ LOS ANGELES RIOTS\ Civil disturbance that erupted after the acquittals of four white police officers in the videotaped beating of Rodney King.\ \ Casualities: 54 dead, 2,383 injured.\ \ Jobs lost: Up to 20,000.\ \ Property damage: $1 billion throughout Los Angeles County.\ \ Commercial buildings damaged or destroyed: More than 4,000.\ \ Businesses damaged or destroyed: 10,000 (estimate).\ \ Homes destroyed or damaged: 33 single-family houses and 338 apartments.\ \ Overtime for police, fire and other public agencies: $138 million.