PAPER SAYS WITNESSES BACK KING

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 22, 1993                   TAG: 9302220101
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Short
PAPER SAYS WITNESSES BACK KING
An internal police report on the videotaped beating of Rodney King says civilian witnesses reported seeing King comply with officers' orders before he was beaten, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Nine witnesses told investigators that King did not exhibit the bizarre behavior officers on the scene described, and that he did not appear to be uncontrollable, as the police said.
"It seemed to me he was obeying orders," said Dorothy Shimes, a nurse who lives in an apartment building across the street from where King was stopped after leading officers on a freeway chase.
"They told him to get down on the ground, and I looked and saw him on the ground with his arms spread out," Shimes told the Pasadena Star-News.
Shimes lives in an apartment below George Holliday, who videotaped the beating in suburban Lake View Terrace.
Shimes' account matches that of other citizen witnesses, including a bus driver who was stopped behind the police cars that surrounded King after the freeway chase, the newspaper said.
"King went down to the ground without resistance and was giving himself up," driver Javier Martinez told the newspaper through an interpreter.
Opening arguments are expected today in the federal trial of four Los Angeles officers accused of violating King's civil rights.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB