Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 18, 1993 TAG: 9304180042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BARBER-SHOP TALK MIXED ON VERDICTS
Inside the Ebony Barber Salon in Roanoke on Saturday, customers and barbers strained to hear a television reporter's muffled voice broadcast the verdicts against four police officers accused of violating Rodney King's civil rights.But the one word that many had said they hoped to hear, cut loud and clear through the crackle of static.
"Guilty," the reporter said, repeating the verdict against Sgt. Stacey Koon.
Barber Brian Davis' arms shot straight into the air.
"Yes!" he shouted, stopping his scissors mid-clip. "One down, three to go."
A guilty verdict against Officer Laurence Powell and the acquittals of Officer Theodore Briseno and former Officer Timonty Wind, followed.
Davis' enthusiasm waned.
"I knew they were going to find those two not guilty," Davis said. "It's like they're saying, `We're going to give you half and keep half for us.' "
Others joined in Davis' reaction - that the two convicted police officers were made scapegoats, that a "different system" of justice existed for black people, that the trial's outcome might quell an expected outbreak of violence.
But when discussion at the Moorman Road Northwest barber shop turned to sentencing of the two convicted officers, opinions differed.
One barber, who asked that his name not be used, suggested the officers perform service in the black community.
"Give them some of our experiences," he said. "Don't give them a sentence."
"That's a smack on the wrist," Davis shot back.
"They didn't kill him," the other barber said.
"Aw, come on man," Davis said. "The punishment has to fit the crime. Give them the maximum 10 years."
"And then what?" the other barber asked. "You do 10 years and then you're back to your old self."
To prolong the tension created by the Rodney King trial with stiff sentences would serve little purpose, the barber said.
"There's got to be a healing process somewhere," he said. "Those people with religious and moral character should step forward and help the healing process."
Davis was quick to fault the Los Angeles Police Department and other law enforcement officials for fostering racist attitudes.
"Is there a way to get racism out of the system?" he asked. "In the L.A. trial, it was so blatantly obvious."
"Yeah," customer Dwight Holland chimed in. "Just because you are big and black, they think they can beat the crap out of you and get away with it. They say `We had to arrest him because he was resisting.' "
But the barber cautioned against condemning the entire L.A. Police Department for all the wrongs in the system.
"This is a purging process," he said of Saturday's guilty verdicts. "This is purging those working against justice, out of the system."