Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 18, 1993 TAG: 9304180086
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
TWO OFFICERS GUILTY IN KING TRIAL
In an extraordinary early morning conclusion to one of the most volatile criminal trials in American history, a federal jury Saturday returned guilty verdicts against two Los Angeles police officers for violating Rodney G. King's civil rights during an infamous 1991 arrest.Sgt. Stacey Koon - a coolly confident police officer who has rarely shown any hint of emotion through two criminal trials - sat stoically as the clerk to U.S. District Judge John G. Davies read the guilty verdict against him. As he listened, Laurence Powell, the officer who delivered most of the blows, went pale and licked his lips.
Powell's lawyer, Michael Stone, turned to him and whispered: "We're going down, bud."
Within seconds, that was borne out as Powell, too, was convicted. Later, the normally articulate Stone groped for words during an interview, fighting to overcome his emotion: "I was stunned," he said. "I just felt like, I just can't believe it. I can't believe 12 people could convict Larry."
The panel - a racially mixed eight-man, four-woman group sequestered since Feb. 25 in the downtown Los Angeles Hilton Hotel - completed its work against the backdrop of a city churning with angst and anticipation.
While Powell and Koon were convicted, the jury acquitted two other officers for their role in the March 3, 1991, arrest and beating. Prosecutors presented less evidence Rodney King believes "partial justice" done. A2 Why this jury convicted. A2 Officers' sentencing could be "interesting." A2 Barber-shop talk mixed on verdicts. D1 Community leaders react. D7 against Theodore Briseno and Timothy Wind, but even though they were acquitted, they, too, left the courtroom badly rattled by the convictions of their two colleagues. Briseno cried, his lawyer said.
Powell, Briseno and Wind were accused of kicking, stomping and striking King with batons, in the process depriving him of his civil rights to be safe from the intentional use of unreasonable force by police officers. Koon, the senior officer at the scene, did not strike King during the incident, but was indicted for allowing officers under his supervision to administer an unreasonable beating.
The verdicts ended a federal investigation that began two days after the incident and just hours after a videotape of the beating was first played on television - igniting what defense attorney Harland W. Braun on Saturday called a "prairie fire across the country and the world."
Almost exactly one year ago, a state court jury returned not-guilty verdicts against the same officers, and those verdicts touched off rioting that left more than 50 people dead in Los Angeles. Saturday, news of the federal convictions had the opposite effect: Spontaneous celebrations broke out and relief wafted through much of the city.
"Now it's time to just jump and shout for a few minutes before we go back to work," the Rev. Cecil L. "Chip" Murray said at his church, First African Methodist Episcopal.
"Today we celebrate, tomorrow starts to be more pragmatic."