What did I do to deserve that type of pain.' // `I was just trying to stay alive'

What did I do to deserve that type of pain.' // `I was just trying to stay

alive'

Sally Ann Stewart;Haya El Nasser

03/10/1993

USA Today

FINAL

Page 01A

LOS ANGELES _ The voice was gentle. The speech halting. The tone confident.

And the words chilling.

"When he said: `Oh, we're going to kill you nigger, run.' I got up and ran. That's

when I was struck."

Rodney Glen King, after two years of virtual silence, took the stand Tuesday in

the federal trial of four white police officers accused of violating his civil rights _

and gave his first public account of the events of March 3, 1991.

A more slender King, wearing a charcoal-gray pinstripe suit, white shirt and

purple-and-pink abstract print tie, drew a graphic picture of his videotaped

beating. Jurors, some jotting notes, seemed to hang on every word.

As police batons struck him, King said, "They (police officers) were chanting:

`How do you feel killer, huh? How do you feel nigger, huh?"

He was asked whether he truly remembered the officers saying "nigger" or

"killer." King said he wasn't sure.

Prosecutor Barry Kowalski asked how the beating felt.

"It felt like when you get up in the middle of the night and you jam your toe,"

said King.

"My whole body was struck. . . . Every time I would get hit, it felt like jamming

your toe in a piece of metal. . . . There was an enormous amount of pain."

After the beating, "I was having trouble remembering exactly what went on but I

know for sure I was attacked by police officers."

Anger rarely seeped into King's voice _ except when he shared his emotions after

watching himself being beaten on video _ a tape he said he saw about 10 times.

"It's sickening to see it. It makes me sick to my stomach to watch it," King said

during 40 minutes of questioning by prosecutors.

His final words under direct examination: "I was just trying to stay alive, sir . . .

Just trying to stay alive. I never had a chance to stay still."

His testimony moved many in the jammed courtroom.

"The words, `I was just trying to stay alive', really hit home," said Richard

Burns, 53, a furloughed aerospace worker who's been in court every day since

the start of testimony.

Tuesday, Burns got in line at 6 a.m. to make sure he could hear King testify.

"I really felt for him," said Burns. "Now, there's no doubt in my mind. There's no

truth to what the officers have been saying at all."

One observer sobbed as King described being shot with a Taser gun and hit by

batons.

The stun gun, King said, made it feel "like my blood was boiling inside of me."

Defendant Theodore Briseno leaned forward, elbows on knees, cupping his chin.

Odessa King listened attentively to her son's testimony.

"This has been painful for us," she said entering the courtroom. "But he has been

looking forward to this, to coming and telling his side of the story."

And seemingly everyone wanted to hear it.

"It feels like opening night," said Mona Shafer Edwards, KABC-TV courtroom

artist, as she began sketching King. "It's what everyone is waiting for."

Ruth Ferguson, 65, said she came from Washington, D.C., for Tuesday's

testimony. "I wanted to see Rodney King. He seemed to be doing real good. I

just hope he gets a fair shake."

Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson thought King "did what he had to

do, which was come across as somebody not perfect but who still didn't deserve

to be beaten like that."

Said lawyer Barry Levin, a former Los Angeles police officer: King will

probably be "the prosecution's best witness."

But defendant Stacey Koon, a suspended police sergeant, said King's testimony

would damage neither Koon's defense nor his conscience: "He's just another

arrestee out of thousands. Seeing Rodney King is not going to bother me."

King is expected back on the stand today for lengthy cross-examination by the

defense.

Lawyer Paul DePasquale, defending fired rookie officer Timothy Wind, is

expected to engage in the lengthiest cross-examination. But it may not be the

most contentious.

Tuesday, King faced an obviously testy Michael Stone, the lawyer representing

suspended officer Laurence Powell, who is seen on the videotape striking King

the most.

Stone honed in on King's weight loss in an attempt to show jurors that King's

physique was more threatening at the time of the incident.

He also focused on King's past criminal record and his behavior when police

tried to stop him. And he pointed out inconsistencies in King's statements to

police and his parole officer _ all an effort to cloud King's credibility.

"Speeding and drinking and lying to the police because you didn't want to go

back to prison. . . . You knew at the time you weren't telling the truth," Stone

said to King.

But even Stone later said King "looked very good. He was mild-mannered, polite

and thoughtful. All of these things spell credibility."

Jurors probably think King is telling the truth, Stone said, "but I'm sure further

developments will prove otherwise."

Stone also pointed out that King had a strong motive to appear credible today _ a

multimillion-dollar civil suit against the city that is on hold until the federal trial

is over.

To almost all observers, King was a much different witness than state prosecutor

Terry White expected last year in the four officers' first trial.

White was criticized for not putting King on the stand, especially when the

officers were acquitted on all but one count of excessive force.

The verdicts sparked the costliest riots in U.S. history.

White, in a July 1992 interview with Vanity Fair, said King was so angered by

the beating that he feared King would lose his temper in court.

King testified that he is no angel. Prosecutors asked him about his drinking the

night of the beating; he freely admitted "I had a lot to drink."

And he said that when he saw the flashing lights behind him, "I kind of thought

the problem would just go away."

King's resolve will be tested further today. But legal experts think defense

lawyers would be wise to get him off the stand as soon as possible.

"Attempting to beat him down or having him slander himself through his own

lips is probably a harsh mistake," Levin said. "Jurors will then think lawyers are

taking advantage of Rodney King."

If defense lawyers insist on grilling King another whole day, prosecutors could

have a field day in closing arguments.

They'll argue "they beat him up in person and they beat him up again in court,"

said John Gilleland, a jury consultant.

But to Vartan Sarkisian, a Glendale dental technician who has been in court

daily, King is "a witness they can't knock down . . . He's the home run ball. If

they don't do it with him, they've lost the case."

Contributing: James Harney and Jonathan T. Lovitt

GRAPHIC,color,David Rose,AP(Illustration)