Cameraman’s Test Puts Him in the Spotlight

George Holliday wasn’t thinking about civil rights early Sunday when he aimed his new video camera at the street below his second-floor apartment and documented a scene that has shocked the nation.

Getting the gadget to work and capturing “just a bit of action on my new camcorder” were the chief concerns of the Lake View Terrace resident, who admits he was barely aware of what was unfolding as he filmed it.

Only when he popped the tape into his VCR a few minutes later did Holliday begin to appreciate what he had. Even then, he said Wednesday, he figured it might earn a short spot on the local news.

Instead, the tape he sold to television station KTLA for $500 was broadcast nationally by Cable News Network and other networks, its graphic portrait of police violence stirring a public outcry and prompting investigations by the Los Angeles Police Department, the county district attorney and the FBI.

“I really didn’t think it was going to turn out this way,” said Holliday.

Like many tenants of the Mountain Back Apartments at 11777 Foothill Blvd., Holliday, 31, was awakened by the sound of helicopters and went to his balcony where he saw an arrest taking place at the corner of Osborne Street.

Holliday, who manages a plumbing business in North Hollywood, had been taping just about anything to practice using his SONY Handicam--”a cat licking its paw,” he said, giving one example. The same tape depicting the beating of Rodney Glen King of Altadena includes footage Holliday shot at a neighborhood bar, where Arnold Schwarzenegger has been filming “Terminator II.”

“By the time I got the camera on they were hitting him, and I just happened to get that action,” Holliday said. “I guess I didn’t realize until I watched it on TV that they were hitting him.”

Holliday phoned the TV station the next day and was nonchalantly told to drop off his tape. An hour after he brought it in his phone rang: It was the station, saying “we want to talk to you right now.”

The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since--at work or at home.

“I haven’t been able to do any work today,” said Holliday, who seemed barely fazed by calls from TV stations as far away as Atlanta and Minneapolis.

Nor is he worried about possible repercussions.

“A lot of people are telling me, ‘Hey, watch out!’ I personally don’t think anything’s going to happen but my wife is afraid,” said Holliday, who said he is reserving judgment on his now-famous tape.

“I didn’t see what started the beating,” Holliday said. “All I know is when I came out, this was going on.”