Incident Gives City a National Black Eye : Image: Old memories of free-swinging cops are revived. Some compare situation to actions of Saddam Hussein’s security forces in Kuwait.

The shadowy scene of police officers last Sunday clubbing the prone body of Rodney Glen King, who was stopped for speeding, aroused shock and disbelief across the country and revived old and painful memories of a city patrolled by free-swinging cops.

The widely watched video, which was aired on network television, also brought warnings from residents of other cities, such as Miami and Philadelphia, who have seen their cities pay a high price, in dollars and blood, when police-community relations reach a flash point.

In Dallas, Police Chief William Rathburn, a former Los Angeles police official, condemned the beating incident as “gross criminal misconduct,” according to Dallas Mayor Annette Strauss. Rathburn left the Los Angeles department last year to take over a Dallas department racked by accusations of excessive force.

Drew Days, a Yale law professor and former assistant attorney general in charge of civil rights enforcement under President Jimmy Carter, criticized Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates for not immediately condemning the conduct of the officers involved in the beating. “It is astounding that anybody could look at that film and not conclude that those police officers were violating someone’s civil rights,” Days said.

Los Angeles officials acknowledged that airing of the videotape has set off a storm of criticism. “There has been a widespread, extremely negative reaction that spans the United States and Canada,” said attorney Dan Garcia, a member of the Los Angeles Police Commission and a confidant of Mayor Tom Bradley.

“We’ve even had callers compare the situation with the activities of Saddam Hussein’s security forces in Kuwait,” Garcia said. “People saying how ironic it is that just as we are congratulating ourselves for getting rid of the Iraqi tyrant, we are confronted with images of our own police doing similar things right at home.”

Estimating that the Police Commission has received more than 100 calls about the beating, Garcia said he thought it was unfair for people to conclude, on the basis of one incident, that “there seems to be an inability to control police excesses in this city. . . . But clearly,” he said, “that is the impression out there.”

“We are receiving calls from all over the country from people expressing shock, outrage and disgust,” said Philip J. Depoian, special counselor to Bradley. “These were not just calls from Los Angeles, but from San Francisco, Canada, New Hampshire, Hawaii and all over the place. I have two lines in my office and we took more than 150 calls.”

“An incident like this doesn’t help the city,” said Michael Collins, spokesman for the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau. “Anything that can be portrayed as more than an isolated incident can have a terribly damaging impact on the city. Something like this needs to be resolved very quickly.”

Collins said his office has also received calls from around the country from people who saw the police beating on television. “People are very angry,” he said.

Others close to the mayor said it is important for Bradley to emphasize that the beating of King was an extraordinary departure from normal police practices.

“What the city needs to do is characterize it as an aberration,” said one of Bradley’s advisers who asked not to be named. “The big issue is going to be just how typical this is of local police conduct with the ACLU, the media and others dredging up all the old cases.”

The beating of King, however, was not regarded as an isolated incident. Indeed, early-morning viewers of NBC’s “Today Show” on Wednesday were treated to an impromptu conversation between anchorman Bryant Gumbel, co-host Joe Garagiola and other Today regulars about three other instances of alleged police misconduct in Los Angeles and Long Beach. The behavior of Los Angeles police was implicitly compared with that of police in the South, notorious in the past for mistreatment of blacks and civil rights workers. The conversation followed an interview by Gumbel with Bradley and the playing of the videotape of the King beating.

The notion that Los Angeles is a town of tough cops did not originate on the “Today Show.”

“I learned something about the image of the Police Department 30 years ago,” said Harry Usher, a partner in an executive search firm who was the general manager of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. “Back in 1959, long before Daryl Gates was police chief, I was a cook on the Santa Fe Railroad between Chicago and L.A. and the rap then was that you had better watch your Ps and Qs when you got to L.A. because the police were pretty overbearing.”

Days, who directed the prosecution of hundreds of civil rights cases against police officers accused of misconduct, said he was not surprised by what he saw on the videotape.

“My sense is that Los Angeles long has promoted a permissive attitude with respect to police use of excessive force,” said Days, now a professor of constitutional law at Yale.

Los Angeles Police Commissioner Melanie Lomax said she is not convinced that what happened to King was an isolated event.

“I’m not convinced this is an aberration (as Gates suggested Tuesday). Many people in minority communities say it happens all the time. Black and Hispanic men have been singled out for a different form of justice by the police.

In other cities, where police conduct has ignited community outrage, officials and other observers warn of the consequences.

“For years, the African-American conventions would not come to Boston in the wake of the school busing controversy,” said Neil Sullivan, chief policy adviser to Mayor Raymond L. Flynn.

Sullivan said the conventioneers watched how police handled demonstrators protesting school segregation and concluded that the city was a hostile place for black people.

Columnist Acel Moore, a 30-year-veteran of the Philadelphia Inquirer, said the image of a city can suffer for years after a police-community crisis has been resolved.

“The Philadelphia Convention and Tourist Bureau did a survey that found that a lot of groups didn’t want to come because of a perception of the city as kind of police state, long after the reputation wasn’t warranted,” Moore said.

In Dallas, said Mayor Strauss, a series of police shootings in 1987 resulted in racial tension that “tore at the fabric of the city.”

In homes across America, many were outraged as they turned on their television sets and saw the pictures of the police actions.

Some of those who called Bradley’s office were interviewed.

Edward Viens, a 48-year-old antique dealer in Coventry, R.I., said he was so angry he called Bradley’s office.

“It was the most disgusting thing I ever saw,” he said. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Everyone of those cops should have their badges taken away and they should be thrown in jail.

“I love Los Angeles. My niece just moved out there but I’m nervous about her being there now,” he said. “When I saw those pictures I kept thinking that the only thing those police were lacking were the white robes.”

Elizabeth Hart, a cashier in a family restaurant in Rutland, Vt., said: “It’s ironic that after watching atrocities in Kuwait, we get to turn on the television to see atrocities in our back yard in Los Angeles.

“In Vermont, we treat animals more humanely in death than this man was treated by the Los Angeles police,” she said. “Here in Rutland there is a great deal of outrage about this.”