Beating Rekindles Anxiety : Reaction: Blacks’ horror is combined with a sense of relief that police brutality has been uncovered.

Perry Camp, a 41-year-old Los Angeles businessman, remembers one of his first thoughts as he watched the televised scenes of Rodney G. King being brutally beaten by Los Angeles police officers--”There but for the grace of God go I.”

As he sees it, it is not that most African-Americans expect trouble whenever a police officer approaches. But there is a disquieting sense that something could happen. Camp, like many Los Angeles-area blacks, says he knows how easily even innocent contacts with the police can unexpectedly turn ugly--resulting in pain, violence, humiliation, even death.

When the video of King’s beating aired last week, Camp used the moment to talk to his two teen-age sons about the need to be cautious with a police officer. “It’s one of the lessons of survival you try to teach to your children,” he said. “I would like for them to have respect for authority, but not to fear it.”

While Camp was counseling his teen-agers, the world was responding with shock and horror to the homemade video showing three police officers kicking and inflicting more than 50 blows on King with their nightsticks. For some African-Americans, their horror was combined with a sense of relief that the practice of brutality had been uncovered.

“The truth is they got caught,” said Harold Smith, a 49-year-old Watts resident who was packing a load of groceries into his car. “If there wasn’t a videotape they would have lied about it. It would have been a whitewash. They would have said that that kid caused it all and it would have been his word against theirs.”

The uproar over the beating has prompted demands for the resignation of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and calls for an investigation into the treatment of minorities by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Despite the numerous calls for his resignation, Gates--in a 15-minute videotape for showing to his troubled 8,300-member force--vowed to stay on and rebuild the tarnished image of the department.

“It’d be easy for me to pack up and go away,” he said in the tape released to the media Sunday. “But I didn’t put 42 years into this job to see it blow up in smoke. I’m not going to resign. I’m going to be here to make sure that what I say is done.”

Gates spoke somberly into the camera.

“With those two minutes of videotape . . . two minutes that will go down in infamy in the history of this department, the work of thousands of people who have put their very best efforts forward to make this department the very best in the world--those have shattered that image.

“There’s not a man or woman in this department that does not feel betrayed. We’re going to prosecute three of the officers and discipline all of the officers who were involved. It is absolutely essential that we do it.”

Earlier, Gates had offered an apology to King, but further enraged people when he added that he would apologize “in spite of the fact that (King’s) on parole and a convicted robber.” He said he too was shocked by the incident and described the actions of the officers as an aberration. “One incident doesn’t indict a whole department,” he said.

“(King) is also a human being and should be treated like one,” said Susan Todd, 36, of Watts, walking two of her four children home from the store.

At the African American Chess Club, where the week’s news events are mulled over between chess moves, Gates’ comments were not well-received by the group’s founder.

“This is anything but an aberration,” said Hal Fairchild, 41, founder of the club and past president of the National Assn. of Black Psychologists. “The only thing different about this incident is that it was recorded on videotape. But the fact that it happened under such public scrutiny confirms the belief that these abuses are common.”

Two recent cases involving baseball legend Joe Morgan and former Laker Jamaal Wilkes are frequently cited by residents as examples of what can happen to any African-American. Morgan was roughed up in Los Angeles International Airport by a narcotics police officer who thought he was a drug courier. Wilkes was pulled over and handcuffed by two officers on a special robbery detail who told him his license tags were about to expire.

“This is not an isolated incident. It happens all the time, it happened to me,” said Mario Guillmeno, a 39-year-old full-time barber and part-time preacher. Business was brisk in the shop Saturday night and much of the talk was about the King beating.

Guillmeno remains bitter about an arrest by Los Angeles officers, even though it occurred years ago. “I was wearing a white suit and riding in my brand new Lincoln Continental when the police stopped me on Manchester Avenue,” he said. “When I got out of the car and they saw my white suit they told me to lay face down on the sidewalk. I refused and they jumped me and beat me.”

Guillmeno said he was charged with resisting arrest, offering a bribe and a minor traffic violation. He was acquitted, he said, and filed a lawsuit, but was forced to drop the case after it dragged on for years.

Some say the incident involving King in Lake View Terrace is further evidence of a pattern of abuse against blacks that ranges from stops without provocation to beatings.

“It’s like they consider it a crime to be a black man on the street late at night,” said Lennell Mudd, 23, of West Los Angeles.

To be sure, Mudd and others see the need for a strong police force to combat crime, particularly in areas that are under siege.

“We definitely need and want the police, but we want them to show more compassion with us and treat us like people,” said Arthur Williamson, a Los Angeles painting contractor. “For example, I have yet to see a police officer make a white boy lie down on the ground.”

At the Comedy Act Theater off Crenshaw Boulevard, laughter was used to ease the frustration over King’s car chase and beating.

“What do you call a black man who was beaten by more than a dozen cops and the whole thing was captured on videotape?” asked D. L. Hughley, a comedian from Lancaster He quickly provided the answer. “A very rich (man).”

The routine was not easy for Hughley, who drew from his anger over the beating to give his audience comic relief. After the show, Hughley said that he too had felt the humiliation from a run-in with police in Los Angeles. Police thought he was a robbery suspect and stopped him with his wife and two children in the car.

In southwest Los Angeles, Herman Collins, 54, an X-ray technician, prepared to play tennis at Rancho Cienega Park. “When I first saw it (the video), I got very emotional,” he said. “I kept saying, ‘Are these guys completely mad?’ ”

I thought about the war, all those boys over there. They had announced a cease-fire. And here on the front lines in Los Angeles, it’s the same old thing.”

The scenes on the videotape caused Collins to flash back to his childhood in the South. “I remember I was 6 years old walking through this Mississippi town and I saw the sheriff kicking and beating this (black) man for no reason other than he was drunk on a Saturday,” he said. “He just kept kicking and beating him. I can still see it. You don’t forget something like that.”