Student Alleging Police Abuse to Testify in King Beating Probe

A black college student who said he and some friends were roughed up and insulted by Foothill Division police officers has been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury investigating the beating of motorist Rodney G. King.

John Bray, 22, of Lake View Terrace, said district attorney’s investigators interviewed him at his home Wednesday evening.

“They (the investigators) said it was on the King incident,” said Bray’s sister-in-law, Alberta Bray, 34, who was also interviewed.

John Bray said the investigators questioned him in connection with a report published Wednesday in a South Los Angeles community newspaper. The article described Bray’s allegations that the students were mistreated by Los Angeles police officers Feb. 19 at a Pacoima service station, and that Foothill Division officers refused to take a complaint the following afternoon.

The published report quoted Capt. Tim McBride, division commander, as saying that one of the policemen implicated in the complaint was Laurence Michael Powell, 28, one of the three officers the Police Deparment has recommended for criminal prosecution in the March 3 beating of King.

However, McBride denied Wednesday that he made such a statement. He would not comment further on the Brays’ allegations or the newspaper account, which he said he had not read.

Citing the secrecy of the Los Angeles County Grand Jury probe, district attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons would only say that her office is looking into the Brays’ allegations.

John Bray alleged in an interview that an officer with the name Powell on his name tag used racial slurs, pushed Bray with his baton and unfairly handcuffed Bray and his cousin, Los Angeles Valley College women’s basketball player La Tisa Rush, during the Feb. 19 incident.

Bray, a Valley College student, said several squad cars went to the gas station at Osborne Street and Laurel Canyon Boulevard after he, Rush and two other women friends became involved in an altercation with a white couple. Bray said the officers did not let him explain his version of the events and took the side of the couple, forcing Bray and Rush to their knees and handcuffing them.

“He (Powell) used his billy club on my back to push me down,” Bray said.

Bray said the officer named Powell, and others, used a racial slur and mocked him as he was placed in the back of a squad car.

“He picked me up by the handcuffs and tried to slam me into the car,” Bray said. “He told me, ‘Stop crying, you sound worse than the girls.’ ”

Bray said that the officers did not handcuff or harass the white couple, and that he and Rush were freed after about 15 minutes.