Lawyers Assess King Case Impact on Brutality Trial : Courts: Videotaped violence is among the evidence in the federal prosecution of six former Oakland Housing Authority police officers.

The black-and-white videotape, at times blurred, shows a figure in shadow, on his back, arms loosely outstretched. A police officer with the Oakland Housing Authority steps out of his car, orders the man to roll over on the sidewalk, and, kicking him in the ribs, yells: “Don’t you ever raise your hands to me again.”

The videotape--shot more than a year ago during an investigation by the Oakland Police Department--is at the center of a U. S. District Court trial of six former Housing Authority officers that is expected to conclude here next week. The man on the ground is an undercover police officer.

And because brutality is among the accusations leveled against the ex-officers, the trial is also caught in a whirlwind of negative publicity generated by Rodney G. King’s beating by police in Los Angeles. Defense attorneys and the prosecutor in the Oakland case disagree over how much impact the King videotape has had, but all say that jurors cannot be forbidden to follow national news.

In the Oakland case, undercover police officers taped the arrest scene and collected other evidence in a four-month investigation that began almost two years ago and led to a federal probe of the 24-member Housing Authority police force.

In addition to other evidence, investigators said they retrieved material evidence when they raided the Housing Authority offices last December.

One-third of the Housing Authority’s police officers were indicted or pleaded guilty late last year to charges that ranged from using excessive force and stealing money from suspects to falsifying police reports.

A slew of lawsuits--more than 30--filed by angered residents against the Housing Authority and the city of Oakland followed the indictments last year. They reportedly demanded more than $10 million in damages, but terms of the settlements were not revealed.

The Oakland Housing Authority Police was created by the city’s Housing Commission 17 years ago to patrol its 3,318 housing units across the city. Its officers are sworn peace officers, but do not undergo the rigorous training of a regular police academy. Their backgrounds are also not checked as extensively as those of police officers, officials said.

As the trial continues, there is disagreement over how much the King incident has influenced the case. Each of the prospective jurors in the case said he or she watched the controversial Los Angeles videotape, attorneys said.

“Public awareness of police brutality has exploded as the result of what happened in Los Angeles,” said John Cuew, a lawyer who specializes in police brutality cases for the American Civil Liberties Union in Northern California. He refused to speculate, however, on whether viewing the tape would make the jurors quicker to convict.

Jurors are still permitted to follow media coverage of the police beating in Los Angeles, but they may not read about or watch news about the Oakland case.

“I think these cases are not similar at all,” said Robert Lyman, an attorney who represents the Oakland Housing Authority. “After all, no one was beaten senseless in Oakland.”

Still, attorneys representing the accused former officers say they are concerned that their clients’ right to a fair trial has been jeopardized by the repeated telecast of King’s beating.

“They picked a bad time to have this trial,” said Peter Robinson, lawyer for Scott Dwyer, the officer in the Oakland videotape. “Every juror or prospective juror has seen the L. A. tape. The judge can’t force them not to watch the coverage of that case.”

Defense attorney Karen Snell, who is representing former officer Antoine Fisher, agrees that the tape must have had an impact.

“There’s no way it couldn’t affect the jury,” she said. “We know that for a fact.”

She predicted, however, that because the violence on the Oakland videotape is not as severe as that on the Los Angeles tape, jurors would hand down a more lenient decision. “Compared with that incident, I hope the jury will say to themselves: ‘This is nothing,’ ” she said.

Although Assistant U. S. Atty. Albert Glenn, who is prosecuting the former officers, refused to comment on the trial, he said that the King incident would not affect the case.

“The judge has been very careful about instructing the jury to disregard what they have seen and heard,” he said of the King case. “I am confident the defendants will get a fair trial.”