Appeals Court Blasts Letter Hinting Violence if Officers’ Trial Is Moved

In a letter to a state appeals court, the director of the Mexican American Political Assn. warned that the streets of Los Angeles would get “very hot” if the Rodney G. King case is moved to another county--prompting a stinging rebuke from four appellate judges.

“The goal is to move this case to a conservative lily-white community who’ll let these racist cops off with a slap on the wrist,” Al Belmontez complained in the one-page letter filed with the court last week.

Belmontez also suggested that the city’s white enclaves, not its barrios or ghettos, would be the targets of violence if civil unrest erupts.

The court, in an unusual action, denounced the letter as “an improper attempt to influence our pending decision by the use of racial accusations and threats of community violence.”

It ordered that copies of the “incendiary communication” be forwarded to the state attorney general’s office for possible action and to the four Los Angeles police officers indicted in the March 3 beating.

A four-member 2nd District Court of Appeal panel headed by Judge Joan Dempsey Klein is reviewing a defense motion for a change of venue that was denied by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Bernard Kamins, the trial judge.

The appeals court has halted all proceedings in the case, which was to go to trial last month, while it considers the question of whether the police officers can get a fair trial in Los Angeles County amid the widespread publicity and political controversy engendered by the incident.

Kamins and the district attorney’s office oppose moving the trial.

Defense attorneys have until July 12 to explain more fully why they believe a move is necessary. They have argued that the King case is unique because of the political fallout it has caused. The incident has created wide rifts between the mayor and police chief, and the Police Commission and the City Council, and has divided Police Department supporters and civil rights groups. Local law enforcement policies are being scrutinized, and a videotape of the police beating has triggered national outrage.

In his letter to the appeals court, Belmontez said: “If this case isn’t dealt with (with) justice and equality, it’s going to get very hot in Los Angeles and the youth have demonstrated they’re not going to destroy the barrios and the ghettos. Why do you think they’ve trashed Westwood?”

Belmontez said Monday that his group is not threatening to incite a riot. “That’s ridiculous,” he said, adding that he was merely relaying what he has picked up from the Latino and African-American communities.

“I wanted to pass on the unrest I hear about,” he said. “We get a lot of calls. People are talking.”

Belmontez, a retired auto worker and union official from South Gate, said he can easily envision the black and Latino communities going on a rampage equal to the 1965 Watts riots. “It can happen again,” he said.

The Mexican American Political Assn. is one of the oldest and most influential of Latino political organizations, with nearly 600 members in Los Angeles County, Belmontez said.

“We’re tired of our elected officials never saying a word” against the kind of police brutality represented by the King case, he said, and the “manipulation” of the court system by defense attorneys.

“The whole world has heard about the King beating,” he said. “It’s ridiculous to go anywhere else (for trial). It is not right to take it from here. Here is where it all started. It should be settled here.”

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office declined comment late Monday.