Accounts Differ in Kicking Case : Police: Fellow Laguna Beach officers defend a patrolman fired after a violent arrest was videotaped. Other witnesses call his actions excessive.

Police officers testified Tuesday that former Laguna Beach Officer Keith R. Knotek was justified when he kicked a homeless man who was struggling with them during an arrest that was captured on videotape last summer.

But two other witnesses of the June, 1990, arrest in South Laguna testified before the city’s Personnel Board that Knotek’s kicking seemed excessive.

The testimony came during an all-day hearing in which the board reviewed whether Chief Neil J. Purcell rightfully fired Knotek in May after a Police Department investigation found that the officer had used excessive force.

The hearing before the three-member citizens panel will resume this morning and probably stretch into next week.

The board will listen to witnesses on both sides of the dispute and make its recommendation to City Manager Kenneth C. Frank, who will have the final say about whether Knotek, 26, should be rehired.

The central issue that the board will consider is whether Knotek, who had been a Laguna Beach police officer for three years, was justified in kicking Kevin A. Dunbar during the struggle to arrest him on a Coast Highway sidewalk. Dunbar, who had been at a rowdy party, was arrested after a records check revealed arrest warrants from earlier charges of drinking in public and other minor crimes.

During testimony Tuesday, Officers Richard J. Lopes and Michael P. Donohue said they thought Knotek was justified in kicking Dunbar.

The suspect “was resisting very violently,” Donohue said. “At that time, we had no control over him, absolutely none.”

Knotek’s kicks to Dunbar’s elbow area stopped the violent struggle, Donohue said, allowing him to handcuff Dunbar.

Donohue and Lopes both said they would have considered using more force had Dunbar continued to struggle.

After Knotek’s kicks, “a lot of the fight was taken out of” Dunbar, Lopes said.

The kicking, though, seemed unjustified to the two civilian witnesses. “I was shocked. It didn’t look right,” said Lee Lucas, who videotaped the incident from his second-floor window overlooking the arrest scene. “I had never seen anything like that, except in the movies.”

Lucas said he saw Knotek kicking at the man but did not see the blows strike because a police car obstructed his view.

Didier Mechin, 30, who threw the party that police broke up, called the kicking “unnecessary.”

“It didn’t help at all to hold the person,” Mechin said. “(Knotek) didn’t try to hold him, just kick him.”

Mechin viewed the kicking from a police car, where he had been taken after being arrested on suspicion of disturbing the peace.

Another police officer who had been on the scene during the midnight arrest, Dan Lowery, also testified Tuesday. But since Lowery was fired last month as a result of the kicking incident and will be appealing before the board, his testimony took place behind closed doors. By law, Personnel Board hearings are usually private, but Knotek requested that his hearing be held in public.

Although Purcell would not name Lowery as the officer fired, the police chief did say Monday that a second officer had been fired for later lying about events surrounding Dunbar’s arrest.

Testimony in today’s hearing is expected to come from police officers from outside the Laguna Beach department who will offer their views on the kicking, as well as from other Laguna officers and witnesses. Purcell is also expected to testify about why he fired Knotek.

According to opening remarks by attorneys representing Knotek and the department, a side issue of the hearings will be the state of mind of police officers while they were trying to arrest Dunbar and whether that helped justify the kicking.

Gregory G. Petersen, an Orange attorney representing Knotek, said the South Laguna party was a near-riot, with officers being pelted with bottles and rocks from 30 or more party-goers congregating in the area.

Lopes and Donohue also characterized the event as a riot.

“I remember telling Officer Lowery that if we didn’t get out of there, we were going to get hurt,” Lopes said. “I was scared.”

David C. Larsen, the Police Department’s attorney, questioned why none of the officers put on riot gear during the incident.

Larsen also said he will show in later testimony that Knotek radioed that the situation was under control at least a minute before kicking Dunbar.