Fired Officer Had a Quick Temper, Chief Says : Laguna Beach police: There is conflicting testimony on whether Keith R. Knotek used excessive force in videotaped kicking incident.

A police officer, fired after he was videotaped kicking a homeless man during an arrest outside of a wild party, had a quick temper and jumped into things without stopping to think, Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr. said Wednesday.

In testimony before the city’s Personnel Board, Purcell said the former officer’s last performance review listed his temper as a problem. Purcell said he took “particular interest” in that evaluation when deciding to fire Keith R. Knotek for using excessive force during last summer’s kicking incident.

Knotek, 26, dismissed in May, is appealing. The hearing Wednesday was the second day of testimony before the Personnel Board, which is considering whether Knotek should be rehired.

Knotek’s attorney said that a police supervisor who prepared Knotek’s evaluation in 1990 misunderstood a comment that the officer had made during the review. Knotek told his supervisor he tended to get “impatient” with supervisors and he was working on being calmer.

“The supervisor took it out of context and said it was a short fuse,” attorney Gregory G. Petersen said.

Petersen also said that while Knotek worked for the Huntington Beach Police Department when he was fresh out of the police academy about four years ago, he was told he wasn’t aggressive enough to be an officer in that city.

Petersen would not say if that meant Knotek was let go from the department during his probationary period.

The testimony Wednesday was just one of the many conflicting statements made by various police officials and training experts over whether the kicking incident was justified.

Also testifying were three police officers from outside Laguna Beach, who disagreed on whether Knotek was out of line by delivering three kicks to Kevin A. Dunbar, who was struggling on a Coast Highway sidewalk with two other officers last summer. Two of the kicks hit Dunbar in the upper arm area. One kick missed and nearly hit one of the other officers in the head.

Knotek’s kicks “didn’t appear to be focused very well, and that is not the way recruits are trained at the (police) academy,” said Sgt. Ronald Rodgers, a Newport Beach officer who conducts training classes at Golden West College’s police academy.

“The use of kicking directed at someone lying on the ground, unarmed (and thrashing) around is absolutely inappropriate,” Rodgers testified. “It is inappropriate. It is excessive force.”

However, under questioning from Petersen, Rodgers said that if the two other officers couldn’t control Dunbar, if Dunbar was fighting with the officers, and if the kicking stopped Dunbar from thrashing violently, then the kicks would not be considered “excessive force.”

Police arrested Dunbar after questioning him outside a loud party and discovering that he had warrants out for his arrest. The warrants were for earlier charges of being drunk in public and other minor offenses.

Seal Beach Police Chief William D. Stearns testified that the kicking was inappropriate because it could have sparked the crowd leaving the party, which was breaking up, into a riot.

“We’d rather have people use a pain-compliance technique that would be much less visible,” Stearns said.

Something as visible as kicking a suspect “would in most times tend to escalate a riot or a crowd that is on the verge of a riot,” he said.

But a Westminster police detective, who was Knotek’s teacher at the police academy, said he thought the kicks were an appropriate and effective use of force and complied with what Knotek was taught.

Kicks are “used to take control in a situation like Mr. Dunbar, when someone is being combative,” said the detective, who asked that his name be withheld because he works undercover.

The board will hear more testimony today from Purcell. Knotek also is scheduled to testify for the first time this morning.

The board is reviewing the June 17, 1990, kicking incident and is expected to make its recommendations later this month to City Manager Kenneth C. Frank, who will decide whether to rehire Knotek.