Officer Admits He Lied to Protect Former Partner : Foothill Division: A policeman testifies that he denied being at the scene of an alleged beating because the defendant asked him to.

A Los Angeles police officer who was on patrol with an officer accused of beating two people on a Pacoima street corner last year said Monday he had once lied about the incident out of loyalty to his police “family.”

“It’s like telling on an uncle or a brother or father,” Officer Scott Kennedy testified during the opening day of the trial of Lance L. Braun in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Braun, 42, is charged with two counts of excessive force in the alleged beating of Theresa Carney, 25, and William Gable, 44, in August, 1990. The charges were filed against Braun in April, shortly after the 21-year veteran retired.

Braun and Kennedy were working out of the now-troubled Foothill Division when they approached a group of transients standing on the corner of Pala Avenue and Van Nuys Boulevard and ordered them to disperse. When the group, which included Carney and Gable, did not leave, the officers got out of their car.

Carney said in testimony that Braun then “jabbed” his baton at her, and Gable testified that Braun hit him “like 10 or 15 times.”

In opening statements, Deputy Dist. Atty. Jodi B. Rafkin said the evidence would show that Braun “used unnecessary force under the cover of authority.” But Larry H. Layton, Braun’s attorney, said he would show several inconsistencies in previous statements made by the alleged victims, calling their credibility into question.

Kennedy, a rookie officer, testified that he only saw Braun “push” Carney and that his attention was distracted for “20 to 30 seconds” while Braun was with Gable. When he turned back to his partner, Kennedy said, he saw no beating but watched Braun walk away from Gable, who was “hunched over, holding onto the fence.”

Kennedy said that, shortly afterward, when the officers received orders to return to Foothill Division to answer questions about the incident, he asked Braun, “What was going on?”

Kennedy said Braun replied, “Don’t worry about it. We were never there.”

Carney drove to the division that night and lodged a complaint. Foothill officers were lined up in the parking lot, and she identified Braun as the man who hit her.

Kennedy said he first told supervisors that he and Braun were “never there” but later changed his story. Asked why he originally lied, Kennedy said, “because that is basically what Officer Braun had asked me to do.” Under cross-examination by Layton, Kennedy said Braun had never said more than his initial remark about the incident. “I interpreted what was being asked of me,” he said.

Braun was suspended for 22 days after an investigation by Sgt. Stacey Koon, now a defendant in the Rodney G. King beating incident in March. Braun faces up to three years and eight months in prison if convicted.