Two Cleared of Beating Charges : Police: An LAPD panel rules against action brought by Internal Affairs. It indicates the alleged victim may have been trying to cash in on Rodney King case.

A pair of Los Angeles police officers, accused in the assault of a Salvadoran immigrant last March, have been exonerated by their superiors, who now believe the policemen were caught up in a public outcry against the LAPD triggered by the beating of Rodney King.

Officers James E. Woods and Hector Ibarra said they were ostracized by their colleagues, relieved of duty without pay and humiliated with allegations that, as with the officers in the King incident, they abused their authority and engaged in an unprovoked assault.

But this week, an internal LAPD tribunal ruled that the officers were not guilty of the assault charges brought by the department’s Internal Affairs Division and indicated that the alleged victim may have been merely trying to cash in on anti-police feelings after the King beating.

“Shortly after this incident,” said Capt. James Docherty, the administrative board chairman, “we had the now infamous Rodney King incident, which brought discredit to the department and brought us to worldwide prominence regarding this particular thing.

“The public sentiment was clearly against this department and very much in favor of anybody who had been victimized by officers of this department.”

On Thursday, Docherty reiterated in an interview his concerns that since the King beating and other public disclosures about alleged racism and brutality in the LAPD many officers worry that they are being unfairly judged.

“You ought to go out into the street and talk to some of the coppers out there,” he said. “In Hollenbeck, or South-Central Los Angeles, or Hollywood. See what their perceptions are. Because I get the impression that some officers are really feeling a tremendous amount of stress and pressure with every contact they make with the public.”

Lt. Fred Nixon, a chief department spokesman, said that while the number of complaints against officers has shot up since the King case, it can take from nine months to a year or longer before the individual cases are fully processed.

“It’s impossible for us to say yet whether there’s been an increase in frivolous complaints,” he said.

A day after the King beating, Oscar Avalos, 24, a Salvadoran immigrant, said that he was sitting in a doughnut shop near MacArthur Park three days earlier when two LAPD officers--one African-American, the other Latino--burst though the door. He said the black officer grabbed him by the collar and, screaming obscenities, threw him to the floor.

Avalos said he struck his head on a door frame as he fell. He said the black officer kicked him in the right thigh while he was on the floor, pulled him to his feet and pushed him outside. He said the Latino officer did nothing to stop the beating.

Investigators from the LAPD’s Internal Affairs Division learned later that Woods and Ibarra were working as partners in that area that night. Furthermore, their descriptions matched those given by Avalos.

As the investigation proceeded, the two police officers were relieved of duty and ordered to appear before a Board of Rights to answer disciplinary charges against them. Woods was charged with assault and Ibarra with not reporting the alleged assault.

In bringing the charges against the officers, the Internal Affairs reports described the incident as an “unprovoked attack on an apparently passive, non-threatening victim,” and added: “Conduct such as is alleged here is contrary to the very essence of police work in Los Angeles.”

Woods, 28, a three-year LAPD veteran, and Ibarra, 30, with nine years on the force, were faced with a maximum penalty of job termination.

But their two police defense representatives, Musa Camara and Mike Kusiak, found major inconsistencies in the story.

The alleged victim was never able to positively identify Woods or Ibarra, in photographs or in person at the hearing. In addition, Camara and Kusiak said they learned of two unrelated incidents in which private security guards had allegedly been involved in similarly unprovoked assaults against civilians. The private guards resembled Woods and Ibarra and worked in the MacArthur Park area.

Further damaging the case against the officers was Avalos’ own credibility. He currently is jailed on drug charges. Board members speculated that Avalos concocted the story in order to sue the city.

“In the hysteria of Rodney King, everybody wanted a piece of the LAPD, and that’s what prompted people like this supposed victim to come forward,” Camara said.

Woods said he now believes that cases like his can have a chilling effect on officers’ ability to perform their jobs.

“From the sergeant level up to the chief of police, management is not really in touch with the officers who are on patrol,” he said. “Management doesn’t deal with the people we deal with on a daily basis, so they’re much too quick to assume that if allegations are raised against us, they must be true.”

Ibarra said he believes that Parker Center administrators are simply bowing to political pressure from a public that is growing increasingly distrustful of the police.

“Nowadays, everybody in management wants to have a reputation as a tough disciplinarian,” he said. “And we end up taking the fall.”