Prospective Jurors in King Case Express Sympathy for Police : Trial: Of five potential members of panel with strong law enforcement leanings, only one is excused.

After three days of sharp criticism of four Los Angeles police officers charged in the Rodney G. King beating, jury selection took a different turn Monday when a series of potential jurors made sympathetic remarks about the officers and the Police Department.

The statements in support of the police came from a U.S. forestry agent and from relatives of two other Los Angeles police officers, and they were joined by two potential jurors who suggested that--despite what was shown on an amateur videotape--King may have provoked the beating.

Of five potential jurors with strong law enforcement leanings, one was excused when Judge Stanley M. Weisberg concluded that he was biased. The other four were asked to return later for further questioning. And they ultimately will be joined by about 100 others--many of whom expressed shock last week over brutality seen in the videotape--when final jury selection culminates next week.

“I’m starting to feel like we’ll get as good a jury panel as possible,” Darryl Mounger, attorney for Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, said during a break in the trial Monday.

The one potential juror who was excused Monday, a young Ventura man who said his brother lost his hearing in a police beating, compared the high-crime environment of Los Angeles to that of the war-torn Middle East. He said that with drugs and gang warfare causing the “social breakdown of Los Angeles,” police officers often have to act aggressively.

“I look at it as Beirut, as a war zone,” he said. “And what else can they (police) do? Their lives are at stake. People don’t care if an officer has a family or has children.”

The panelist suggested in a written jury questionnaire that the officers may have reacted aggressively because King “had a history of antisocial behavior.” At the time of the altercation, however, the officers did not know that King had a criminal record.

The forestry agent told the judge that he was shocked by what he saw on the videotape, but that King “tried to get back up” and offered resistance to the officers, who were trying to take him into custody after a brief car pursuit that ended in Lake View Terrace.

The man also said that after viewing the videotape, he wondered if King was under the influence of drugs or intoxicated. “I guess I just don’t believe what I saw on TV, radio and newspapers,” he said.

The mother of a Los Angeles police officer said it was “upsetting to see somebody hit like that” on the videotape. But, she added, “I know they (the police) have a job to do.”

She also said her son, an LAPD officer for 18 months who is assigned to the Rampart Division, “did not approve or disapprove of” of what occurred in the King beating. And she said that the officers involved in the incident should be judged internally by the department before they are prosecuted.

Of those who questioned King’s actions that night, a young woman who said she viewed the videotape twice said her first impression was that “they used a little bit too much force.”

After viewing the videotape again three weeks ago, the woman said she changed her mind. “I saw the man going after the officers,” she said of King.

Also questioned Monday were nine other potential jurors who had strong beliefs that excessive force was used against King. Six were excused when the judge determined they were biased against the defendants, and the remaining three were asked to return later for more questioning.

Koon and Officers Theodore J. Briseno, Laurence M. Powell and Timothy E. Wind have pleaded not guilty in the case. Jury selection continues today.