King’s Actions Scared Him, Officer Says : LAPD:He testifies that it was like a ‘monster movie’ when the motorist ‘kept on coming’ despite being struck.

As Rodney G. King staggered to his feet, moving in spite of stun gun jolts and baton blows, it seemed “like a scene from a monster movie,” a California Highway Patrol officer testified Tuesday.

CHP Officer Timothy Singer made the remark after a defense lawyer for one of four white policemen on trial in the King beating asked if he had described the black motorist as “a monster.”

“One of the several thoughts that flashed through my mind was it appeared like a scene from a monster movie,” Singer said.

Attorney John Barnett asked if Singer had once made that comparison in an interview with prosecutors, saying, “Even after the monster is shot he keeps on coming.”

“Yes,” Singer said.

The officer also said he never saw King on the ground cowering with his hands over his face as he was clubbed, and he said he never saw Officer Theodore J. Briseno trying to stop the beating. Singer’s wife, who was his patrol partner the night of the incident, had given those descriptions on the stand.

Under questioning by another defense lawyer, Singer acknowledged that he was scared as King advanced toward him, seemingly unaffected by stun gun darts and police baton blows to his head.

“I’d seen this man shot with a Taser (stun gun), hit with a baton, a powerful blow on the head, and he was still on his feet,” said Singer, who said he was watching with his gun drawn and then with his baton at the ready.

“And you were scared, weren’t you?” attorney Michael Stone asked.

“Yes,” Singer said, “because he still appeared to be advancing on me.”

Singer also testified he later concluded that King was under the influence of alcohol.

The acknowledgment came as Stone, the attorney for Laurence M. Powell, tried to show that his client’s powerful, repeated baton blows, recorded on videotape, were justified by King’s behavior.

“And now you’re starting to hear that these big bad policemen out there with their guns and their batons and their Tasers were scared,” Stone told reporters afterward.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry White, who called Singer as a witness, told reporters he always has agreed that some force was necessary at the outset because “it’s obvious Mr. King was not cooperating.”

“What we’re saying is the force went on too long,” he said.

Powell, 29; Briseno, 39; Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, 41, and Officer Timothy E. Wind, 31, are charged with the March 3, 1991, beating, which was videotaped by a neighborhood resident.

The arrest and beating of King caused outrage when the videotape was broadcast widely. The shocking nature of the videotape prompted calls nationwide for investigation of police brutality.

Stone, whose client is seen delivering most of the baton blows to King, has mounted an aggressive effort to contradict testimony that Powell struck the motorist on the head and face. He maintains that Powell struck King on the arms and legs as prescribed by police rules.

But Singer and his wife and patrol partner, Melanie Singer, who testified earlier, gave graphic descriptions of cracks to King’s head and face.

White said he expects other witnesses to describe the head blows, including one of the defendants, Briseno, who has broken ranks with the others. Briseno says he tried to stop the violence.