Officer Is Heard Laughing on Tapes : King case: He also was recorded telling a dispatcher that the victim had numerous head wounds. That contradicts earlier statements that he made to investigators.

Jurors in the trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused in the Rodney King assault heard audiotapes Wednesday of one of the officers laughing and joking about the beating just moments after it occurred.

The jury listened to conversations between Officer Laurence M. Powell, 29, and a department dispatcher from the time Powell and his partner, Officer Timothy E. Wind, 31, joined in a chase of King’s car to moments after King was arrested on a San Fernando Valley street.

Powell, Wind and two other white Los Angeles police officers are on trial in the assault of King, a black motorist who was stopped by the officers March 3, 1991.

Fifty-six kicks and other blows were recorded on a videotape that was broadcast repeatedly in news reports worldwide.

At one point in the audiotapes heard Wednesday, Powell talks about the arrest. He is heard laughing and describing how King suffered “numerous head wounds.” Powell was unaware at the time that the arrest was being videotaped by a resident across the street.

Powell’s statement in the radio conversation contradicts his argument that he did not hit King in the head with his steel baton to subdue him. Although he is shown on the videotape striking King several times, he has maintained that few if any blows hit King’s head.

It is against standard law enforcement procedure to strike a suspect in the head, sternum or groin because of the potential for severe injury.

In the audiotapes, Powell reports to a dispatcher that “we need an RA (rescue ambulance) at Foothill and Osborne, victim of a. . . .” Then, a second officer chimes in “beating.” Powell laughs and says, “yeah,” and reports that the man has “numerous head wounds.”

A Los Angeles Police Department dispatcher testified that he thought it was unusual for an officer to use the word beating and then laugh when requesting an ambulance. But under cross-examination by Powell’s attorney, Michael Stone, dispatcher Leshon Frierson admitted that he did not think the officer had necessarily done anything wrong.

Powell’s remarks and his laughter could prove damaging to his defense that he was forced to hit King because he was afraid of him.

Stone initially objected to prosecutors giving the jury a written transcript of the tapes prepared by Police Department technicians because some portions were difficult to understand.

However, Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg listened to the questionable passages five times out of the presence of the jury and decided to allow them as evidence because he could clearly understand what Powell was saying.

To prove to jurors that the voice on the tape was Powell’s, prosecutors played a portion of the videotape in which Powell grabbed his portable police radio and held it to his lips just seconds after King was hogtied and handcuffed.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Yochelson showed Weisberg that the time on the videotape was nearly identical to the time encoded on the audiotape.

The prosecution called Dr. Antonio Mancia, the emergency room physician who treated King. Mancia said King suffered five facial cuts that required a total of 20 stitches. He also said that he requested a CAT scan to determine if there were any internal head injuries based on the cuts and bruises on the motorist’s head.

Mancia testified that the head injuries indicated to him that King had been “hit with a blunt object.” Although police had told the nurses that King was on PCP, Mancia said “my clinical impression was that he was not under the influence of any drug.”

Wind, a department rookie, was fired as a result of the incident. Powell, Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, 41, and Officer Theodore J. Briseno, 39, have been suspended without pay pending the outcome of the trial.