King’s Injuries at Issue : Trial: Lawyer for Officer Powell downplays their severity despite testimony from doctor who treated motorist hours after beating.

Despite a doctor’s testimony about injuries sustained by black motorist Rodney G. King in a beating by police officers, defense attorneys on Thursday suggested that the injuries were not serious.

Four policemen are charged with assault in the March 3, 1991, beating of King. If convicted of assault and related charges, they could face sentences of four to eight years in prison.

Holding a human skull for jurors to observe, defense lawyer Michael Stone had Dr. David Giannetto show exactly where on the right temple King suffered two fractures and asked whether the broken bone was very thin.

“Yes,” said Giannetto.

“So it’s very easy to break?” asked Stone.

“Yes,” said the doctor.

Asked to describe what kind of force caused the breaks, Giannetto said he could not determine that.

When the doctor told of “a non-displaced fracture” to a bone in King’s leg, Stone, who represents Officer Laurence M. Powell, asked: “It’s really cracked, is that a fair description?”

“Yes,” said the doctor, adding that the leg was placed in a cast to immobilize it.

Giannetto, an emergency room doctor at County-USC Medical Center, said he examined the black motorist about six hours after he was clubbed and kicked by white policemen at the end of a chase.

King was first taken to Pacifica Hospital where he received stitches in his face, mouth and head, then was transferred to USC, which houses the county jail ward.

On cross-examination, Giannetto contradicted the testimony of a Pacifica doctor who testified Wednesday that he never told anyone that King was under the influence of PCP because his examination showed no drug intoxication.

But Giannetto remembered Dr. Antonio Mancia calling him on the phone to say King was being transferred. He recalled the two physicians discussing King being under the influence of PCP.

Mancia said “that (King) had been in an altercation . . . that he should be under observation because of this possible PCP ingestion,” Giannetto said.

However, Giannetto said his examination of King showed no drug intoxication.

Defense lawyers have said the police thought King was under the influence of PCP and had “superhuman strength” the night of the chase.

Giannetto also contradicted Mancia’s testimony that he asked for a CAT scan to be performed on King to check for brain damage. Giannetto recalled no such request.

Powell, 29, Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, 41, and Officers Timothy E. Wind, 31, and Theodore J. Briseno, 39, are charged with the March 3, 1991, beating of King. The beating was videotaped by a neighborhood resident and its broadcast nationwide sparked outrage over police brutality.

Powell is alleged to have inflicted most of the baton blows that struck King, but his lawyer is seeking to show that they were not aimed at King’s head. Police are discouraged from hitting anyone in the head because such blows can be fatal, witnesses have said.