Koon Says King Attacked, Left Police No Choice

Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, one of four Los Angeles policemen charged in the Rodney G. King beating, testified Thursday that the Altadena man tried several times to attack officers trying to subdue him, leaving them no choice but to beat and kick him repeatedly.

“He kind of gave out a bear-like yell, and he continued to rise,” said Koon, the supervising officer at the scene.

Koon--whose testimony marked the first time an officer charged in the King beating has publicly detailed what happened shortly after midnight on March 3, 1991--appeared confident, sometimes cocking his head back as he spoke. He wore a black suit and red-striped tie, often smiling slightly at the jury.

Wooden pointer in hand and referring to second-by-second frames of a videotape of the beating, Koon testified that King rolled and twisted on the ground under a hail of baton blows, trying again and again to get to his feet.

Sometimes, Koon said, King appeared to be trying to escape. Other times, he seemed to be reaching for his waistband and possibly a hidden weapon, the sergeant said.

“This was perfectly within the LAPD policy, what you see here,” Koon told the jury of six men and six women, pointing to a large-screen television set displaying the videotape. “This was a managed use of force.”

Asked to describe his feelings after viewing the videotape repeatedly over the past year, Koon said: “It’s violent, and it’s brutal.”

But the actions shown were necessary to “control an aggressive, combative suspect, and sometimes police work is brutal,” Koon said. “That’s just a fact of life.’

Under gentle questioning from his attorney, Darryl Mounger, the 41-year-old Koon described his wife of 20 years and their five children, his background growing up in Baldwin Hills and Glendale and his master’s degrees in criminal justice and public administration.

He also spoke about his 16 years as a Los Angeles police officer, saying he worked patrol assignments from Van Nuys to Hollywood.

Koon said he went into police work because, “I wanted to help people.”

On March 3, 1991, he recalled, he was working the overnight watch in the Foothill Division. Just as he was leaving the station, he said, he heard the first broadcast from the California Highway Patrol requesting Police Department assistance in pursuing a car traveling at excessive speed.

Moments earlier, a CHP car driven by Officer Melanie Singer had begun chasing a white Hyundai on Interstate 210, which turned out to be King’s. The CHP said King’s car reached speeds of 115 m.p.h. during the chase, which covered eight miles and ended on Foothill Boulevard near Osborne Street.

Koon said that he drove along surface streets parallel to the chase, and that when he arrived at where it had ended, he parked his patrol car at a 45-degree angle to King’s vehicle.

Koon said Singer and her partner-husband, Officer Timothy Singer, had their guns drawn, and she was ordering the motorist to “Get down! Get down! Spread your legs apart!”

Koon said that when he first saw King, “he was immediately outside his car door and on his knees facing me.”

“He was very buffed out,” the sergeant said, referring to King’s build. “He was very muscular.

“My initial response was that he was probably an ex-con,” Koon said, apparently referring to the fact that many inmates spend jail time working out with weights.

The motorist was swaying on his knees and sweating heavily, Koon said. When King tried to place his hands on the pavement, “he began to pat the ground as if he didn’t know where the ground was,” the officer said. King rocked up and down on his haunches, much like “a runner in a starting position in the blocks, or a football player on the front line,” Koon said.

“I could see his eyes were glassy,” Koon said. “He was looking at me, but it’s a bizarre feeling because he was looking through me.”

The officer said he believed King was “under the influence of some kind of intoxicant.” It was determined during an examination later that King had no drugs in his system but was legally drunk.

Koon said he grabbed his Taser stun gun from the front seat of his patrol car and loaded the weapon. He said he then noticed that Melanie Singer was approaching King with her gun drawn. When she came within five or six feet of the suspect, Koon said, he ordered her to stay back.

“She was injecting a gun into the situation,” he said. “And my tactical training has taught me to believe you don’t approach out-of-control suspects with a gun.”

Hoping to “de-escalate the situation,” Koon said he ordered officers under his command to “swarm” King. But when officers Laurence M. Powell and Theodore J. Briseno charged and grabbed one of the motorist’s arms, King began to fight, Koon said.

“The next thing I saw scared me,” Koon said. “Officer Powell is thrown off Mr. King, and Officer Briseno is struggling to get away.” Koon said he ordered the officers to get back, and he shot King twice with the Taser, which had little effect.

“He overcame it,” Koon said of King. “He repeated this groan, similar to like a wounded animal.”

Koon said King next sprung to his feet and attacked Powell. “He had several avenues to escape, and he chose to go at Officer Powell,” Koon said.

Powell swung his baton and struck King across the shoulder, slamming the suspect face-down on the ground, the sergeant said. Powell and the fourth officer accused in the beating, Timothy E. Wind, administered more blows, he said, and then Briseno stomped King in the neck area. Through it all, he said, King seemed to be in little pain.

“I’m getting concerned, scared and a little frightened here,” Koon recalled. “This gentleman has been subjected to a multitude of blows from metal PR 24 batons, and there was no evidence he was going to comply.”

Koon said he chose not to employ the next option, a chokehold, “because in Los Angeles the chokehold is associated with the death of blacks.” A decade ago, city officials banned police use of the chokehold after a furor arose over the death of several black suspects.

Finally, Koon said, the motorist began to lie still. King yelled, “ ‘Please stop!’ and he raised his hands in what I considered a compliance mode,” the officer said.

But later, in cross-examination, Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Yochelson attempted to show that Koon did not properly supervise the scene and allowed the incident to get out of hand without quickly taking King into custody.

Koon acknowledged to Yochelson that the videotape shows some of the blows striking King in the head or spine areas, which is inappropriate under LAPD policy. The department tells officers they should not hit suspects in areas of the body where injuries could be severe or fatal.

Nevertheless, Koon said, he wanted the officers to keep hitting King in the limbs and joints until he fully complied by lying prone. LAPD policy permits officers to continually hit criminal suspects when they do not obey orders, he said.

Koon conceded that King must have felt some of the blows, or else he would not have groaned. “He obviously felt the pain at that time,” the sergeant said.

While more than a dozen officers ultimately arrived at the scene, Koon said he did not consider it safe to ask all of them to enter the fray.

He said he did not see Briseno push Powell’s baton away in an apparent attempt to stop the beating. “I was activating the Taser again to see if I could get a response,” Koon said.

The testimony from Koon, who is to continue on the witness stand this morning, was similar to what he told police Internal Affairs Division investigators--except that, in that report completed last year, he was quoted as saying that King “would be in a lot of pain the next day” after the beating.

All four defendants have pleaded not guilty in the case.