Rich and Poor, Black and White Voice Anger

Outrage and indignation swept through much of the city Wednesday as citizens rich and poor, black and white, struggled to reconcile the acquittals of four Los Angeles police officers with the alarming, violent images captured on a late-night videotape.

The Rev. Cecil L. Murray, surrounded by a small group of other clergyman in a basement meeting room of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in South-Central Los Angeles, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting back tears.

“If something in you can die, that something died,” Murray said afterward, calling the decision a tragedy. “Not because it’s unbelievable,” he added, “but because it is believable. . . . You think rational people will be at least semi-rational. You think civil people will be at least semi-civil. But to come back and see them completely whitewashing something that the whole world witnessed--this is a brutalization of truth.”

Although reaction was overwhelmingly negative, some others who have followed the trial voiced satisfaction with the acquittals. Among them was Barbara Williams, who stood with friends outside the Simi Valley courthouse after the verdict, expressing her support for the officers.

“I’m glad they got off,” she said. “They did what they were trained to do.”

Some of the strongest reaction came from activist groups that had closely monitored the Police Department since Rodney G. King, a black man from Altadena, was beaten more than a year ago. The National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People condemned the findings of jurors who saw no criminal behavior in the LAPD beating.

“The not guilty verdicts . . . are outrageous, a mockery of justice,” Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks, executive director of the NAACP, said in a statement. “Clearly, they send an inviting sign to other law enforcement officers so inclined that anything goes in the name of law enforcement.”

Hooks compared the case to the notorious Scottsboro Boys case of the 1930s, in which an all-white jury convicted nine innocent black youths of rape.

“Given the evidence,” he said, “it is difficult to see how the jurors will ever live with their consciences. African-Americans and many others are grieved by this inexplicable miscarriage of justice that will reinforce the belief there is a double standard of justice when race enters the picture.”

Torie Osborn, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center, expressed similar outrage, citing the hard-line tack some LAPD officers have taken in quelling gay rights demonstrations in recent months.

“We stand in solidarity with the African-American community in expressing our outrage over this travesty of justice,” Osborn said.

As jurors reached their verdicts at a courtroom in Simi Valley, members of the black community gathered in homes and meeting halls, where many had difficulty facing the outcome that few of them had expected. A number called for appeals and others questioned the direction that law enforcement would take in a city in turmoil over the case.

They shared the same stunned reaction: How could the videotape lie? How could those graphic, painful images of police officers repeatedly wielding their batons on a suspect lying prone before them have been wrong, or so badly skewed?

Many concluded that they could not.

“I couldn’t believe it--I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” said Myrtle City, a longtime Neighborhood Watch block captain in the LAPD’s crime-plagued 77th Division. “To arrest a man is one thing, but to beat him with four or five people, with their guns drawn? I was just shocked.”

City said she feared the verdicts will “send a message (about) African-American young men--that you can beat them and kick them and kick them and beat them . . . and walk away.”

Highland Park resident Marianne Hooper, 30, who is white, watched the ruling at home and voiced the same consternation.

“If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then justice is blind,” Hooper said. “I can’t believe it.”

Like many residents, Hooper said the long-running, heavily publicized case has shaped her view of law enforcement, making her more cynical, more fearful of officers who would “take the law into their own hands.

“I feel that some of them are as dangerous as the criminals,” she said, adding that she also sympathizes with the pressures that officers face in the streets--the gangs, the drugs. “They’re being hit with assault rifles out there,” Hooper said. “It really is a war. What kind of a normal person would not go crazy facing that?”

Attorney William R. Moore, who watched the announcement of verdicts in the 18th floor of a Los Angeles high-rise, lost a $5 bet that at least two of the officers would be convicted on felony counts.

Moore talked cynically, saying he does not see the case as an aberration. The King beating only “confirmed my view of policing in L.A.,” the attorney said. “I’m sure it happens all the time. . . . Cops kick the . . . out of people and cover it up with phony reports.”

The real victims, he added, are the taxpayers of the city. “The conduct of these police officers has brought about a huge expense.”

R. Crump, 25, a security guard in a grocery store parking lot on Western Avenue, expressed fears of violent repercussions.

“I see ’65 all over again,” he said. “The Watts riots all over again.”

Crump said he has seen the videotape and knows, as a security guard, what level of force is appropriate. “I carry a baton. One good pop would get a person’s attention, but 20 to 30 hits to a person’s back, arms and head? Thats too much.”

Roy Smith, 45, who manages a check-cashing store on Western Avenue, also predicted possible outbreaks of violence.

“You’ve got a lot of people already angry before this Rodney King thing ever took place,” he said. “It’s going to light the fuse. . . . You’re talking violence here. Nobody wants it but a lot of people act before they think.”

But in Long Beach, a woman who declined to give her name, said she was “tickled as hell” at the verdicts.

“I think Rodney King deserved all he got, and I am so glad the police did not get taken up,” she said. “It’s one thing when you’re not breaking the law and that happens to you . . . but when the police have to chase you because you are breaking the law, it’s quite another.”