TV’s Own Domino Effect . . .

“Got it,” said triumphant astronaut Pierre J. Thuot.

Got him , said the triumphant look on the face of Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

If nothing else, this week’s television pictures delivered a dramatic message that spacewalking is more rewarding and somehow less perilous these days than Earthwalking.

On Wednesday, viewers saw three space shuttle astronauts successfully snare a stranded communications satellite. Another stride through the cosmos for humankind. But viewers also saw rerun after rerun of white trucker Reginald O. Denny being beaten by blacks and, later, footage of three suspects in the case being taken into custody by a Gates-led task force of FBI and LAPD officers. A fourth suspect later turned himself in.

The small screen has loomed especially large in recent years. Yet in reviewing what Americans have watched since March, 1991, it’s hard to imagine a time when television’s direct impact has been more apparent.

First came the telecast of the George Holliday video of the police beating of Rodney G. King, which led to the televised trial, which led to the televised not-guilty verdicts, which led to the televised riots in Los Angeles.

And now the dominos may be falling again.

For example:

With justification, applause continues for those TV chopper pictures of Denny being nearly killed at the intersection of Florence and Normandie on the first night of the Los Angeles riots, with no police in sight. Although some of the accompanying commentary was frenzied and inflammatory, the live footage was essential for understanding the anger and criminal savagery driving at least a segment of the rioters.

By continuing to broadcast these pictures, however, television has imbued them with an aftershock life of their own.

Unlike newspapers, which rarely rerun even the most dramatic photographs, television news is so reliant on sights--heaven forbid there should be a talking head unaccompanied by a picture--that it replays the same images again and again. A one-sentence mention of the King case? Roll out the Holliday video. Denny’s name gets mentioned? There he is again getting clobbered by his assailants.

The Holliday video of the black King being beaten by white police officers immediately became a symbol of racism in America. And by continually rerunning footage of Denny being brutalized, television has affixed to the Los Angeles riots a symbol every bit as powerful. This image--of blacks victimizing a white--is infinitely more potent and lasting than words describing Denny’s rescue by four good Samaritans, also black.

Just as significant, the Denny video also put enormous pressure on the embattled Gates to do something dramatic to combat the image of the LAPD doing nothing to assist Denny. Although Denny was not the first or only innocent casualty of the riots, his plight eclipsed all others because it was a television spectacular. Untelevised victims somehow command less attention.

Thus, the toppling of the next domino.

That was Tuesday’s televised series of pre-dawn raids that netted the Denny beating suspects. ABC News was there. The free-lance Newsreel Video Services was there. And KCBS-TV Channel 2 was there, with reporter Harvey Levin riding with police and giving the occasion a personalized “Cops”-like tone.

Most importantly when it came to visuals, Gates was there, shown on TV personally arresting a suspect nicknamed “Football,” then later seeming to gloat about it at a televised press conference. Was this a media event? Well, Gates reportedly borrowed a flak jacket from a SWAT officer before facing the cameras.

Although similar on the surface, there are essential differences in the Denny and King cases. Four officers were tried and acquitted in the King case, although Officer Laurence Powell may be retried on one count. And King was apprehended after a high-speed chase, while Denny was attacked gratuitously, merely because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Moreover, his accused attackers have yet to be tried.

Yet the message that Gates seemed to be using television to deliver, at least symbolically, was that different standards of justice exist for whites and blacks. His own pre-dawn presence, as part of a huge task force of arresting officers, was the neon metaphor that lit the night.

Moreover, TV’s continued replaying of the arrest footage--each time the topic is even mentioned--has stamped another indelible signature on the riots of 1992.

While some have lauded the arrests and the manner in which they were made, others have responded angrily. And as always, the debate has spilled onto talk radio. KGIL-AM (1260) talk host Carole Hemingway says that she’s received numerous calls this week from African-Americans “outraged at the show-boatism” of Gates. One caller from South-Central Los Angeles literally screamed his anger. “The bottom line of what many of these people are saying is that there is no justice for blacks,” Hemingway said.

Is there another domino yet to fall? And if so, will it be pushed over with the assistance of television, which often creates its own reality?

“There is so much anger just barely below the surface,” said a reporter with contacts in South-Central Los Angeles. “And I don’t know what’s going to contain that anger. I hear gang members saying if these men (the suspects) aren’t released, there’s going to be another riot. Now, they know these men are not going to be released. They’re just reacting to the obvious glaring injustice: Four white cops beat up a black man, and they get off. Black men beat up a white truck driver, and they’re in jail.”

Exploiter, Part 2: On Wednesday, it was that great humanitarian Geraldo Rivera who affirmed his allegiance to ratings sweeps by choosing this tense time to air a predictably combative, hot-headed program pitting white supremacists Tom and John Metzger against demagogic black leader Al Sharpton. It was “Geraldo” at its most repugnant. Rivera should not have done it, KCBS Channel 2 should not have aired it.