AFTER THE RIOTS : The Man Who Videotaped King Beating Says, ‘I’d Do It Again’

As George Holliday watched the video images of Los Angeles burning and being transformed by rioters and looters, one big question weighed in his mind: Did I cause this?

The man who took perhaps the most famous home video of all time--his camera capturing police officers beating Rodney G. King--said the violent unrest that followed the verdicts in the criminal case against the officers left him stunned and questioning his own responsibility.

“I did feel guilty,” the plumbing shop manager said this week in his first interview since the verdicts. “I felt it was all my fault--especially when people started getting killed. But I can’t blame myself. . . . I’m just the guy who took the video.”

All things considered, he said, “I’d do it again.”

And rather than shrink back into his pre-King beating anonymity, Holliday and the lawyers he has surrounded himself with say they are “brainstorming” ways he can use his name and videotape to make money and put it into communities damaged by rioting. One idea being considered is to sell shirts, hats and buttons with images from the video on them with a portion of the proceeds going to relief organizations in South Los Angeles.

The plans will likely put some money into Holliday’s pocket as well but during a Wednesday evening interview he stressed that he is sincere in his desire to help the community and is not an opportunist seeking to capitalize on the crisis.

“I like the concept of helping people,” Holliday said. “How do you say that so it doesn’t have the overtone” of opportunism?

Although Holliday has copyrighted the tape, the original is still in the hands of the district attorney’s office and he has no idea when it will be returned. And one ironic note is that he no longer has the video camera he used to capture the images that changed the city. When he and his wife separated recently, she took the camera. “I’ll get another one--I like gadgets,” he said. “But not right now. I can’t afford it.”

Holliday, 32, recently moved from the the Lake View Terrace apartment where he took the video to a house elsewhere in the San Fernando Valley. He was the first witness in the Simi Valley trial of four officers charged in the King beating. But afterward, he paid little attention to media reports on the trial because of his work--often lasting 12 hours a day--at a Van Nuys plumbing service.

But Holliday did begin watching television nonstop April 29 after an employee came into his office and announced that the four police officers had been found not guilty on all but one charge--with the jury deadlocked on the last.

“I was surprised,” Holliday said of the verdicts and the subsequent violence. “I did sleep that night, but it took a while. . . . The question still pops up in my mind: Was it my fault?”

Despite the anonymous calls that have come to his office blaming him for the violence, Holliday said he wants to get involved in “healing” the city. But he said he has been reluctant to step fully into the public spotlight because he believes the media manipulated him over the past 14 months by misrepresenting things he said, and he does not want to be branded as someone “just in it for the money.”

The amateur cameraman has said he has made little from his video. He initially sold the King tape to KTLA-TV for $500 after the beating. Last year, he also agreed to promote a videotape--called “Shoot News and Make Money With Your Camcorder”--in return for a “very, very small” royalty on sales.

During an hourlong interview on Wednesday, he provided few details of his plans to help the city recover from the riots or what money those plans might ultimately provide for him. His attorney, Ronald W. Grigg, said Holliday will make an announcement later this month about how he will lend his name and video.

“He has a unique position in society,” Grigg said. “This is an opportunity to use Mr. Holliday as a vehicle for healing.”

Grigg and Holliday said a news release sent to media outlets this week about plans to launch a clothing line bearing still-images from the beating video was premature. They said it was sent without their knowledge by an attorney who is no longer a spokesman for Holliday. That plan is still being considered but is not final, they said.

The Argentina-born Holliday said it is unlikely his life will ever return to what it was before King was beaten and he captured it for the world to see. He said he is recognized wherever he goes.

One of those who recognized him was King himself. Holliday was walking out of a Van Nuys gas station two months ago when he heard his name called. He saw King but did not initially recognize him because Holliday was only familiar with the news photos of King’s beaten and swollen face taken shortly after the beating.

“He said, ‘Hey, man, you saved my life,’ ” Holiday recalled of the chance encounter. “Nobody knew what to say to each other after that.”

They shook hands and walked away.