7 Attacks by Denny Beating Suspects Alleged

Three reputed gang members accused of beating truck driver Reginald O. Denny were charged on Thursday with attacking 12 earlier victims in a series of violent assaults and robberies that took place during the early moments of the Los Angeles riots.

The new charges--stemming from seven separate incidents videotaped by news crews and other bystanders on April 29--illustrate a “pattern of malicious beatings and assaults and robberies” that occurred at the flash point of the violence, said Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner.

At a crowded downtown news conference, Reiner said the hourlong series of attacks--which included two additional cases of men allegedly being pulled from their trucks and beaten--represents a clear rebuttal to the argument that Denny may have provoked the attack that hospitalized him by shouting racial epithets at blacks on the street. The nationally broadcast videotape of Denny, who is white, being dragged from his rig and attacked has come to symbolize the upheaval that followed the verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating case.

“Mr. Denny was not an only victim--he was just one among the great many,” Reiner said, deploring media coverage that he claimed has, in some instances, given undeserved legitimacy to the attackers.

“They are not heroes,” Reiner said. “They are clearly . . . people who set upon others to try to rob them and beat them.”

LAPD Lt. Bruce Hagerty, who supervises a task force on riot violence, said more arrests are on the way. “In the next weeks we’re going to present a lot more cases,” he said. “We’re going to show how brutal the people were out there.”

Only hours after the latest charges were announced, the three suspects appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to the 33 additional felony counts, which range from assault with a deadly weapon to throwing objects at a vehicle.

Los Angeles Municipal Judge William R. Chidsey rejected Reiner’s request to deny bail or set it at $1 million. But the judge did raise the bail to $580,000 for suspects Damian Monroe (Football) Williams, 19, and Antoine Eugene (Twan) Miller, 20. The judge also raised bail for Henry Keith (Kiki) Watson, 27, to $500,000.

Previously, the bail for each of the three defendants had been between $160,000 and $195,000.

In setting the new amounts, Chidsey talked of the terror that victims must have felt, saying that he is “confident and sure each one was scared beyond description. They didn’t know whether their lives would be taken.”

The judge’s action drew moans from many in the jam-packed courtroom and prompted a group of Nation of Islam members, along with a number of youths in attendance, to stand and abruptly walk out. Many wore yellow bows on their clothing in support of the defendants.

One supporter, Compton City Councilwoman Patricia Moore, called the charges against the three men “a witch hunt. . . . This is not liberty and justice for all, this is crazy insanity.”

Defense attorneys, who expressed hope that at least two of the defendants would be able to post bail soon because of donations that have poured in, also challenged the validity of the latest charges.

Fred Sebastian, a spokesman for the North Hollywood-based Center for Constitutional Law and Justice, which represents Williams, accused Reiner of “grandstanding” a week before the primary elections--a charge that the district attorney denied.

Sebastian also challenged prosecutors to make the videotapes public to substantiate the new charges. Defense attorneys have tried for about a week to obtain copies of the tapes from authorities, but to no avail, Sebastian said.

“(We) have a deep personal regard for anyone who was injured that day, and our heart goes out to them,” Sebastian said. “However, there’s no proof that Damian Williams did any of these acts, and until such time that it is proven, it’s nothing more than an allegation.”

A spokeswoman for Reiner responded by saying that the videos will be made available to the defense team next week and that many of them have already been televised.

Sebastian also suggested that some of the alleged victims may have provoked the attacks simply by driving into the intersection, rather than making a U-turn and traveling in a safe direction.

“It’s (contributory negligence) when you enter an intersection where people are throwing rocks and bottles,” Sebastian said, alluding to footage he claimed to have seen in one videotape. In the footage, he said, motorists enter the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues, where the rioting began, and inexplicably stop.

“They stop and look around and put their foot on the gas,” he said. “It’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen. It’s like (they) were sightseeing.”

However, that account did not appear to jibe with the personal experiences of one rioting victim, 47-year-old Takao Hirata, who was described by authorities as the first known victim in the rampage.

Hirata, a Gardena resident who was driving home from work, told The Times he reached the intersection and his car was suddenly stopped. Then, he said, “a guy broke my passenger-side window and he asked me for my money. . . . He took my wallet and then somebody else on the other side hit me in the head.”

“I woke up in the hospital.”

Hirata, who lost several teeth and suffered numerous facial wounds, said he spent three days in the hospital. Thursday was his first day back at work, he said, adding that he was unaware of Reiner’s news conference. When told that the suspect in the attack on him--Williams--was one of the alleged assailants in the assault on Denny, Hirata said: “That’s unbelievable. I can’t believe it’s the same people.”

After the attack on Hirata, rioters--including several unidentified assailants--turned their attention to a car driven by a woman named Alicia Maldonado.

Reiner, describing the alleged sequence of events, said: “Williams points at her car as if directing this mob toward her. Then he throws a brick . . . at the car. Watson also throws a brick. An unidentified man reaches in and steals her purse. And then Miller reaches and takes the purse from this unidentified man.

“She drives off under a barrage of rocks from the rest of that mob.”

Prosecutors said the later attacks became even more violent. After the assault on Hirata, a champagne bottle was thrown through the window of a Los Angeles City Fire Department car occupied by Battalion Chief Terrance Manning and an ax was slammed into the car’s roof, Reiner said.

Rioters next pulled Fidel Lopez, 47, from his truck and beat him senseless. After Lopez was hit in the head with a stereo speaker, Reiner said, Williams took a can of spray paint and “starts spraying all over his body and pulls down his pants and starts spraying his genitals. And then he pours some sort of liquid--whatever it may have been--all over Mr. Lopez.”

Responding to that assertion, Sebastian of the defense team questioned Reiner’s sketchy details, saying, “What is the liquid? Where is it? Let’s see what he’s talking about.”

Lopez has returned to work but is still recuperating from his injuries, his brother-in-law, Luis Barrio, said Thursday. “He had 29 stitches in his forehead and he’s still getting headaches,” Barrio said.

After the attack on Lopez, another man in a truck, Larry Tarvan, was pulled to the street and beaten. In that instance, Reiner said, Williams threw a fire extinguisher at Tarvan.

Two additional attacks involved families traveling through the intersection.

One car contained two adults and a 7-month-old infant. The vehicle, a Volvo, was first “pelted with rocks and bricks,” Reiner said, after which “Miller leans into the car and strikes the driver . . . with a brick and says, ‘Give me your money.’ . . . Then Miller throws some sort of metal-covered phone book at Marisa, the woman in the car, and strikes her in the face, causing about 10 stitches.

“Then an unidentified person throws this large metal sign through the back window of the car, shattering the glass all over the 7-month-old child who was in the back seat.”

The infant suffered cuts, according to Reiner, who did not elaborate on the child’s condition.

The seventh incident involved another car with three passengers. According to Reiner, Miller threw a rock and knocked the driver unconscious, after which the car crashed into another vehicle. “And the men and woman are pulled out and beaten,” the district attorney added.

Moments later, Denny drove his rig into the intersection.

Times staff writer Stephanie Chavez contributed to this story.

RELATED STORIES: B3