Denny Says He Didn’t Provoke His Assailants : Riots: Truck driver, in a rare public comment, denies yelling racial slurs. ‘It’s not in me to do things like that,’ he declares.

Truck driver Reginald O. Denny, who has remained almost entirely out of sight since the April 29 beating that left him near death, has told a television interviewer that he did not provoke the rioters who attacked him.

“It’s not in me to do things like that,” Denny told the program “Inside Edition,” which plans to air the exclusive interview in two parts next week. “I’m not that kind of person, you know. So it’s just a big rumor that circulated in the community.”

Reached Wednesday by The Times, Denny said he could not comment about the case in detail because he is under contract with the program not to discuss the incident until after Sept. 18. He would not discuss terms of the contract, but said he was not paid for the interview.

In a brief interview with The Times, he said that his memory of the attack is sketchy. “I’m a guy who got beat up,” Denny said. “There’s really not much for me to say.”

Lawyers for suspect Damian Monroe (Football) Williams, one of three men charged in the attack on Denny, have suggested that the truck driver yelled racial slurs at an angry crowd that had gathered in the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues within hours of the not guilty verdicts in the trial of four Los Angeles police officers charged with beating Rodney G. King.

Denny, in his interview with “Inside Edition,” said he had not even heard about the verdicts in that case and could not figure out why the crowd was pouring into the intersection.

“I didn’t have a clue what was going on,” Denny said. “I hadn’t paid any attention to the news. I usually don’t. When traffic’s heavy, I tend to listen to all-music stations because it calms me down.”

Denny, who still is recovering from injuries he suffered during the attack, said Wednesday that he did the interviews with the program over a period of weeks. He has previously given written statements to the press and allowed television news crews to film him in his hospital room.

“He told us he has heard that people were saying he taunted the crowd by making racial comments,” Los Angeles Police Detective Guy Bourgeois wrote in his report of the interview with the truck driver. Denny told police he “was quite upset about (the accusations) because anyone who knows him would know that that was not true.”

Denny’s friends and associates also told police they were surprised by the accusation because they had never heard Denny make racial slurs, the report said.

In the interview with “Inside Edition,” Denny also rejected any suggestion that he is a hero, instead praising the four Good Samaritans--all of whom are black--who came to his rescue and saved his life.

“Those are the heroes,” Denny said. “Not me, not even close.”