Officer at King Beating Cleared of Failure to Report Misconduct : LAPD: He also is found innocent of charges that he failed to intervene to stop police assault on the motorist.

A Los Angeles police officer accused of standing by during the beating of Rodney G. King by fellow officers and failing to report their misconduct afterward was cleared of any wrongdoing in an internal administrative hearing, authorities said Thursday.

Danny Shry, 37, a four-year veteran, was found not guilty Wednesday of two departmental charges during a Board of Rights hearing that could have resulted in a recommendation that he be suspended or fired.

Shry was a defense witness in the Simi Valley trial that resulted in not guilty verdicts for four officers involved in the beating of King nearly 18 months ago. He is the third LAPD officer who was a bystander at the scene to go through the administrative discipline process.

One officer was cleared of wrongdoing and the other had a recommended suspension reduced to a reprimand. Five other officers who were bystanders during the March 3, 1991, incident still await such hearings.

Shry’s hearing ended after three days of closed sessions. The three-member board found Shry not guilty of charges that he failed to intervene while excessive force was being used and failed to report the excessive force afterward.

Shry could not be reached for comment and Capt. Forest Lewellen, chairman of the board, declined to comment.

“He is very happy this is over and behind him,” Detective James Perkins said of Shry. Perkins, who was Shry’s defense representative before the board, declined further comment.

Diane Marchant, an attorney for the police union who is representing some of the other officers who were bystanders at the King beating, also praised the board’s ruling.

“I don’t think that any of the officers who found themselves at the scene that night committed any misconduct at all,” said Marchant, who did not take part in the departmental hearing.

According to Internal Affairs Division records, Shry arrived on the scene where other officers had stopped King in Lake View Terrace well after the incident had begun. The records say that Shry arrived 27 seconds after the amateur videotape of the beating began.

According to the records, Shry told investigators that he saw only a small number of baton strokes administered by officers to King because he was busy handcuffing one of the passengers from King’s car. While handcuffing the man, Shry was on the other side of King’s car, away from the beating.

Shry told investigators and later testified at the trial in Simi Valley of Officers Laurence M. Powell, Theodore J. Briseno, Timothy E. Wind and Sgt. Stacey C. Koon that he believed the force he saw officers use on King was necessary because King was not complying with the officers’ orders.

Shry’s Board of Rights hearing was closed because the judge in the federal case against Powell, Briseno, Wind and Koon issued a protective order sealing all evidence gathered by the police Internal Affairs Division during its investigation of the beating. The four face charges of violating King’s civil rights.

“It was closed at the request of the federal people,” said Lt. John Dunkin, a department spokesman. “At some point in time when all of that outside litigation is complete, it will be unsealed. It is simply a matter of not wanting to impact that trial.”

Officials said the ruling by the board clears the way for Shry to return to active patrol duty at the Devonshire Division, where he was transferred after the King incident. He has worked on restricted duty for nearly 1 1/2 years.

“I would have to assume that not guilty is not guilty; he goes back to work,” Dunkin said.

Shry’s exoneration by a Board of Rights follows the same finding made by a board in December that heard charges against Officer Tim E. Blake, another bystander. In July, another Board of Rights recommended that Officer Kenneth A. Phillippe, a police helicopter observer, be reprimanded but not suspended. Phillippe claimed he never saw the King beating, despite being in the aircraft that provided a spotlight to help officers on the ground arrest King.

Four rookies on probation and not eligible for Board of Rights hearings received suspensions.

Times staff writer Richard A. Serrano contributed to this report.