Officer Wasn’t Taunting King, Nurse Testifies : Trial: But the key prosecution witness said she did not think Laurence Powell was joking when he spoke with the beating victim about playing hardball and hitting home runs.

A nurse testifying in the Rodney G. King beating trial conceded Monday that she did not believe a policeman was taunting King when he told him: “We played a little ball and you lost and we won.”

But Carol Denise Edwards also said she did not think Officer Laurence Powell was joking when he spoke with King at Pacifica Hospital after King’s March 3, 1991, beating.

Edwards is a key witness against Powell, one of four white officers accused of violating King’s civil rights in the beating that occurred after the black motorist was stopped for speeding. The beating was videotaped by a resident.

Edwards acknowledged under defense cross-examination that she told FBI investigators that she “did not feel these officers were taunting him” when they spoke with King after the beating.

Edwards said she was inserting an intravenous needle into King’s arm when she heard the conversation between King and Powell.

She said King asked whether he would be out of the hospital in time to report for work the next day as an usher at Dodger Stadium.

She said Powell remarked, “What section do you usher in? I don’t want to sit in that section.”

“Mr. Powell said something to the effect ‘We played a little ball today, didn’t we Rodney?’. . . . Powell said, ‘You know we played a little hardball. We hit quite a few home runs,’ ” she testified.

She also quoted Powell as saying, “We played a little ball and you lost and we won.”

Outside court, Powell’s attorney, Michael Stone, said the baseball remarks were typical “banter” between policemen and suspects and said, “It’s meaningless.”

Powell and co-defendants Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno and Sgt. Stacey Koon face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison if convicted.

Their first trial, in state court, ended in acquittals on nearly all charges, sparking deadly riots in Los Angeles.

In a setback for the government, the judge barred prosecutors from presenting evidence that a passenger in King’s car the night he was beaten also suffered injury at the hands of police.

U.S. District Judge John G. Davies said he believed that introducing that issue might cause a “mini-trial” and “it goes beyond the indictment.”