Press, Public Flock to See Justice Unfold

Like others in the large crowd of reporters and cameramen, 12-year-old Enis Beley was on hand Tuesday to record the historic moment: the day that Rodney G. King testified, at long last, about the police beating that turned him, and Los Angeles, into symbols of America’s urban unrest.

The sixth-grader had ridden the bus downtown toting his camcorder, on assignment for the British Broadcasting Co. to chronicle his life as a youth in riot-torn South-Central Los Angeles. With him, he brought unanswered questions and a hard-edged cynicism, expecting that the police officers would be acquitted again, and fearful of what that might mean to a city still struggling to heal.

“I think there’s going to be another riot in South-Central Los Angeles,” Enis said bluntly, while at least 20 camera crews prepared to capture footage outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building. From near and far, from the inner city to the capitals of Europe, the media and the masses descended upon the gleaming marble tower to experience what surely would be another turning point.

King’s testimony--in which he stolidly described being assaulted by officers who taunted him with racial slurs--was his first public statement in open court about the incident, nearly two years to the day after it happened. In anticipation of the drama, reporters packed the courthouse’s sixth-floor media room, a busy den of computers and dangling wires, and crowded into 44 allotted spaces in the eighth-floor courtroom.

The media included representatives of the BBC, the London Daily Telegraph, the Asahi Shimbun television and newspaper organization from Japan, as well as papers in Germany, Scotland, Austria and elsewhere. Enis was completing six months of filming for a BBC documentary on Los Angeles that is expected to air overseas at the end of April.

Reporter Regis Navarre, 30, was preparing to meet a 10:30 p.m. deadline for readers of Le Monde in France.

“In France, they’re interested in the trial because we have the same troubles in the suburbs,” Navarre said, explaining why he was tracking King’s every word. “We have unemployment . . . minorities . . . police brutality. It’s not the same scale (as in the United States), but it’s the same type of problem.”

In the building lobby, would-be courtroom spectators began lining up at 6 a.m.--7 1/2 hours before King was called as a witness--in hopes of getting one of about a dozen seats reserved for the public. Many of them, including Richard Burns, 53, of Torrance, expect to be there again today as King continues to undergo cross-examination.

“So far, I haven’t missed a day,” said Burns, who bypassed the morning session to be first in line for the afternoon proceedings, when King appeared. Burns, laid off from his job as a Northrop Corp. production controller, said he is “trying to put myself in the shoes of the Simi Valley jurors” who acquitted the four Los Angeles Police Department officers last April.

In researching the trial, Burns said, he went from outrage at the verdicts to understanding them. In fact, as he waited to see whether King’s appearance might change his opinions, Burns expressed near certainty that the officers once again will walk free.

“I don’t think there’s any way they’ll be convicted,” he said, adding of King: “I think he’s going to take a beating worse than he got from the cops from these (defense) attorneys . . . when they cross-examine him.”

But other spectators disagreed.

Juan Cedillo, 38, president of a Texas-based organization promoting racial equality, got to see the legal drama unfold after flying in from Washington, D.C., for the spectacle. A week ago, Cedillo filed a federal lawsuit involving alleged discrimination at a Kansas City-based beverage firm.

“Abuse can occur at any level,” Cedillo said, adding of King: “He was treated as a criminal before he was brought to (trial). The officers abused their authority.”

Agatha Mallory, 47, a kindergarten teacher from Pomona, left her home at 6:15 a.m. to see what King had to say, “to see what he was thinking” on the night that he tried to flee from officers in the high-speed chase that ended with his beating. Mallory attended the trial for the first time on Friday, partly to practice courtroom sketching, but the case “just got more and more interesting,” she said.

“I know that as a black American I’m going to appear biased, but I just don’t think he was that dangerous,” she said. “Why couldn’t they have ganged up on him and all grabbed him by his hands and feet? I just think the cops got out of control.”

For Rich McGready, 37, of Ontario, the chance to attend the trial was a way to see beyond what he called the media’s distortion of the issues. After watching all of last year’s trial, McGready came to side with the officers.

“There was no question to me that they were not guilty,” McGready said. “But Rodney King didn’t testify during that trial. That’s the one piece of the puzzle I haven’t seen yet.”

As King answered the questions from attorneys, one of the most interested listeners was private investigator Jerry A. Guzzetta, representing the four accused officers. Twice during King’s opening testimony, comments triggered the need to track down legal documentation, and Guzzetta sprang into action, phoning his office or going in search of the evidence himself.

By the time court had recessed in midafternoon, King’s testimony had made an impact--at least on one spectator. Burns, who had sided strongly with the officers, said he had begun to form a different opinion.

“He’s drawing a lot of sympathy,” Burns said of King after stepping from the packed courtroom. “His answers were consistent. I just believe he’s making a lot of points for the prosecution.”