King Admits Lies but Insists That He Didn’t Hit Officers : Testimony: He concedes false statements prior to trial and also wavers on claim that racial taunts accompanied beating. But he shows confidence in final day on stand.

In his final hours of testimony, Rodney G. King’s credibility came under fire Wednesday as lawyers for four police officers charged with violating his civil rights wrested from him two important admissions: that he cannot be sure police officers used racial epithets while striking him and that he has lied about the incident on previous occasions.

“I lied, sir,” King said in response to a question from Harland W. Braun, who represents Theodore J. Briseno. “And I do not feel happy or proud of it. I have nothing to brag about.”

King, who spent more than four hours on the stand Wednesday, struggled with some of the questions posed to him by defense attorneys. He also had difficulty reading transcripts that were handed to him, asking lawyers to read them for him so that he could “fully understand.”

But despite his admissions and occasional confusion, King never wavered from his central contention, reiterating several times that he did not strike or attack the officers who beat him and that his actions during the incident were intended only to protect himself.

King’s testimony capped his long-awaited appearance as a witness to his own arrest by officers on March 3, 1991. Four defendants--Briseno, Stacey C. Koon, Laurence M. Powell and Timothy E. Wind--are charged with violating King’s civil rights during that incident.

Powell, Wind and Briseno are accused of willfully striking, stomping and kicking King, depriving him of the constitutional right to be protected from the intentional use of unreasonable force. Koon, the senior officer at the scene, is charged with allowing officers under his supervision to carry out an unreasonable beating.

If convicted, they could face up to 10 years in prison and fines of $250,000 each. None of the four have spoken to King since the night of the incident, and King was not called as a witness during last year’s state trial of the officers.

Although he appeared weary at times, King seemed to gain confidence through the day. At one point he even laughed in response to a defense lawyer’s question about whether he had drunk as much as a case of beer on the night of the incident.

“I don’t think it was that,” King said, smiling nervously and chuckling. “I cannot drink a case of beer.”

Defense lawyers for the most part were gently persistent in their questioning, attempting to discredit King’s testimony without offending jurors who may be sympathetic to him. King answered their questions carefully and politely even when defense lawyers suggested that he was a liar who was willing to send innocent men to prison if it serves his own interests.

Braun, whose relatively short cross-examination of King was the most aggressive, devoted most of his efforts to attacking King’s allegation that the officers taunted him with racial epithets.

In his testimony Tuesday, King said that officers at one point told him: “We’re going to kill you nigger. Run!” King testified that officers chanted that same racial epithet at him as they kicked him and struck him with their batons.

If jurors believe that charge, it would offer powerful evidence that the officers intended to use unreasonable force against King, rather than confining their blows to what was needed to overcome his resistance and take him into custody. Prosecutors do not need to prove that the officers acted out of racial malice, but evidence of such animus could help them prove that the officers acted willfully.

Even prosecutors appeared uncomfortable with King’s allegation, asking him Tuesday if he was “absolutely sure” that he had heard the slur. King conceded that he was not, and he retreated further under probing by defense lawyers, particularly when confronted with his prior statements about the issue.

On March 7, 1991, just four days after the incident, King made his first public comments about it, and he told reporters that it was not a racial incident.

Wednesday, he explained that omission by saying that his mother suggested that he should “not get into it.”

“My mom asked me, told me, there’s no need to bring any racial issue into this matter,” King said under questioning by Paul R. DePasquale, who represents Wind. “She told me there was no need to get into that.”

A few months after that news conference, King was interviewed by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. In that session, King said the officers chanted: “How you feel now, nigger? What’s up, nigger? How you feel now, killer? How you feel now?”

That account parallels the one he gave in his federal court testimony, but it does not conform with what he told federal grand jurors on July 23, 1992. During that proceeding, King did not accuse any officer of using racially derogatory language, even when asked specifically whether the officers had said anything or teased him.

“You did not ever say in that grand jury testimony the word nigger, did you?” Michael P. Stone, Powell’s lawyer, asked Wednesday during questioning that lasted two hours.

“Sometimes I forget a lot of things,” King responded. “Sometimes I remember. Sometimes I don’t.”

Braun, who was the final defense lawyer to question King, pressed him on the same topic and elicited an admission from him that he cannot be sure whether any epithet ever was used.

“You can’t say for sure that any officer used the word nigger that night?” Braun asked.

“I can’t say it for sure,” King responded. “I can’t say it for sure, no.”

After pressing King on that issue and other inconsistencies in statements that he has made about the beating, defense attorneys went on to suggest that they believe King’s accounts of the incident are intended to bolster his chances of winning a large civil settlement from the city of Los Angeles.

King has filed a federal lawsuit in connection with the beating, and it is being held in abeyance until the criminal trial of the officers is concluded.

“You want to get a lot of money, don’t you?” Stone asked. “What’s a lot of money?”

“More than I have now,” King told the lawyer, whose client, Powell, delivered the majority of blows.

Although King conceded that he has lied about the incident in the past--for instance, when he denied that he fled police and that he had been drinking when they tried to pull him over--he resisted defense efforts to suggest that he might be distorting his federal court testimony.

“I am here today, and I was here yesterday, only to tell the truth,” King said.

Stone admitted later outside court that defense attorneys had not succeeded in impeaching King’s testimony directly, but he said King’s waffling on key topics revealed that he was not credible as a witness.

“I feel like I did what I set out to do,” Stone said. “I showed that if he has a stake in the outcome, he will lie.”

What remains to be seen, however, is whether King’s credibility figures at all in the jury’s consideration of the case. Despite spending more than a day on the witness stand, King offered few new facts about the incident.

He did, however, present a soft-spoken, likable appearance for the jurors, giving them a human face to attach to his blurry videotaped image.

“They have him here to give them life, to bring a human dimension,” Braun said.

That alone, defense lawyers conceded, could have an impact on the jury. But they said they will stress that jurors need to remember how the officers saw King when judging whether the officers’ reactions were reasonable.

“In court, he does not appear to be anything but a big, nice guy,” Stone said. “Obviously, he appears different in the courtroom than he appeared to the officers that night.”

At the end of his testimony, King left the courtroom without comment. He was followed to the stand by Dr. Harry Smith, a medical expert from San Antonio, Tex., who detailed the injuries that King suffered from the beating.

Using a plastic skull as a model, Smith told jurors that King had suffered a number of facial and skull fractures. King’s right sinus, for instance, was “pulverized,” Smith said.

Although Smith testified only briefly Wednesday, he will return to the stand today and is expected to say that the most serious injuries to King’s head and face were caused by baton blows. That is potentially damaging to the officers because intentional baton strikes to the head of a suspect generally violate police policy.