Officer Says He Warned Wind About Use of Force : King case: The advice, hours after the beating, was never ‘get to the point where you enjoy it.’ The testimony leads to a delay over references to grand jury testimony.

Hours after Rodney G. King’s beating, a veteran policeman warned a rookie now on trial that using force was all right but “don’t get to the point where you enjoy it,” the senior officer testified Wednesday.

But the witness, Officer Joseph Napolitano, later interjected that Officer Timothy E. Wind, the subject of the advice, said, “I didn’t enjoy it.”

A prosecutor was suggesting that Napolitano invented that final bit of evidence to help Wind when the judge halted testimony.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven Clymer had just asked Napolitano: “Did you ever tell the grand jury what you just told this court about what Mr. Wind said?”

U.S. District Judge John G. Davies sent jurors from the room and said that since the defense is denied access to grand jury transcripts, the government’s questions were creating “unfair prejudice” toward the defense.

Davies noted that only prosecutors know what grand jury testimony might conflict with accounts in court from a witness.

Legal arguments on the issue consumed two hours, and the judge then recessed to research the law.

Clymer also had confronted Napolitano with his grand jury statement that King was never combative when officers were beating him. At the trial, he refused to say that.

Attorney Michael P. Stone said the defense had not lodged objections because they do not know what else is in the transcripts.

“Defense counsel are sitting on their hands while the government is fileting a witness on the stand,” he argued, “and that’s because we do not have the grand jury transcript. Fairness demands that we be allowed to look at the transcript.”

Clymer said he has shown defense counsel excerpts before asking questions, but they said that was not enough.

Attorney Harland Braun accused prosecutors of treating the transcript as “some bizarre state secret.” But Clymer said proceedings of federal grand juries are kept secret to encourage witnesses to be open.

“There are compelling reasons not to allow wholesale disclosure of grand jury testimony,” Clymer said. “There are things in that grand jury testimony unflattering to some of these defendants. Officer Napolitano did not expect these things to become public.”

Wind, Officers Laurence M. Powell and Theodore J. Briseno and Sgt. Stacey C. Koon are charged with violating King’s civil rights in the videotaped beating. They were acquitted of most assault charges in a state trial last year, which sparked deadly riots.

The federal case requires prosecutors to prove intent by the officers, and Clymer was trying to imply that Wind needed a warning because he enjoyed the beating too much.

Napolitano, a Los Angeles Police Department training officer since 1985, said he encountered Wind and others at a coffee shop about 5:30 a.m. on March 3, 1991. The King beating had occurred about 1 a.m. and was the topic of conversation.

Under cross-examination, he said he remembered addressing Wind.

“I believe I told him there are going to be times you are going to have to use force but don’t get to the point where you enjoy it,” he said.

Clymer asked, “Isn’t it true you told defendant Wind this because of what you saw the night before?”

“In part,” Napolitano said. “That was the triggering mechanism.”

But on questioning by Wind’s lawyer, Paul DePasquale, Napolitano suggested it was Wind who started the conversation.

“I said something about the incident the night before, and he said, ‘Yeah, and I didn’t enjoy it,” said Napolitano. “And then I made my comment.”

The prosecutor resumed his questioning, asking, “The statement you made at the restaurant was for defendant Wind’s benefit, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said the witness.

He then asked whether Napolitano related Wind’s statement before. The answer was blocked by the judge’s inquiry.

Wind, 33, formerly a police officer in Kansas, joined the LAPD in 1990 and was out of the Police Academy only four months when the beating occurred.