Koon Says King Defied Efforts to Subdue Him

Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, the senior officer at the scene of the arrest and beating of Rodney G. King, took the stand Tuesday to defend his actions and those of his officers, telling jurors that King appeared to be under the influence of PCP and that he defied repeated attempts to get him on the ground.

“What I wanted to do was use the lowest level of force necessary to take Mr. King into custody,” Koon said on the witness stand in the trial of four police officers charged with violating King’s civil rights. “The safest thing for Mr. King, the safest thing for the officers, the safest thing for the citizens, is to have Mr. King on the ground.”

Koon also firmly denied that any officer ever taunted King or yelled racial epithets at him, two claims that King made when he testified during the trial.

Koon, dressed in a navy blue suit and red tie, answered questions without hesitation, speaking forcefully but softly through most of his 90 minutes on the stand. Although he was occasionally animated--yelling loudly, for instance, when he imitated the sound he said King made at one point--he more often was matter-of-fact, and his voice often trailed off toward the end of his answers, forcing U.S. District Judge John G. Davies to interrupt at one point and ask him to speak up.

A few jurors leaned forward to listen to him while others took copious notes as he testified before a hushed courtroom.

Koon is the lead defendant in the federal case, and his appearance marked the first time that any of the four police officers has taken the witness stand during the trial, which began last month. Like his co-defendants--Laurence M. Powell, Timothy E. Wind and Theodore J. Briseno--Koon faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of violating King’s rights during the March 3, 1991, incident.

Powell, Wind and Briseno are charged with violating King’s rights by stomping him, kicking him and striking him with their batons. Koon never struck King, but he is accused of intentionally allowing officers under his supervision to administer an unreasonable beating.

As he did during last year’s state trial of the same defendants, Koon took responsibility for his own actions and for those of his officers.

“That’s my responsibility,” Koon said at one point. “I’m accountable for that.”

Although Koon did not finish describing the incident in his testimony Tuesday, he told jurors of the events leading up to the beginning of the videotape that captured the arrest on a darkened street in Lakeview Terrace.

Koon said he was at the Foothill police station when he heard a radio report indicating that a pursuit was in progress. He said he rushed to the scene despite conflicting directions about where the chase was headed.

“I got on the radio and announced I was going to respond,” Koon said. “I wanted to catch up with the pursuit and involve myself in it and take control.”

Koon said he needed to be at the scene when the pursuit concluded because his responsibility as a field sergeant demanded it.

“I had a duty and a responsibility, according to the policy, to manage and control the situation,” he said. “That was my intent at the time.”

Koon’s lawyer, Ira Salzman, said later that as his questioning of Koon continues today he will return to the issue of the sergeant’s intent again and again. To convict Koon and the other defendants, prosecutors must show that they willfully used unreasonable force, but Salzman said Koon’s testimony will illustrate that the officers’ only intent was to subdue King.

Koon said he first saw King standing outside his car just after the pursuit had ended. As the situation unfolded, Koon said he determined that King probably was under the influence of PCP, a powerful drug, in part because he saw King wave at a police helicopter overhead, shake his buttocks at officers and “do a little dance.”

King also was staring ahead blankly, Koon said, an indication of PCP intoxication.

According to Koon, King refused to obey orders at first, but after much cajoling, eventually was persuaded to drop to his hands and knees. Although Koon said that King would not lie on his stomach as directed, Koon testified that he nevertheless ordered several officers to try to handcuff him while he was on his hands and knees.

When the officers finally succeeded in pulling King’s arms out from under him, his face slammed hard into the pavement, Koon said, but even then they could not manage to handcuff him.

King, according to Koon, rose up, tossing off the officers. “I believed he had thrown approximately 800 pounds of officers off his back,” Koon said.

It was then, Koon said, that he became “100 percent” convinced that King was under the influence of PCP, and Koon said he shot King with an electrical device known as a Taser.

“I wanted him down flat,” Koon added. “I wanted him down on the ground.”

Koon’s testimony was halted at that point, but Salzman said that when his client resumes, he will detail the rest of the incident and will explain why he believes that the baton blows and kicks were justified.

Koon was preceded to the stand Tuesday by a series of expert witnesses called by the defense. They testified that the officers acted properly under the circumstances and that their training left them ill-equipped to handle the problem.

One of those experts, Edward Nowicki, trains police officers in Milwaukee and is a recognized expert in the use of the baton. He testified that he had initially been contacted by federal prosecutors as they were preparing their case against the officers last fall.

Nowicki said that when he first saw the videotape of the incident, he was “outraged” and believed it was a clear case of police abuse. But after reviewing it with prosecutors and hearing more facts about the case, he said he reversed his position.

“I saw baton strikes that were absolutely appropriate,” Nowicki said.

Prosecutors vigorously objected throughout Nowicki’s testimony, and on cross-examination suggested that he had not fully reviewed the facts of the case before he had come to his conclusions. They also protested any testimony regarding their initial contacts with Nowicki.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven D. Clymer, one of two lead prosecutors in the case, asked that jurors not be told about Nowicki’s meeting with the federal prosecutors, but Judge Davies ruled it was relevant.

“So the government thought they had a live one, and they didn’t,” Davies said with the jury outside the courtroom. “That happens all the time in this business of expert shopping.”

Most of Nowicki’s testimony centered on what he said was inadequate LAPD training on the use of batons, leaving the officers unprepared to deal with the situation that King presented. Nowicki is on an advisory council for the company that makes the baton used by the LAPD, and he said he is one of only 37 “certified international trainers” for the weapon.

Nowicki testified that Powell’s blows were “weak and ineffective. . . .

“He had no power,” Nowicki added. “He did not know how to use his body to lower his center and use baton strikes effectively.”

Nowicki said the LAPD failed to give “dynamic training” in which officers could swing at a real person in protective gear. He said Powell told him that he was taught baton technique by swinging at the air, and by hitting ax handles and rubber tires--methods that Nowicki called “substandard.”

But while Nowicki testified that he did not believe the injuries to King’s face and head were caused by baton blows, he conceded under cross-examination that he never reviewed medical records detailing King’s injuries. He also acknowledged that he was unfamiliar with the specifics of LAPD policy regarding the use of the weapon.

Nowicki took the stand after another defense expert, Sgt. Charles L. Duke Jr., ended two days of testimony that roundly attacked LAPD training and greatly bolstered the defense case. In a final blast at the prosecution version of the incident, Duke testified that he saw no evidence that King suffered baton blows to the head, and said he believed King received his injuries from “a violent confrontation with the ground.”