King Jurors Had Meeting of Minds on Three Points

Midway into their deliberations, jurors in the Rodney G. King federal civil rights trial were virtually unanimous on three points, a member of the jury said Monday at his Fullerton home.

King was never an aggressor. Sgt. Stacey C. Koon violated King’s civil rights. Officer Theodore J. Briseno did not.

A few jurors were wavering on the culpability of Officer Laurence M. Powell and former Officer Timothy E. Wind. So they returned for what seemed like the hundredth time to reams of testimony and the now famous George Holliday tape of the beating, Juror No. 11 said in an interview.

“We saw that tape so many times, I can point out everything, motion by motion, frame by frame,” the 55-year-old juror said.

And in the end, all agreed that Powell, who struck the first and the most baton blows, never held back, he said. On the first vote last Thursday, the eight-man, four-woman panel voted unanimously for a conviction, the juror said.

As to Wind, the jurors felt that he participated in the beating but was following orders and examples set by his supervisors.

“In the beginning, I felt Wind was guilty,” Juror No. 11 recalled. “But, I changed my mind. The proof wasn’t there. I was never sure. And because I doubted, I had to say he wasn’t guilty.”

Following the federal judge’s instructions, jurors never allowed themselves to think about last year’s riots and the possibility of more violence after their verdicts. Instead, he said, they immersed themselves in the evidence.

They eliminated testimony of experts on both sides, reasoning that the conflicting witnesses canceled each other out. They reread and questioned the validity of Koon’s testimony and agreed that he appeared “arrogant,” the juror said.

And while the jury did not base its verdicts on King’s testimony, the juror said, his presence made an impact.

“We saw on the stand the man who was beaten on the tape,” the juror said. “And on the tape, what we saw was a man who was being beaten over and over again. No one believed that King was attacking (the officers) after he was knocked down,” he said. “And when he got up only to be pushed down again, everybody believed he was rolling with the punches. He didn’t have a chance.”

“King was a victim, no doubt about that” the juror said. “But a lot of people were victims in this case.”

The enormity of their decisions didn’t hit jurors until they were escorted out of the courthouse after they had rendered their verdicts, the juror said.

An eerie silence greeted them on the street. They saw few pedestrians and motorists. Armed and uniformed police officers were everywhere.