More Tired Than Angry, City Watches Denny Case : Law: Many are less concerned with trial of motorist's attackers than with failed efforts to rebuild their area.

By ASHLEY DUNN

July 28, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

In the parking lot of Deryl’s Hand Car Wash near the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues, 21-year-old Lamont Robinson has no idea that the case that once riveted his neighborhood is finally going to trial.

He was there that April day a year and a half ago when the block went up in flames. He saw the truck belonging to Reginald O. Denny stopped in the street, its door open and its driver gone.

But after living through five days of rioting, two trials of the police officers involved in the beating of Rodney G. King and more than a year of turmoil that has brought scant change to his neighborhood, he is now bone tired of it all.

“I got too many other problems,” he said. “Too much conflict. Too much. It’s history.”

Across town, Robinson’s words are echoed in the pastel stucco suburbs that just three months ago were preparing for the possibility of a new round of rioting after the second King beating trial. People there, like those at Florence and Normandie, now wonder when the city will declare itself healed.

“This case needs to get over with so we can all get on with it,” said Tom Paterson, a member of the Valley Village Homeowners Assn. “You have to move on and I’m ready.”

As jury selection begins today for the trial of Damian Monroe Williams and Henry Keith Watson--charged with assaulting 12 people on April 29, 1992--Los Angeles is a city that seems to be slouching toward one of the closing chapters in a long and tortured tale.

“I’m tired of dealing with it. I’m tired of talking about it,” said Kerman Maddox, a well-known activist in the black community and a political consultant. “A lot of people are saying, ‘Whatever it brings, let’s just get it over with.’ ”

Less than a year ago, the Denny beating case was seen by many African-Americans as the symbolic twin of the case that started it all--the King beating.

The cases flashed through the city like mirror images of each other. In the King beating it was white police officers who beat a black motorist. In the Denny case, it was black youths who attacked a white motorist. Both became powerful images ingrained in the public mind through the power of the video camera.

For many African-Americans, the treatment of the defendants in the Denny case drove a stake deeper into their psyche of the corruption of the system.

How could the police officers in the King case walk free, while the Denny defendants were still locked up? Why did they face sentences that would keep them behind bars forever when a Korean-American woman who killed a black girl was given probation?

“They didn’t throw the book at these men, they threw the whole bookcase,” said supporter Naomi Sutton in December.

The seven men charged in connection with the violence at Florence and Normandie became the “LA4+.” They became a cause.

“(The defendants) have come to symbolize the entire rebellion,” said supporter Roland Freeman.

To many others, though, the beating represented nothing less than an act of wanton brutality and of the impotence of law enforcement to deter it.

Over the past year, the case has changed dramatically. To begin with, three of the seven original defendants charged with crimes that occurred at Florence and Normandie--Anthony Lamar Brown, Lewis Curl Foster and Gary Williams--agreed to plea-bargain their cases. The trials of Antoine Eugene Miller and Lance Jerome Parker are pending.

More importantly, the perceptions of the Denny beating case have changed. A powerful influence was the guilty verdicts in April for Los Angeles Police Sgt. Stacey C. Koon and Officer Laurence M. Powell in the beating of King.

“When the jury came back with those guilty verdicts, that took a lot of wind out of the balloon,” Maddox said. “Most people were arguing for justice in the King case. We got some justice.”

Support for the defendants has also been tempered by a deep ambivalence about the violence of the attack on Denny. “I don’t think people were jumping up and down in the street saying these kids are innocent,” he said.

Still, as they did during the second King trial, Los Angeles police are prepared for the possibility of violence during the Denny trial. The trial had been scheduled to take place at about the same time as the second King beating trial earlier this year and a plan was already in place to handle both events at the same time.

Los Angeles police officials say that, once again, the department is considering placing officers on tactical alert during deliberations and a citywide mobilization when the verdicts are returned.

“What you saw at the King trial is what you will see during the Denny trial,” said LAPD spokesman Lt. John Dunkin.

Although the national and foreign press corps will be here in force, no one is now expecting the kind of free-for-all that occurred during the King civil rights trial. This time, Itsuki Iwata, bureau chief for the Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun, said there simply is not the same degree of interest.

Japanese readers, he said, closely followed the King beating, which came to represent the chaos and turmoil in Los Angeles.

“This case, it’s just an assault,” he said, referring to the Denny beating trial. “The situation is totally different. Maybe it won’t be big news.”

Despite the relative calm in the city, it is clear that the anger that sparked the worst rioting of the century is not far from the surface after a year of failed initiatives and empty promises.

In the parking lot of Kakawana’s Auto Detailing near Florence and Normandie, the group of men who gather here each day to talk and pass the time fume at how little has changed in their lives.

“Nothing’s changed,” said Kakawana, the owner of this local gathering spot a block away from the riot’s epicenter who uses only a single name. “You want to talk about justice? What justice? They’ve slapped us on both sides of the face and now they’re slapping us on the back of the head.”

“Where are all these jobs we were supposed to get?” said 54-year-old Benny Bryant, joining in the barrage of outrage in the parking lot. “I’m out of work, I can’t get general relief and they got a construction company from Costa Mesa working down the street. It makes me sick.”

But as they talk about the trial, their words turn from anger to a numbed frustration.

“I’ll watch a little bit on television,” said Marvin Clark, a 24-year-old window tinter who has decided that the outcome, whatever it is, will have little effect on his life. “We got so much to deal with just to stay alive.”

For many, it seems that the city has lurched from one crisis to the next. Next week, while prospective jurors are being interviewed in the Denny case, the two LAPD officers convicted of violating King’s civil rights will be sentenced for their crime--yet another flash point to face. Such upheavals have become an almost normal part of life here.

What has been obscured, according to Kerman Maddox, is figuring out how to solve the underlying problems that fuel the anger.

“A lot of people are trying to figure out, ‘How do we get beyond this?’ ” he said, exasperated. “I would rather talk about jobs, about unemployment. I would love to have a theater in my neighborhood. I want to talk about that stuff.”

For residents of Florence and Normandie, they need look no further than their own neighborhood to see the constant reminders of the city’s fitful progress.

Two corners of the block have been empty since the riots. On a chain-link fence surrounding one corner, a banner hangs amid a flurry of signs advertising tree trimming, trash hauling and divorce advice.

“No justice, no peace,” it reads. “Free the LA4+.”

The “LA 4+”

Seven men were originally charged with the April 29, 1992, attacks on motorists at Florence and Normandie avenues. Today, potential jurors begin filling out questionnaires in the trial of Damian Monroe Williams and Henry Keith Watson. Three others agreed to plea-bargain their cases. And two more are awaiting trial.

ON TRIAL NOW

Damian Monroe Williams

* Birth date: March 17, 1973

* Charges: Six counts of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of attempted murder, one count of aggravated mayhem, two counts of robbery.

* Bail: $580,000

Henry Keith Watson

* Birth date: Aug. 29, 1964

* Charges: One count of attempted murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and two counts of robbery.

* Bail: $500,000

TRIAL PENDING

Antoine Eugene Miller

* Birth date: May 5, 1972