Witness Says He Saw Defendant Attack Denny

A gas station cashier testified Tuesday that Damian Monroe Williams hit trucker Reginald O. Denny on the head with a brick and that Williams had earlier threatened to attack and kill people.

Williams’ defense attorney assailed the cashier’s testimony outside court, saying he was “clearly lying” since he did not report any threats Williams allegedly made until 13 months later--”coincidentally” in a meeting with prosecutors.

The cashier, Gabriel Quintana, is the first prosecution witness to identify either of the two defendants on trial for allegedly attempting to kill Denny and assaulting or robbing five other motorists and two firefighters as they passed through the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues as rioting broke out in Los Angeles last year.

His testimony that Williams had threatened to kill people is critical to prosecutors’ efforts to establish the defendant’s intent--a necessary element in the charges of aggravated mayhem and willful, deliberate and premeditated attempted murder.

Quintana, 22, said Williams and several other people attacked his cashier’s booth after beating Denny, breaking bulletproof glass with bricks, a hammer and a dolly. Quintana said he fled to a bathroom, but his assailants removed the door, dragged him out, kicked him, beat him and robbed him of $90 to $100 of his personal money. Williams, he said, slammed his face into a window, cutting him.

Prosecutors showed a ground-level videotape of Quintana, sitting on the pavement and bleeding, outside his cashier’s window.

“I was asking for help,” Quintana said. “I was told I could not be helped, that I should just leave.”

Before the attack on Denny, he said, Williams came to the cashier’s window at the Unocal station at Florence and Normandie. “Today I’m going to hit and kill people,” Quintana quoted Williams as telling him.

Asked by Deputy Dist. Atty. Janet Moore, one of two prosecutors in the case, whether Williams had said why he planned to assault people, Quintana answered: “He just said something about Rodney King.”

Quintana testified through a translator for the most part, but he spoke in English when he related Williams’ alleged threat.

Returning to Spanish, he said Williams was wearing a white T-shirt, short black pants and a blue bandanna around his neck. The description is crucial to the state’s case because prosecutors have insisted that a person dressed like that is shown on videotape throwing a brick that hit Denny on the head.

Quintana said he recognized Williams on sight because he had caused trouble at the station before, asking for free cigarettes or gasoline. He said he never gave Williams free merchandise.

He said he later saw Williams directing traffic at the intersection and hitting people. Denny’s truck pulled into the intersection, Quintana said, and a group of men threw rocks at it before pulling Denny out.

“They threw him on the ground and started to beat him,” Quintana testified. “Someone hit him in the head with a brick.”

Standing behind Williams, who was seated at the defense table, Moore asked: “Is this the person you saw throw the brick into the head of the truck driver?”

Quintana answered, “Yes.” He said Williams danced after hitting Denny with the brick.

Williams, 20, and Henry Keith Watson, 28, face charges of attempted murder, among other felonies, stemming from assaults on motorists at the intersection. They are not charged with beating Quintana or with looting the station of cigarettes, candy and other goods.

Last week, prosecutors said charges were not filed for assaults on several victims because the district attorney’s office learned the victims’ identities only after pretrial proceedings had begun against Williams, Watson and other defendants. To file additional charges would have delayed the case, they said.

On cross-examination by Williams’ defense attorney, Edi M. O. Faal, Quintana acknowledged that he did not mention any threats by Williams when he was interviewed by Los Angeles Police Officer Martina Villalobos at the 77th Street station in July, 1992.

Quintana also said he did not mention the threats when he filed a police report that same month on what was stolen from the station.

The cashier conceded that the first time he mentioned Williams’ alleged threat to kill people was on May 13, when he met with Moore, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lawrence C. Morrison--co-prosecutor in the Denny case--and Detective Arthur Daedelow of the Los Angeles Police Department--13 months after the incident.

Under questioning from Faal, Quintana also said he did not tell police that Williams had attacked him and was among the people who looted the station.

Quintana said the first time he reported that Williams had attacked him was during the May 13 meeting. Faal also pointed out contradictions between Quintana’s testimony Monday and statements he had given to police. Quintana told investigators in July, 1992, that he saw Williams hit Denny with a brick two or three times.

During a break in testimony, Faal said outside court that Quintana was not a credible witness.

“It’s very significant that the same day he met with prosecutors is the same day he said Mr. Williams threatened to kill people,” Faal said. “When prosecutors realized they had a problem with intent, he makes a statement.

“They’re trying to establish intent with him, but they can’t do it. This man will say anything,” Faal said.

If Quintana is not credible on threats Williams allegedly made, he is not credible in identifying Williams, the defense attorney said.

“He said he saw Williams throw rocks three times,” Faal said. “No one else has ever said that.”

Quintana said in later testimony that he tried to call police to the intersection but could not get through on the 911 emergency number. When his supervisor called to check on him, he did not say that Williams had threatened to break into the booth and beat him up, he testified.

Quintana did not want to stay on the phone that day, he said, because he did not want people at the intersection to think he was calling police.

Asked why he had picked out Williams in police photos as the person who threw the brick at Denny but did not tell officers that Williams had also attacked him, Quintana said: “I wasn’t asked.”

Under questioning from Moore, Quintana said he pushed the robbery alarm in his booth, but no help came. He said he was afraid for his family and for himself and that he did not want to get involved in the case.

After Quintana’s testimony, Takao Hirata, 49, a print shop owner, described how he was attacked as he drove up to a stop at Florence and Normandie.

“Someone on the passenger side asked me for my money,” he said. “I started to reach in my pocket to give him my money. That’s the last thing I remember.”

Hirata was dragged from his truck and beaten.

Another witness, television actor and writer Gregory Alan-Williams, drove to the intersection and helped Hirata get away.

A few blocks away, he recalled, he asked the printer if he could walk. When Hirata indicated he could not, Alan-Williams said: “You’re going to have to or you’re going to die.”

Alan-Williams said he later propped Hirata against a utility pole and a police cruiser pulled up. Two officers looked at them for about 30 seconds and pulled away, he said. The officers turned around and came back but drove off again without helping, he said.

A young black man then drove up in a van and drove Hirata to the hospital, Alan-Williams said. Neither Hirata nor Alan-Williams could identify the men who attacked the printer.

Times staff writer Ashley Dunn contributed to this story.