LAPD Says Briseno Is Unfit to Be on Force : Hearing: Sergeant tells Board of Rights the suspended officer has a pattern of lying. He is accused of using excessive force on Rodney G. King.

A disciplinary hearing for suspended Los Angeles Police Officer Theodore J. Briseno got under way Wednesday with an assertion that the 40-year-old officer, twice acquitted of criminal charges in the Rodney G. King beating, “lacks the integrity and forthrightness to be an LAPD officer.”

Briseno, seeking to get his job back, is administratively charged with one offense--unnecessarily kicking King after a car chase on March 3, 1991.

However, a department advocate, or prosecutor, said in her opening statement that Briseno’s credibility will be a major issue in the case.

The advocate, Sgt. Corrie Malinka, said she plans to show that Briseno gave “less than truthful testimony” at the first King trial and earlier when he was confronted with a misconduct allegation. She offered no specifics but may have been referring to an unrelated incident in which Briseno was suspended for 66 days for striking a handcuffed suspect.

Briseno’s attorney, Gregory Petersen, said that the allegations of untruthfulness were irrelevant to the Board of Rights hearing.

“Was Mr. King unnecessarily kicked is the issue,” Petersen said. “There is no charge of lack of integrity.”

However, Petersen’s objections were overruled by the panel of three captains serving as judges. The board’s chairman, Capt. Valentino Paniccia, noted that the City Charter gives the board the power to modify charges during the proceedings. Paniccia and Capt. Robert Martin and Capt. Francisco Pegueros will decide if Briseno is guilty and recommend any punishment to Chief Willie L. Williams.

During a recess, Petersen said he did not believe the Board of Rights would be fair to Briseno. “I believe he’s going to be fired,” Petersen said.

The lawyer brought a plodding formality to the relatively informal proceedings, held in a small room on the fifth floor of police headquarters, by asking painstakingly detailed questions and raising frequent objections in an apparent bid to lay groundwork for an appeal to Superior Court.

The only witnesses who testified Wednesday talked about videotapes taken by bystanders at the scene of the King beating.

One of the tapes shows Briseno blocking Officer Laurence M. Powell from clubbing King and later shows Briseno placing his foot on King’s neck or upper back.

The department contends that the placement of Briseno’s foot was intended to harm King.

Briseno long has contended that he was merely trying to hold King down as a way to end the beating.

At his first trial in Simi Valley, Briseno broke with Powell and two other officers charged with assault, asserting that they were “out of control.”

After the Simi Valley acquittals, Briseno held his silence at a federal trial, where he and Officer Timothy E. Wind were acquitted of violating King’s civil rights. Powell and Sgt. Stacey C. Koon were convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Koon and Powell, who are also on suspension, are sure to lose their jobs because of their felony convictions. Wind, who was on probation, was fired by former Chief Daryl F. Gates.