Tried to Protect King, Briseno Says : Hearing: Officer says he has never denied using force against the motorist. He again says he was trying to stop the beating from escalating.

A policeman suspended for the Rodney G. King beating gave his account of the episode to a police board Thursday as he tried to get his job back, saying he still does not understand why King was beaten so badly.

“When he moved, he got hit. I’m sorry to say it, but I don’t know why and it’s bothered me for 2 1/2 years and it will bother me for the rest of my life,” Officer Theodore Briseno said of the March 3, 1991, beating.

Briseno said he tried desperately to stop Officer Laurence M. Powell as Powell pummeled King with his baton. Briseno said he saw Powell hit King in the head and was concerned that the black motorist would be killed.

“When I watched Larry, I saw Mr. King getting up and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know what’s going to happen.’ I thought either Larry’s going to shoot him or somebody is, maybe me,” Briseno said.

By then, he said, Powell was exhausted and breathing in deep gasps, which Briseno imitated. He said at that point, King moved and “I put my foot on him. I used force, I’ve never denied it.

“I yelled at him to stay down. It didn’t work. . . . It’s not my fault how he reacted. I went in to hold him down. I tried to control this.”

Briseno, standing at a chalkboard where he drew pictures of King’s positions at various times in the beating, declared: “I never once kicked, stomped, whatever you want to call it, Mr. King in the head or neck.”

Briseno, 40, one of four white defendants in King’s beating, is charged under Los Angeles Police Department rules with one count of using excessive force when he placed his foot on the prone King. His account Thursday came in the second day of a hearing before a three-member police Board of Rights panel.

An LAPD advocate has said she will prove that Briseno lied at his 1992 state assault trial, at which Briseno testified against his fellow officers. All four were acquitted in verdicts that sparked rioting in Los Angeles.

In a federal trial this year, Briseno and fired 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 each in prison.