Tried to Protect King, Briseno Says : Hearing: Officer says he used force only to keep beating from escalating. His testimony includes a dramatic account of confusion at the scene.

In the fullest, most dramatic account he has ever given of the Rodney G. King beating, suspended Los Angeles Police Officer Theodore J. Briseno on Thursday likened confusion at the scene to a Keystone Kops routine and testified that the only force he used was in an attempt to save King’s life.

“I was concerned about him,” Briseno told an LAPD disciplinary panel, explaining why he put his foot on King’s back in an effort to pin him down. “I thought if he got hit one more time, that could be it.”

But before Briseno could be questioned by LAPD Internal Affairs officers, who claim he kicked King to hurt him, the officer presiding over the disciplinary hearing abruptly adjourned it for three months.

Capt. Valentino Paniccia told Briseno’s attorney: “We want to make sure you are prepared.”

The attorney, Gregory Petersen, has repeatedly denounced the departmental Board of Rights hearing as unfair, charging that Internal Affairs investigators have not provided some documents the defense needs and have disclosed others only at the last minute.

The decision to grant such a long delay may have been influenced by federal court decisions faulting the Police Department for failing to give defendants in administrative hearings adequate time to review documents. That was one of many issues addressed by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Sgt. Roger M. (Hoot) Gibson, who was fired after being accused of being the “main man” behind a police burglary ring. Petersen was Gibson’s attorney.

Briseno said he wanted the delay.

“We asked for it,” he told reporters. “We need the three months” to review thousands of pages of newly available documents.

Some of the documents apparently concern the department’s attempt to undermine Briseno’s credibility by showing he lied when he said he tried to report that other officers used excessive force on King. LAPD rules oblige him to make such a report.

Briseno, 40, has twice been acquitted, of criminal charges of assault and of civil rights violations, in connection with the King beating. If the Board of Rights finds him guilty of the administrative charge that he unnecessarily kicked King, he could be fired.

Briseno, who says he wants to be a street policeman again, told a story Thursday that was consistent with the account he gave at his first trial, when he broke ranks with other officers accused of assaulting King to say they were out of control.

He said, in essence, that he did the best he could--improvising because the LAPD had given him no training on how to control his own colleagues.

Briseno, who did not testify at his second trial, on federal civil rights charges, said that shortly after midnight on March 3, 1991, a car chase ended in the area he was patrolling. He said that when he reached the end of the chase, other officers were already there, guns drawn.

King was standing beside his car, his right hand picking at something on the car’s roof, his left hand hidden in a pocket or waistband, Briseno said.

Briseno described a cacophony. The California Highway Patrol car that had initiated the chase had parked too close to King’s Hyundai and, as a result, the CHP’s public address system was broadcasting high-pitched feedback. A Los Angeles Unified School District police car involved in the chase had its siren wailing, and many officers were shouting commands.

It was confusing, Briseno said, “kind of like Keystone Kops.”

King has testified that he did not comply with the officers because he had had too much to drink and was confused by conflicting orders being shouted at him.

For his part, Briseno said, he was scared.

Eventually, he said, King put his hands above his head, one after the other, “like he was doing aerobics.” Then, Briseno said, in response to orders to lie down, King dropped to his knees, then clutched at a reflector embedded in the roadway.

As a CHP officer approached King with her gun drawn, LAPD Sgt. Stacey C. Koon interceded, ordering her back, Briseno said. Then LAPD Officers Laurence M. Powell, Timothy E. Wind and Briseno and his partner swarmed King. The slightly built Briseno grabbed King’s right elbow and wrist, but could not budge the arm or hold on.

King then hit Briseno in the chest, the officer testified, sending him sprawling onto his back. King also threw off the other officers. Then Koon ordered everyone back.

Briseno said he concluded from King’s heavy perspiration and strength that he was high on PCP.

Koon fired two Taser stun-gun shots at King without effect.

“I was scared to death then,” Briseno said. “I was always trained that the Taser worked.”

King, he said, eventually began having convulsions and fell to the ground.

That, he said, is when the videotape that captures much of the beating begins.

King got up and charged Powell, Briseno said.

The videotape goes momentarily blurry at this point, and recollections of what happened differ. Powell has testified that he struck King with his baton on the shoulder or chest. Briseno testified at the first trial that Powell struck King above the shoulder. On Thursday, he said Powell struck King in the face. He said he will never forget the sound of the metal baton meeting bone.

Briseno said he saw King fall and Powell stand over him, repeatedly hitting him with the baton.

“What I thought was Larry needed to be stopped, because Larry was out of control.”

But, because of lack of training, Briseno said, he did not know how to stop Powell. He said he started shouting at Powell, then grabbed at Powell’s baton.

But Powell continued to beat King, Briseno said. “All I can say about Larry Powell is that he was a frightened young officer at that time.”

Briseno said that he then yelled at King to stay down, but King started to get up.

“I thought either Larry’s going to shoot him or somebody is--maybe me,” Briseno said. “So I went over and put my foot on King. I wanted to hold him down and I yelled at him to stay the ‘f’ down.”

But King would not listen, Briseno said.

He said he then appealed to Koon, who was “just standing there,” to intervene. Then, Briseno said, he yelled for handcuffs.

Eventually, he said, a second swarm of officers subdued King, using a nylon cord to tie his feet to his handcuffed hands.

Times staff writer Jim Newton contributed to this article.