TV Reporter Identifies Williams and Watson as Denny’s Attackers : Trial: Robert Tur says he had a clear view of the violence as helicopter hovered over riot scene. Defense attacks his credibility.

A radio and television reporter who broadcast live coverage of rioting at Florence and Normandie avenues testified Friday that he saw defendant Damian Monroe Williams hit trucker Reginald O. Denny in the head with a brick.

After hitting Denny, Williams “did a pirouette, a turn, and made a victory sign with his hands and fingers,” said Robert A. Tur, who reported from a helicopter hovering over the intersection.

“Are you absolutely certain this man in the courtroom is the man who threw the brick?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Janet Moore asked, indicating Williams.

“No doubt,” Tur answered.

Before Tur could testify Friday, defense attorneys unsuccessfully sought to introduce as evidence a letter from an assistant Los Angeles city attorney questioning the reporter’s credibility.

And during a subsequent break in Tur’s testimony, a trial spectator allegedly attempted to intimidate him and was detained for more than three hours by deputies and police.

Tur is the second witness to identify Williams, 20, as one of Denny’s attackers and he is the first witness to also identify Henry Keith Watson, 28, as an assailant who attacked motorists at the intersection as rioting broke out last year.

Tur, 33, said he saw Watson kick trucker Larry Tarvin in the head and pin Denny to the pavement with his foot while others attacked him.

“Are you absolutely certain that the person who held Mr. Denny down is defendant Watson?” Moore asked.

“It was,” Tur said.

Williams and Watson, who are charged with attempting to kill Denny, also are accused of assaulting or robbing five other motorists and two firefighters at Florence and Normandie on April 29, 1992.

Hovering as close as 70 feet above the intersection, Tur said, he had a clear view through binoculars and at times with his naked eye of victims and attackers on the ground. He said he sat in the helicopter’s observer seat, doing commentary for KNX radio and KCOP-TV, Channel 13, as his wife shot television news footage and another man piloted the craft.

Tur said he has no doubt that Williams and Watson are the men he saw attacking Denny, Tarvin and other victims.

With the jury out of the courtroom, defense attorney Edi M.O. Faal noted that Tur had testified about dozens of lives he had saved as a pilot. Faal asked Superior Court Judge John W. Ouderkirk if he could question the pilot about lives he allegedly imperiled.

Ouderkirk ruled that Faal could not ask those questions and told the jury when it returned that it should disregard Tur’s comments about saving lives.

Answering questions from Faal, Tur said he did not have a journalism degree but studied in high school under the late Times reporter William Farr.

“Did Mr. Farr teach you about the difference between facts and embellishments?” Faal asked.

Moore objected to the question, and Ouderkirk ruled that Tur did not have to answer.

“Do you have a reputation within the Los Angeles journalism community for not telling the truth?” Faal asked.

“No,” Tur answered.

But Tur acknowledged that he is biased against the defendants.

“I do have a bias in this case,” he told Faal. “I’m a witness. I saw something terrible out there. Mr. Williams beat a lot of people up.”

Faal chipped away at the certainty of Tur’s descriptions, noting that Tur had described as dark the shorts worn by an attacker Tur called a “key figure.” Faal played videotape showing that the shorts are light.

Tur also described a man who attacked Denny with a hammer as having short hair. Faal pointed out that the man is shown on videotape wearing a cap.

“I didn’t see a ponytail,” Tur said.

Outside court, Faal said of Tur: “Apart from being a liar, he is biased.”

Defense attorneys had wanted to use a letter from Assistant City Atty. Timothy A. Hogan to Deputy Dist. Atty. Lawrence C. Morrison to attack Tur’s credibility.

Because of pilot misconduct, Tur’s helicopter license was revoked after a National Transportation Safety Board hearing, according to the letter.

“At that hearing, Tur, his wife, and witness Jon Lusitana testified that Bob Tur was not the pilot of the helicopter which interfered with a rescue operation conducted by City Fire Department at the San Pedro breakwater in May, 1991,” Hogan wrote to Morrison.

But on July 15, Hogan wrote, Lusitana said under oath that Tur and his attorney, Matthew Fairshter, “had persuaded him to lie” during the federal hearing and to claim falsely that Tur was not the pilot.

In the letter--a copy of which has been obtained by the Times--Hogan called Lusitana’s sworn statement “a serious drawback” to Tur’s credibility. Tur is suing the city for $46 million for alleged malicious prosecution because of action taken by city Fire Department employees during the federal hearing, Hogan said in his letter.

Ouderkirk ruled that the letter is hearsay and cannot be admitted as evidence.

Paul Parker, a co-chairman of the Free LA 4+ committee, was detained for three hours after he allegedly engaged in a conversation with Tur in the corridor outside Ouderkirk’s courtroom. The judge ordered police to take a witness intimidation report, said Sheriff’s Department spokesman Fidel Gonzales.

After his release, Parker said he had been talking to someone about Tur telling the truth when a district attorney’s office staffer, who was escorting Tur, said to him: “Don’t worry. He will.”

Parker said he then asked: “He will what? Not lie?”

Parker said deputies then detained him in a courtroom. Times staff writer Elaine Tassy also contributed to this story.