Denny Defense Witness Changes His Testimony : Trial: On cross-examination, he estimates that gas station attendant was beaten after Denny, not before, and thus could have witnessed truck driver being hit with brick.

A defense witness on Monday seemed to contradict his earlier testimony, this time bolstering an eyewitness’s identification of Damian Monroe Williams as having thrown a brick that crushed part of trucker Reginald O. Denny’s skull.

Williams, 20, and Henry Keith Watson, 29, face a dozen riot-related charges stemming from a string of attacks at Florence and Normandie avenues on April 29, 1992.

Phillip Davis, a paralegal and minister, testified last week that he saw Unocal station attendant Gabriel Quintana beaten before Denny was assaulted. Quintana testified that he was beaten by a mob after watching the attack on Denny.

But after more than a day of intense cross-examination by Deputy Dist. Atty. Lawrence Morrison, Davis’ estimates of when the events occurred seemed to gibe more with Quintana’s.

Davis repeatedly reminded Morrison, though, that he was not wearing a watch that day.

“All I know and all I recall is the sequence of events,” the witness said several times.

Davis tried to calculate, based on how long he had been at the intersections, when the Quintana and Denny attacks occurred.

Under questioning by defense attorney Edi M.O. Faal, Davis said last week that Quintana was beaten by a mob before Denny pulled into the intersection in a gravel truck.

But, in trying on Monday to reconstruct the scene, Davis testified that trucker Larry Tarvin was attacked 10 to 15 minutes after he arrived, with the Denny attack occurring “two to three” minutes later.

Davis said the Quintana attack probably occurred “20 to 25 minutes” after he got to the intersection, which would place it after the Denny assault.

Davis remembered a soda machine being toppled over about the time Quintana was beaten. An amateur’s videotape of the Quintana beating showed a soda machine still standing, even as Quintana is shown getting up after the beating and walking away from the gas station.

Davis was the second defense witness called. Although he was at the intersection, he said he could not identify anyone who took part in the series of attacks.

Davis said he entered the intersection after Tarvin was beaten, to help the victim avoid cars swerving to miss him.

The tension between the deputy district attorney and the witness was evident.

“Let me just ask you this straight out question,” Morrison said at one point. “Do you have a bias in this case?”

“Do I have a bias?”

“Do you know what it is to be a biased witness?” Morrison asked.

“Yes, I understand what it means,” Davis said, before finally telling Morrison that he had no bias. It was similar to an exchange last week between Faal and helicopter pilot Bob Tur, a prosecution witness.

David Jackson, a KCAL reporter and anchorman, testified later in the day that he was in a news chopper over Florence and Normandie for more than two hours on the day of the beatings. He said he did not recall seeing a helicopter hovering at 70 feet, as Tur had claimed.

But Jackson said he was not present when Denny was beaten. He said the pilot of his helicopter in which he was riding had landed to refuel.