LAPD Asks Stations to Defuse Verdict : Broadcasting: The police urge TV and radio outlets to air messages about peace before the Denny beating trial verdict is announced. Response has been mixed.

Seeking help in maintaining calm when the verdicts in the Reginald O. Denny beating trial are announced, the Los Angeles Police Department recently urged local electronic media to broadcast public-service announcements calling for peace.

LAPD Officer Peter Repovich and Cmdr. Art Lopez met with community relations staff and general managers of most local TV, cable and radio stations over the past two weeks to ask them to play messages about peace frequently in the days before the verdict, preferably with newly created spots that could be reused whenever an emotionally charged case captures the public’s attention.

Among local TV stations, the response has been mixed.

KCBS-TV Channel 2, for example, produced a five-minute peace-oriented spot that aired just before “60 Minutes” on Oct. 3 and also invited Lopez to be a guest on its public-affairs show “To the Point.”

KTLA-TV Channel 5 responded by stepping up the number of broadcasts of public-service spots by the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, which gives a toll-free number people can call to see if rumors they heard are true; the Los Angeles City Neighbor to Neighbor Program, which focuses on neighbors reaching out to each other; Rebuild L.A., which urges people of different cultures to understand one another, and “an anti-violence PSA from the Asian community,” said Andrew Lozano, KTLA’s administrator of broadcast standards. “We have talked about producing new ones using celebrities, but that is still in the discussion stage.”

KTTV-TV Channel 11 also has discussed using Fox stars Sinbad and Martin Lawrence to create messages for inner-city youth, but no dates have been arranged yet, according to Socorro Swan, director of community relations.

At KCAL-TV Channel 9, spokesperson Suzanne Lowe said, “Because we are not really anticipating a problem, at this point we are not planning anything prior to the verdict. We are not going to put together a PSA or an editorial.”

That more original spots haven’t been produced doesn’t bother Lopez and Repovich; they say they’re happy with whatever help they can get. But they expressed hope that if the defendants in the Denny trial, Damian Monroe Williams and Keith Henry Watson, are found guilty, new public-service announcements would turn up in time for the sentencing.