The Verdicts Are In but Has Justice Really Been Done?

The clear marching orders of the day are to put Rodney King and Reginald Denny behind us. You almost get the feeling we’ll be cited for violating our civic duty if we don’t.

Some people are telling us outright, but mostly the orders are in the form of subliminal advertising. People in Los Angeles probably sense it more than we do down here in Orange County, but the message is the same: The King and Denny trials are over, they turned out about the same, so let’s call it “justice” and forget the whole thing.

I consider it a sign of personal weakness that I’m buying into it. My guess is that lots of other people are too.

Truth is, I could move ahead a lot easier if I knew just what the lesson is from the last 2 1/2 years since Rodney King hit the gas pedal.

The only lesson I’ve gleaned so far is that some people’s view of justice isn’t necessarily about doing wrong and paying the price; it’s about rationalizations and evening the score cards.

Eighteen months ago, I remember watching the not guilty verdicts being read in the original King trial and having an unshakable belief that, judges’ instructions and jury explanations and cops’ state of mind aside, the verdict just wasn’t right .

Those LAPD cops in the video were angry and were mugging Rodney King and were doing it because they knew they could get away with it. The Simi Valley verdict left a resigned and empty feeling because the great equalizer called Justice had taken the day off.

I had an almost identical feeling watching the Denny verdicts. It just didn’t feel right .

The guilty parties in the video were angry and were mugging Reginald Denny because they thought they could get away with it.

Now, with the end of the Denny trial, we’re all supposed to take a deep breath and resume normal operations. The only unfinished business is the sentencing for Damian Williams and Henry Watson, and the only loose end is to make sure they get the exact same terms as Officers Koon and Powell received. Then, I suppose, everyone can finally sleep snugly in their beds.

But like everything about the King-Denny cycle of events, this scenario has the ring of falseness too.

The price of us moving ahead was King getting beaten by police and Denny getting bludgeoned by elements of an angry mob. Aren’t we “moving ahead” a little too blithely, considering what those two events tell us about our society?

I confess to doing it too. Even though the Denny verdicts didn’t sound right, my initial reaction wasn’t outrage but a sense that I was finally at the end of a long book that I had lost interest in but had to finish and could now, at long last, put down.

Then came the reaction and an even stronger sense of much I hated the last 2 1/2 years of this saga. Watching all the jubilation from some quarters over the verdicts and the plaudits for the “justice” that had been done, you could almost forget that a real person named Denny had almost been bludgeoned to death in broad daylight.

My melancholy isn’t born out of any particular thirst to throw Williams and Watson into prison for the rest of their natural lives, any more than it was to toss Koon and Powell into prison for 20 years.

It’s more a question of what “putting it behind us” really means in today’s climate

At this moment, it feels an awful lot like a concession speech to the violent forces in society. How far removed from the directive to put it behind us is it to say, “ Hey, come on, it’s not like somebody got killed. Lighten up !”

By wanting to “move ahead,” am I now on the side of those who aren’t shocked when cops work over a suspect in the dark or when street criminals leave a man for dead in the street and then claim victory for beating the serious rap?

We’re all tired of violence and racial strife, almost as tired as we all are of political posturing and hypocrisy.

If that’s what moving ahead means, then count me in.

But I’m not about to suggest that we’re an improved society from that of 2 1/2 years ago. We heard lots of talk about “healing” after the L.A. riots, but, folks, we ain’t anywhere near healed yet.

Maybe the best we can hope for is that we never get a quinella like the King/Denny affairs again. But is it too much to hope for to want to get beyond the point where assaults or near homicides are no longer seen as individual acts, but rather as package deals?

“Can we all get along?” Rodney King asked at one point.

“Let’s get on with life,” Reginald Denny said the other day.

Excellent sentiments, gentlemen, but just where is it we’re heading?

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.