Getting Beyond a Day of Infamy : Judge levies proper sentence in Williams case

Damian M. Williams is going to prison for brutally attacking Reginald O. Denny on a day that Los Angeles will never forget. Superior Court Judge John W. Ouderkirk has appropriately imposed the maximum sentence of 10 years on the young man, who mercilessly assaulted Asian, Latino and white victims trapped in the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues during the first hours of the 1992 riots. The judge credited Williams with nearly 2 1/2 years for time already served in jail and time accumulated for good behavior. The tough sentence should signal Los Angeles’ intolerance for violence.

Williams and others had every right to be angry over the not-guilty verdicts in the first trial of the policemen who, justifiably, had been charged with beating Rodney G. King, a black motorist who initially refused to pull over when police tried to stop him for a traffic violation. But that anger scarcely warranted the despicable assaults suffered by non-blacks.

“It is intolerable in this society to attack and maim people because of their race,” Ouderkirk told Williams during sentencing. On that first day of rioting, a black mob singled out lone individuals of other races who were isolated from help. The judge found that Williams had attacked with “a high degree of viciousness, callousness and cruelty.” In October a jury convicted Williams on misdemeanor counts resulting from assaults on Alicia Maldonado, Fidel Lopez, Takao Hirata and Jorge Gonzalez. He was also found guilty on a more serious felony mayhem charge stemming from the Denny attack.

As the bloody Denny struggled to his feet, Williams, with full force, hit the truck driver on the head with a brick, the judge noted. He then did a vicious victory dance near his nearly dead victim.

Denny, despite having permanent injuries, is not bitter. He even appealed for probation for Williams, who was 19 at the time of the riots. But Ouderkirk rightly turned aside that plea. The judge didn’t buy Williams’ belated profession of remorse or the defense argument that he had been swept away in the heat of the moment.

Although Ouderkirk’s stern sentence fits the crime, it leaves many unsatisfied. Many, reflecting on the shocking videotaped beating of Denny, wanted life imprisonment for Williams. Others, reflecting on the appalling videotaped beating of King, wanted the same 2 1/2-year sentence that each of two policemen received in the federal civil-rights trial. In actuality, the King and Williams trials are not comparable--but they are linked in the pain they caused among vast segments of society.

April 29, 1992, is deeply cut into Los Angeles history. But people of goodwill know the importance of rising above that day of infamy. Tuesday’s sentence by a hard-working judge, while no panacea, could go a long way to help this city do just that.