King Says He’s Now Sure Police Used Racial Slur

Rodney G. King insisted to a jury Tuesday that despite his earlier uncertainty in previous testimony, racial slurs were uttered when he was beaten by police officers.

“There’s no doubt in my mind,” said King, who is seeking $9.5 million in his lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles in his March 3, 1991, beating by four police officers after a traffic stop.

Outside court, a lawyer for the city said he was not sure a racial slur was uttered.

“You can hear whatever you want to hear,” attorney Skip Miller said. “That’s how you can characterize it. It was totally unclear.”

The city has admitted liability for King’s beating, and jurors have been asked to set a compensatory damage figure.

In the trial’s second phase, they will try to allocate blame to individual defendants, including the four former officers involved, for punitive damages.

The four, Sgt. Stacey C. Koon and Officers Laurence M. Powell, Theodore J. Briseno and Timothy E. Wind, were charged in the beating, which was videotaped by an amateur cameraman, George Holliday, and broadcast widely. The officers were acquitted on all but one charge in a 1992 state trial, and the verdicts sparked the Los Angeles riots.

Koon and Powell were convicted last year in federal court of violating King’s civil rights and were sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Last year, King testified that he heard officers shout the racial slur but admitted under cross-examination that he could not remember if he heard the word nigger or killer .

But on Tuesday, King, testifying for a second day in the suit, said that in spite of his previous hesitation, he was now certain what he heard the night of the beating.

One of King’s attorneys, John Burris, said King modified his testimony during the criminal trial because “he was under a lot of pressure.”

On direct examination, King testified that he could identify the point on the video soundtrack when the slur was uttered.

“With my head turned, I can point it out,” King said. Some in the courtroom also said they could hear a voice shout, “Nigger, stay down!”

But it was not clear who, if anyone, shouted the slur. Many law enforcement officers were at the scene of the beating besides the four charged in the case.

Burris said he would try to show in the second phase of the trial who was shouting racial slurs, perhaps calling an audio expert to analyze the tape.

Burris said the repeated shouts of the racial slur were not emphasized in the two criminal trials because race was not at issue. Prosecutors focused on the use of excessive force by the officers.