Briseno Alters Testimony : Lawsuit: Officer now believes that Rodney G. King was struck on the arm instead of the head. His new account is based on an enhanced video of the baton blows.

The police officer whose testimony helped convict two fellow officers in the Rodney G. King beating changed his story on the witness stand Monday, saying King was not struck on the head with batons.

Theodore J. Briseno, who broke ranks with co-defendants in one criminal trial and whose videotaped testimony was used against them in another, testified in King’s lawsuit that he now believes those blows hit King’s arm.

Briseno said a viewing of an enhanced videotape of the March 3, 1991, beating changed his mind about what he once believed to be head blows, which are forbidden by the Police Department because they can be fatal.

“Please explain how it changed your perception,” asked defense attorney Michael Stone, representing one of the officers being sued by King in federal court.

“Well, the night of March 3, it was my impression that the officer was delivering blows from the shoulders up,” Briseno said under cross-examination.

“In looking at the enhancement, does it appear you were wrong?” Stone asked.

“Yes,” Briseno said. “The video clearly shows where the blows landed.”

“And where was that?”

“The arms,” Briseno replied. “The right arm.”

King, 29, is seeking millions in damages for the beating videotaped by an onlooker. The lawsuit names the city of Los Angeles and several police officers and commanders. The city has conceded liability, and the two-phase trial is being held to determine compensatory damages owed by the city and punitive damages that could be levied against individuals.

In other testimony, King’s mother, Odessa, testified in a choking voice about how she saw her beaten son in a hospital and asked him what had happened.

“He said . . . ‘Those white boys really beat me, Ma,’ ” she recalled. “I told Rodney, ‘Look, just leave race out of this. I’m getting you out of here.’ ”

Four officers including Briseno were acquitted in a 1992 state trial that sparked three days of riots. During that trial, Briseno testified that King was struck in the head.

Two of the officers, Laurence M. Powell and Stacey C. Koon, were later convicted of civil rights violations in a federal trial after Briseno’s testimony against his former colleagues was played on videotape for jurors.

Powell and Koon are serving 30-month sentences in federal prison.

Powell, who is represented by Stone, is alleged to have struck repeated blows to King’s head, and that allegation could weigh against Powell in the punitive-damages phase of the trial.

Outside court, King’s lawyer said he believed Briseno was motivated to change his testimony because he stands to suffer if jurors award King large punitive damages.

Attorney John Burris said Briseno also might want to mend fences with other police officers who viewed him as a traitor.

“He has a self-motive to minimize Mr. King’s damages,” Burris said. “And Mr. Briseno has been held in disfavor with other officers. This was a way to bridge that.”

Burris said, however, that Briseno was forced to stick with his original account of what he saw at the scene and to base the change in his perception on the videotape. Otherwise, Briseno could face perjury charges, Burris said.

Briseno said he knew about the enhanced video and had seen it last year at a lawyer’s office during the federal civil rights trial.

Nevertheless, when he testified at his own internal police hearing in September, Briseno never mentioned the video and told again the familiar story of how he saw Powell strike King repeatedly above the shoulders.

“So are you trying to tell us your perceptions may have been changed, but you gave testimony contrary to those perceptions?” Burris asked.

“That’s correct,” Briseno said, adding that his personnel hearing remains open and he will testify further when it reconvenes at an unspecified date.