CHP Officer Gives New Testimony in King Case : Courts: Powell said the beating tired him out, the jury is told.

Shortly after Rodney G. King was beaten in Lake View Terrace, the officer responsible for delivering most of the blows said, “You know, I tired myself out hitting that guy,” a California Highway Patrol officer testified Friday.

It was the first time CHP Officer Timothy Singer had told a jury about Laurence M. Powell’s comment after the beating. Singer had testified in the state court trial of Powell and three other officers accused in the beating but did not discuss the words they had exchanged.

Singer said Friday that Powell made the comment during a conversation in the lobby of Pacifica Hospital, where King was taken for initial treatment of his injuries.

“I said, ‘Are you LAPD’s designated hitter or what?’ ” Singer recalled.

“And what did Officer Powell say?” asked Federico Sayre, an attorney for King.

“ ‘You know, I tired myself out hitting that guy,’ ” Singer quoted Powell as saying.

Singer was one of four witnesses called by King’s attorneys Friday to testify during the punitive-damages phase of the trial against 15 defendants, including the four former Los Angeles Police Department officers originally charged in the beating and former Chief Daryl F. Gates. The witnesses put Powell and Stacey C. Koon at the center of the storm.

Koon was identified as the supervising sergeant at the scene of the beating and was said to have used a Taser gun to subdue King. Powell was said to have struck King the most times with his baton.

Both were convicted in federal court last year of violating King’s civil rights and are serving 30-month prison sentences.

Singer and his wife and CHP partner, Melanie Singer, were the first officers to chase King’s speeding car March 3, 1991. Both Singers testified that they saw King being hit repeatedly in the head by Powell, who was in court listening to the testimony.

Later, Melanie Singer testified that Koon arrived at the scene and took charge.

Attorneys for Powell, on hand for the testimony, said he never aimed for King’s head. Most of King’s injuries were from a fall he took after he was shocked with a Taser gun, they maintained.

Earlier, former Officer Timothy E. Wind concluded testimony about his role in the beating. He said that while officers were attempting to subdue King, he heard Koon shout, “Hit him! Hit him!”

Wind was acquitted along with former Officer Theodore J. Briseno in both criminal trials. Koon and Powell, although later convicted in federal court of violating King’s civil rights, were also acquitted in the state trial.

At the conclusion of the first phase of the current trial earlier this week, jurors ordered the city of Los Angeles to pay King $3.8 million in compensatory damages.