Officer Gives New Testimony in King Beating : Courts: Laurence M. Powell said he tired himself out hitting plaintiff, according to highway patrolman.

As Rodney G. King lay in a hospital after his beating, the policeman who had struck the most blows commented, “You know, I tired myself out hitting that guy,” a highway patrolman testified Friday.

The remark by former Police Officer Laurence M. Powell was related by California Highway Patrol Officer Timothy Singer, who said he started the conversation by asking Powell, “Are you LAPD’s designated hitter or what?”

Singer, testifying in King’s civil suit against Los Angeles Police Department officers who clubbed him, testified in two previous King trials but has never before related this conversation with Powell.

Powell, who is serving a 30-month prison sentence for violating King’s civil rights, was in court listening as Singer testified.

Singer and his wife and CHP partner, Melanie Singer, began the March 3, 1991, freeway chase of King’s speeding car that ended in the videotaped beating which reverberated around the nation.

The Singers have said the LAPD wrested control of the situation from them and told them to back off.

Timothy Singer recalled Friday how King staggered after he was hit with an electronic stun gun and how Powell “stepped forward into Mr. King’s path and struck him.”

Asked where the blow landed, he said, “It struck Mr. King on the right side of his head above the ear.”

He said that the second blow landed on King’s jaw and that Powell continued to pummel the motorist.

“After Mr. King hit the ground, did you see Mr. Powell continue to strike him in the head?” asked one of King’s attorneys, Frederico Sayre.

“Yes,” Singer said. “As I recall, there was no cessation.”

Powell has said that he never aimed for King’s head, a forbidden technique, and that he believes only one deflected blow hit the motorist’s face. Powell’s lawyer contends that King broke his facial bones falling on the ground.

Singer testified that he felt some fear at the beating scene, but Melanie Singer, who followed him to the stand, said, “I don’t think it was fear that I was feeling. . . . I don’t think fear crossed my mind.”

She also testified that she saw King fall and that “his face did not hit the pavement.”

In response to a question by Sayre, she said she saw LAPD officers using unnecessary force.

Before the trial recessed for the weekend, the King legal team called two more bystander officers, Ingrid Braun and Rolando Solano, who said they saw no misconduct and heard no racial slurs during the beating.

Powell said in previous trials that King appeared to be under the influence of the drug PCP. Timothy Singer was asked in court Friday if he shared that opinion.

“It didn’t cross my mind,” he said.

When the beaten King was taken to Pacifica Hospital, Singer said he went there and confronted Powell in the lobby.

“I said, ‘Are you LAPD’s designated hitter or what?’ ” he recalled. “I said that because Officer Powell was the only LAPD officer I saw in that large group striking Mr. King.”

“And what did Officer Powell say?” Sayre asked.

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

In the punitive damage phase of King’s civil trial, his lawyers are trying to place blame on 15 individuals, including the four officers originally charged in the beating.

Jurors, who already have assessed $3.8 million in compensatory damages, are being asked to give King more money as punishment to his assailants and to prevent recurrence of such incidents.

Also on Friday, one of the defendants, former LAPD Officer Timothy Wind, said he never questioned a sergeant’s order to hit King because he had been taught that “sergeants . . . get the big bucks and you follow their orders and think about it later.”