Unrepentant Powell Defends Beating of King

Angry and unrepentant, an officer convicted of violating Rodney G. King’s civil rights said Monday that he still believes he did the right thing, adding that on the night of the 1991 incident, he came close to shooting King.

“You don’t think you did anything wrong that night?” King’s lead lawyer, Milton Grimes, challenged Officer Laurence M. Powell.

“I not only don’t think it, I know it,” Powell shot back.

Powell, the LAPD officer who struck the most blows against King, was brought to Los Angeles from a federal prison in Northern California to testify in the second phase of King’s suit for civil damages. Now serving a 30-month sentence for his role in the notorious incident, the thick-set 30-year-old took the stand in a green suit that his lawyers said he had borrowed from a law enforcement friend.

Last week, a jury awarded King $3.8 million in compensatory damages for his injuries. The jury is now being asked to consider punitive damages against 15 defendants.

Powell is one of those defendants, and he defended his actions with undisguised fury, unleashing such torrents of words at times that Grimes complained to the judge that Powell was making a soapbox of the witness stand.

U.S. District Judge John G. Davies refused to intercede. But on another point, the judge ruled that a controversial message Powell sent by computer on the night of the beating--a reference to a domestic dispute involving a black family as “right out of ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ “--was admissible as evidence.

King testified earlier in the trial that he believes he was beaten because he is black. The officers who beat him, including Powell, are white.

But on Monday, Powell denied that the computer message--a reference to a then-current movie about apes--was meant to be racial.

“It reminded me of the scene from the movie,” Powell said. Furthermore, he said, no racist remarks were made during the March 3, 1991, beating.

“There were no racial slurs out there,” he said.

Through questioning, Grimes took Powell back to the start of his work shift at the LAPD Foothill Division that day. Powell admitted that he had been criticized at roll call for delivering weak baton blows during an exercise at the station.

But Powell said the criticism had nothing to do with his eventual role in the fateful beating that night. Rather, he said, his police training and the commands of his sergeant, Stacey C. Koon, led him to believe that the most appropriate response to King’s behavior was to draw his baton.

Another witness, Theodore J. Briseno, would later testify that Powell had been out of control. Briseno, who was among the officers who subdued King, was acquitted in state and federal trials.

But Powell said he beat King because he feared for his safety. King, he said, had exhibited all the characteristics of someone high on the drug PCP--he was incoherent, had resisted officers with seemingly superhuman strength and had refused to follow commands.

At one point, in fact, he thought he might have to shoot or even kill King.

“I’m not going to become a statistic,” Powell said, “because I’ve stood at a graveside too many times, hearing ‘Amazing Grace’ on a bagpipe from a distant hillside.”

He acknowledged that after the beating occurred, he did send a message by police car computer saying, “Oops! I haven’t beaten anyone this bad in a long time.”

The message, he said, was a means of letting off steam did not convey remorse.

“What does oops mean to you, officer?” Grimes asked.

“Just an exclamation,” Powell said.

“For a mistake?” Grimes asked.

“No,” Powell insisted. “. . . What I was conveying was, ‘Here’s a quiet night and look what happened.’

“All I could think was, ‘Wow, I survived this,”’ Powell said. “This was an incident that shocked me and scared me.”

Then he added: “You can’t just cry. We talk to each other. This is just how we talk. Otherwise, you would have policemen going home and sticking a gun in their mouths and blowing their heads off.”

“Are you finished?” Grimes asked testily.

“Yes, I am,” Powell said.