KNBC’s Threats Over Tape Spark Dispute : Media: News officials criticize station’s warning to others not to air video. Youth’s lawyer undercuts debate by saying he will release it.

The threats of KNBC Channel 4 to sue any news organization that uses a videotape showing a Compton police officer beating a youth sparked a flap Wednesday among local news officials, who criticized the station’s hardball tactics.

Meanwhile, the boy’s lawyer undercut the debate by saying that he will make the tape available to the district attorney and the media.

KNBC officials said they had paid $125 in an exclusive deal Tuesday with Maria Quintana, who shot the videotape.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Mark Hoffman, the station’s news director, warned news organizations against using the footage. KNBC had broadcast the tape extensively during the previous evening’s newscasts.

“You may be contacted by an individual unaffiliated with KNBC-TV circulating a copy of the videotape for broadcast,” Hoffman said in the statement. “Please be aware that neither he nor anyone else has been authorized in any way to license or otherwise distribute this material. Only KNBC-TV may authorize any other party to use or license this material. You are hereby on notice that to use this videotape in any manner would violate NBC and KNBC-TV’s exclusive rights to this material.”

But Humberto Guizar, the attorney representing the youth, said Wednesday that he had the original tape and that he would make it available to investigators and allow journalists to view and copy it. Guizar said the tape had been shot by “a godmother to one of the siblings” from inside a trailer nearby.

KNBC “threatened me,” Guizar said, “but I didn’t enter into a contract with them. They said they have exclusive rights. But their contract wasn’t with me.”

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Guizar said the tape ended up in the hands of Channel 4 only after the family struck out with the legal community.

“Nobody else wanted to look at the tape. The person (who shot the video) went to a number of attorneys and they were all asking for $3,000 retainers, and they didn’t even want to look at the tape (until they had gotten their money),” he said. Frustrated, he said, the family went to the media, and “went to all the local channels, but Channel 4 was the one that jumped on it.”

In addition to blasting the station’s hard line on release of the tape, local news officials on Wednesday criticized the fee paid to Quintana, which is typical of that paid to professional stringers who prowl the city at night looking for crime scenes and accidents they can film for television stations. Many said Quintana should have received much more for the tape.

But Kenny Boles, managing editor of KNBC News, said in a statement, “It is standard and accepted practice in the news business to pay a small fee for amateur photographs and videotape. Channel 4 pays a $125 fee for home video that we use on the air. Our exclusive agreement to air the recent police beating of Felipe Soltero is consistent with this policy.”

News officials also criticized KNBC’s unyielding position on the tape. They said it is common practice for news organizations to share footage after the exclusive is aired, and for other news organizations to credit the newspaper or station that scored the scoop. One news director said he would obtain the video from Soltero’s attorney.

An official at KABC-TV Channel 7 said, “They very emphatically said they would sue us if we used the footage. It’s very strange and very unusual.”

“I think they’re just planning to hype this more than O.J. Simpson,” said one news executive at a rival station, a prediction that was at least partially borne out when KNBC ran parts of the videotape about 10 times in 20 minutes during its 4 p.m. newscast Wednesday. The station also showed the beating three times on one promo.

In 1991, after George Holliday shot his videotape of the police beating of Rodney G. King, a flap also erupted over use of the tape, but for far different reasons.

In that instance, Holliday, a plumbing company supervisor, sold his tape exclusively to KTLA-TV Channel 5 for $500. KTLA fed the tape to Cable News Network, with which it has an affiliate agreement, stipulating that CNN embargo the footage to all other Los Angeles stations. KTLA wanted at least one more night of exclusive local coverage.

However, KNBC got a copy of the tape through KPNX in Phoenix, a station that is both a CNN and NBC affiliate. Holliday filed a $100-million lawsuit for copyright infringement against CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC for what he said were unauthorized telecasts of the tape. He also alleged that KTLA defrauded him by not informing him that it would release the tape to CNN. The suit was ultimately dismissed.

Some questioned KNBC’s strategy, especially because Guizar insisted on making the tape widely available. They also downplayed the relative significance of the incident compared to the beating of King.

“This is not a Rodney King situation,” said Jeff Wald, KCOP-TV Channel 13 news director. “In that case, you had a bunch of officers standing around, participating in the beating. This is a case of one overzealous officer who this kid may have mouthed off to. It’s brutal and very unfortunate, but it doesn’t have that kind of significance.”