officers - The Black Vault

F0,350 (Rev. 5·8·81)
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Witnesses:
"King jeered
at hospital
By Dawn Webber
THE LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
Police officers who arrested
Rodney King on March 3 later
taunted him at the hospital,
boasting .that they "played a little
hardball" and "hit quite a
few home runs" while beating
him with their batons, witnesses
told the grand jury.
Other witnesses said King
was slow in responding to commands
and struggled briefly
with police, but laid down passively
and absorbed the blows
after officers began beating
him, according to a transcript
of the grand jury hearing re- •
viewed by the Los Angeles Daily
News.
Witness testimony contained
in the transcript provides new
details of King's actions on the·
night of his arrest, the extensive
use of force by officers in response,
and their attemp,ts later
to downplay the incident.
As a result of that testimony, .
four. officers from the Los Angeles
Polic.e Department were indicted
last week in connection
with the beating of King - l
which was captured on videotape
by an amateur photographer.
Melanie Singer, a Highway
Patrol officer on patrol with her
husband, Officer T.J. Singer,
told the grand jury that several
Los Angeles Police Department
THE OUTLOOK
Date: FRI. .HAR 2 2 1 9 91
Edition: ' , ' ·•
Front Sect1onr ~age 1
KING JEERED
AT HOSPITAL
Title: ~1ITNESSES:
Character:
or
Classification:
Submitting Office:
LOS ANGELES
Indexing:
·cars joined in the chase -·which ended
when King pulled over on Foothill Boulevard
in suburban Lake View Terrace.
"(King) appeared almost happy and he
was smiling" as· he got out of his car, held
his hands about chest level as he had been
told and then put them on the roof of his
car, she said.
Five or six Los Angeles police offic~rs,
who had drawn their guns, told him to lie
down but he did not do it immediately,
Singer said.
"He was just laughing," she said.
Mter three or four commands, King got
down on his knees. Singer said that she
went to take King into custody when Sgt.
Stacey Koon - who was the ranking Los
Angeles Police Department officer at the
scene ..-
told her, "Stand back. We'll handle
this."
She said that she complied because Koon
"is a sergeant- he's the on-scene supervisor,"
even though he is from a differ.ent
department.
At the time, King was on the ground as
if he intended to do a push-up when Powell
· stepped forward and grabbed King's left
' wrist and another officer grabbed his right
wrist, as if to put handcuffs on him, Singer
'said. She said King jerked his arms away
·and stood up.
"They were all trying to grab control of
80-33B
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MAR 2 7 1991
FBI - LOS ANGELES /
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