officers - The Black Vault

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F0-350 (Rev. 5·8·81)
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Videotape Haunts Officers
Who WereatBeatingS·cene~
By LESLIE.BERGER
TIMES STAFF WRITER
One says he cannot fall asleep
without the image of "that videotape"
appearing before his eyes,
while another fights .tears as he
speaks of how mixed up he is.
Another officer with less than a
year's experience in the field directed
traffic yards away while
Rodney G. King was beaten. Still
another ,Los Angeles police officer,
his voice tight with tension before
slamming down the phone, said of
his life since the March 3 incident:
"It's been like . . . hell." ·
However peripheral their roles
that night, no matter their inexperience
or subsequent anguish, 17
officers who allegedly stood by
while colleagues beat a motorist
now find themselves the focus of
investigations. ·
Most of those officers contacted
refused to be interviewed, and
several clearly resent being involved
in the King investigation. "I
am fed up with this crap!" said one
officer when reached by phone. "I
did nothing wrong! . . . I didn't see
anything! And I'm being hung like
everybody else!"
But two Los Angeles Police Department
patrolmen, who spoke
last week on the condition of
anonymity, offered a look at their
side of the story and its emotional
toll.
"I'm definitely losing sleep over
this," one of the officers said. "The
first thing you see when you ciose
your eyes at night-and the first
thing you see when you keep
waking up all during the night-is
that videotape."
"I've never been in any trouble
myself and this has jqst been a real
stressful incident," the other officer
said.
"It's all I hear about," he continued,
shifting anxiously from one
foot to another and pausing often,
as if to hold back tears. "Everywhere
I go people talk about this.
Everything I turn on . . . they're
talking about it. It's just hard to.''
escape it." .
Speaking at their homes, the two
officers said they and other officers
arrived at staggered times as they
responded to a call for backup and
~aw only portions of King's arrest.
At least five of the officers on the
scene were still on probation because
they had less than a ·year's
experience in the field and were
there with their training officers,.
they noted.
Both also said they have learned
more from newspapers, ~elevision
and the videotape than from personal
observation. One maintained
that by the time he got there, he
saw nothing he consl~ered improper.
·
."At the point I arrived, I didn't·
see anything incorrect. What I saw·
was a person already 'tased,' and
he was being given orders to lay
down and put his hands behind his
back, and he wasn't doing that,"
the officer said, referring to a T~ser
gun.
"I only saw three or four hits
with a .baton, then they stopped,"
the officer continued, adding that
those blows-the tail end of a
beating consisting of an alleged 56
blows-were delivered to King's·
legs and ·thighs. "Nothing out of
.policy with that," the officer said. ·
The officer spoke of how the
average citizen does not under-.
stand the realities of a police officer's
work and "the dirty,· rotten,
oasty stuff you have to do to people
ina fight.
"Some of it looks pretty bad,".
the offjcer said of the videotape.
"Beating with a baton does not
look nice but unfortunately it's·
something we have. to do some-·
times to take someone into custody,"
he said.
"We're not paid to get hurt or to
get killed. Tina was killed three
weeks ago," he continued, in refer-·
ence to slain Los Angeles police-·
· woman Tina Kerbrat, "and .everyone.
has forg~tten all about her
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Date: THURS. MAR 28 1991
Edition: FRONT SECTIO~ 1
PAGE 2 6
VIDEOTAPE HAUNTS OFFICERS
T~: WHO WERE AT BEATING SCENE
CIVIL RIGHTS
Character:
or
Classifteation:
8 0-3 3 B
Submitting Office:
LOS ANGELES
lndexina:
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APR ct:3 1991
FBI -
LOS ANGELES I
now, haven't they?"
All told, 25 officers from three
· different agencies-the Los Angel-
. ~s Police Department, the California
Highway Patrol, and the Los
Angeles Unified School Districtwere
at the scene. Four LAPD
officers have already been indicted
for the beating; two LAPD officers
were in a helicopter overhead, and
two more are believed to have
remained in their cars-leaving 13
LAPD officers, two CHP officers,
and two officers for the school
district as bystanders, according to
LAPD Cmdr. Rick Dinse, who has
been supervising the department's .
investigations.
"We're going to see just who has
culpability here and fairly and
objectively evaluate each person's
actions," Dinse said Wednesday. ·
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