officers - The Black Vault

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had been driving well over the legal limit, was legally
drunk, led police on a high-speed chase and did not
immediately comply with their orders after he was
apprehended.
The prosecutor said he also worried that defense
lawyers would have been able to tell jurors that King
had a criminal record, ·
White defended his decision not to make racial
issues a key element of the prosecution. "None of the
witnesses we talked to heard racial epithets" at the
scene, he said. -
Moreover, prosecutors could not hear racial epithets
on the videotape of the beating, even after they had
thejsound enhanced. But White acknowledged that an.
enhancement expert hired by Steven Lerman, King's
attorney in his federal lawsuit, has. said he heard a
racial epithet on the tape.
"We felt that if you introduce race as an issue and
you don't prove race, that undermines your credibiUty
with the jury," White said. "Believe me, if there had
been statements [made at the scene indicating the
beating was racially motivated] we would not have
hesitated to raise that."
Race became an issue in the trial only after an
inadvertent mistake by defense lawyer Michael P.
Stone allowed prosecutors to question his client,
Powell, about statements he had made over a police
radio just before the King beating. Powell said that had
intervened in a domestic disturbance involving a
group of African-Americans that was "right out of
'Gorillas in the Mist,' " a reference to a movie about
African wildlife.
He declined comment on whether the district
attorney's office has decided whether to retry Powell
on the charge of using excessive force. The jury
stalemated 8 to 4 for acquittal on that count.
Prosecutors are to disclose their decision at a May 15
court hearing. ·