THE LOS ANGELES TIMES - March 27, 1991
Officers Plead N qt Guilty
• Investigation: FBI civil rights
inquiry slowed. Members of
LAPD's Foo~hill station refuse to
answer questions without
immunity from prosecution.
By LOIS TIM NICK
and RONALD L SOBLE
TIMES STAFF WRIHRS
Four Los Angeles police officers cap­tured
on videotape during the beating of
Rodney G. King pleaded not guilty to
criminal charges Tuesday, as dozens of
their colleagues ref used to be questioned
by FBI agents investigating possible civil
'rights abuses by the force.
The FBI has interviewed only a handful
of officers since Monday, when agents
began contacting all 246 officers assigned
to the LAPD's Foothill Division in the
northern San Fernando Valley.
Officers have been counseled by their
union to seek immunity from criminal
prosecution before talking with .age~~·
However, the Justice Departments C1v1l
Rights Division, which is coordinating the
inquiry, is still considering whether to
make such offers.
At the same time, a Justice Department
source told The Times that the FBI may be
unable to prove that a . pattern of police
brutality exists.
"My gut reaction is this [investigation]
a will settle into t.h e King affair," the source
said.
Teams of FBI agents continued to work
their way Tuesday through a list of officers
assigned to the division as part of a federal
probe into alleged police misconduct.
The few officers who have agreed to talk
were contacted at their homes before they
in I<ing Beating
had a chance to seek legal advice, accord­ing
to the Los Angeles Police Protective
League. None were questioned at the
Foothill"station Tuesday.
The reluctance of officers to speak with
FBI agents caught the attenlion of Mayor
Tom Bradley.
'_'I have asked for cooperation, the police
chief has asked for their cooperation and,
frankly. I'm disappointed there would be
reluctance," Bradley told a City HaJJ news
conference. " . . . I think the next step will
be up to the FBI and to the chief."
Although critical of the Justice Depart­ment
for sending agents to officers' homes,
Gates. has instructed his officers to cooper­ate
with the federal investigation.
"The chief's position is that officers have
an affirmative duty to cooperate in official
investigations of this type." said LAPD
sp~kesman Lt. Fred Nixon. "{But) our
officers have Constitutional rights and we
would not in any way seek to deprive them
of those rights."
A lawyer retained by the Protective
League said that FoothilJ officers are torn
between obeying Gates' orders and pro­tecting
themselves.
"They're caught in this dilemma of not
. violating the chief's orders but at the same
BEATING: Officers Plead
Continued from Bl
time looking out for their own
interests," said attorney Diane
Marchant.
She said FBI agents told her that
for now they did not plan to pursue
unwilling officers and were con­centrating
instead on those making
"voluntary statements."
While the FBI probe continued,
the four indicted officers appeared
in Los Angeles Superior Court to
answer the charges.
T he officers, depicted on a vid­eotape
of the March 3 beating,
pleaded not guilty to charges of
assault and excessive force. Stand­ing
with their attorneys , Sgt. Sta­cey
C. Koon and Officers Laurence
M. Powell, Timothy E, Wind and
Theodore J. Briseno, individuatly
denied their guilt.
The five-count indictment, re­turned
by the Los Angeles County
Grand Jury, charges each officer
with one count of assault with a
deadly weapon and one count of
unnecessarily beating a suspect
under color of authority. The in­dictment
further alleges that Koon,
Powell and Wind inflicted great
bodily injury on King, that Koon
and Powell filed a false police
report, and that Koon's cover-up
efforts render him an accessory
after the fact. Lawyers for Briseno
indicated that they will seek to
have him tried separately.
If convicted, the officers face
sentences ranging from four years
to more than seven years. ·
Supervising Superior Court
Judge Gary Klausner denied de-f
ense motions to delay the trial or
to reject the indictment as insuf fi­cien
t. He also ruled that, under the
newly enacted Proposition 115, the
defendants do not have a right to a
preliminary hearing.
He assigned the case to Superior
Court Judge John Reid, 43, who in
a non-jury trial this month con­victed
a Los Angeles County sher­iff's
deputy of killing his girlfriend.
The officers were ordered to
return to court Thursday, when
pretrial motions will be heard and a
tentative trial date set.
Defense attorneys, citing their
clients' inability to get a fair trial in
the glare of intense publicity, said
they are considering whether to
ask the judge to move the trial out
of the county. Only twice in the
past decade have such motions
been granted in Los Angeles Coun­ty.
But noting that even President
Bush has expressed an opinion on
the incident-Bush said the video­tape
made him "sick"-the lawyers
said they may also seek a continu­ance
"until the case dies down and
th ere is 1 ess interest."
The grand jury that indicted the
four will return Thursday to exam­ine
the actions of other officers
who were present at the beating
scene but failed to intervene.
King was beaten after he
stopped his car to end a short
pursuit for speeding. The 25-year­old
Altadena man was hospitalized
with severe injuries caused by
· more than 50 baton blows and
kicks by the arresting officers. The
beating triggered nationwide out­rage
and prompted the Justice
Department to conduct a sweeping
review of police brutality in cities
across the country.
It has also prompted calls for
Gates' ouster.
Former San Francisco Mayor
Dianne Feinstein joined the critics
Tuesday, saying the failure of uni­formed
LAPD officers to intervene
in the beating shows a "failure of
command" and that Gates should
go. "The incident has had a demor­alizing
effect I think on every
police department," she said . "It
would be helpful for the Police
Department [if Gates resigned]."
Gates has steadfastly refused to
. step down. A Police Depart­ment
spokesman said Gates was
planning to hold a news conference
today to unveil a plan for "restor­ing
the luster" of the department,
both in the eyes of the public and
police officers.
"You can't have this much dis­traction
without it having a nega­tive
impact on morale," said LAPD
spokesman Nixon, adding that it is
time for police to leave the King
incident to the courts while resum­ing
their efforts to protect Los
Angeles.
The man whose videotape led to
local indictments and national out­rage
was honored Tuesday by the
Los Angeles County Board of Su­pervisors.
George Holliday also
was thanked and hugged by Rod­ney
King's wife, Crystal Waters, as
television cameras rolled.
Tlmee 1t•ff writer Leslie Ber&er
contributed to thl• 1tory.