A bloodied, screaming Rodney King did nothing to provoke police officers who beat him with batons and repeatedly kicked him, two eyewitnesses recounted for the first time in dramatic testimony.
Both witnesses stepped down during their testimony Friday to show the jury how the officers had kicked King and how he knelt with one arm raised to shield himself from baton blows.At one point in her testimony against four LAPD officers accused of federal civil rights violations, nurse Dorothy Gibson's voice shook as she recalled the officers' reactions after the beating as King lay handcuffed on the side of Foothill Boulevard in the Los Angeles area of Lake View Terrace.
"They were talking and laughing as I was leaving the patio. I didn't want to see anymore. That was the last I saw of him," she said, her eyes glistening.
Gibson and Robert Hill - who were renting apartments across the street from where King was arrested on March 3, 1991 - were not asked to testify in last year's state trial of four Los Angeles police officers charged in the King beating. The officers' acquittal triggered four days of rioting.
Both did testify last year before the federal grand jury that indicted the four officers on charges of violating King's civil rights - testimony defense attorneys used during cross-examination to try to point out inconsistencies in their recollections.
Defense attorneys suggested that the witnesses' memories were tainted by repeated viewings of the amateur videotape of the beating shot by George Holliday, who lived in the apartment directly above Gib-son.
Outside court, defense attorneys discounted the impact of the testimony, saying the jury ultimately would rely on what they saw in the videotape, not on 2-year-old memories of what for the most part was captured on video.
"It is our considered opinion that it adds nothing to the government's case," said Ira Salzman, attorney for Sgt. Stacey Koon, the top-ranking officer at the scene who is accused of allowing an illegal assault to take place.
The other three defendants in the case - officers Theodore Briseno, Laurence Powell and former officer Timothy Wind - are charged with violating King's civil rights by willfully using excessive force.
Michael Stone, attorney for Powell, hinted that Gibson's emotion on the stand might have been less than genuine.
"She did the same thing at the same point before the grand jury," Stone said outside court. "I had to make a decision whether or not to bring it up on cross-examination, and I decided not to. But I'm sus-pi-cious."