A policeman accused of beating Rodney King told "a war story" in the squad room while a wounded King waited in a patrol car for transfer to a hospital, a policeman testified Friday.
But officer Daniel Gonzalez backed off supporting prosecutors' contention that officers Laurence Powell and Timothy Wind "showed" the beaten King to their colleagues, delaying medical treatment.And Gonzalez insisted it was he - not Powell - who suggested going to the parking lot early in the morning of March 3, 1991, to look at King, who was in a car with Wind.
Powell and Wind are on trial in federal court along with officer Theodore Briseno and Sgt. Stacey Koon on charges of violating King's civil rights in the 1991 beating, which was videotaped by a bystander. The officers are white; King is black.
The officers' acquittals on state charges of assault and brutality touched off deadly riots in Los Angeles last year.
Gonzalez testified he was in the squad room writing a report when Powell came in, leaned against a desk and began talking to seven or eight other officers in the room.