In Act 1 of the Rodney King civil rights trial, King was seen as a frightened motorist beaten by overzealous police.
In Act 2, King is drugged and dangerous and police are the scared ones.Which picture is true? Eventually, the jury must decide. But the grand finale is several weeks away.
A defense expert witness, Sgt. Charles Duke, was expected to face cross-examination Monday by prosecutors. He testified last week the four officers charged with violating King's civil rights had acted properly in clubbing and kicking him.
Later this week, Sgt. Stacey Koon is due to testify on his own behalf.
Koon has sought to project the image of a professional policeman wrongly criticized for his actions on the night of King's beating.
His co-defendants, officers Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind and Theodore Briseno, have not said if they will take the stand.
In style as well as substance, defense and prosecution have been worlds apart.
For sheer drama, prosecutors excelled. They called King to the stand for the first time, and his memories of pain were powerful. They brought on a police use-of-force expert, Sgt. Mark Conta, who adamantly denounced the officers' actions as violating Los Angeles Police Department policies.
But the prosecution's promised explosive final witness fizzled.
Officer Daniel Gonzalez turned out to be a nervous and reluctant witness. He had been called to say that Powell and Wind brought a beaten King to Foothill Station to show him to other officers, delaying his medical treatment.
But Gonzalez backed off and insisted he was the one who asked to see the beating victim being held in a patrol car.