A Hispanic testified that his face and much of his body were spray-painted black after he was beaten and robbed at the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues at the onset of the Los Angeles riots.
"I don't know why they did that to me," Fidel Lopez, a 48-year-old construction worker, told a Los Angeles Superior Court jury Wednesday. "I tried to give them my money, because money is nothing. I tried to run to save my life."I tried to tell those people, `Don't beat me! I'm a Latino man. I do nothing to you,' " Lopez testified.
Damian Monroe Williams, 20, is charged with assault with a deadly weapon in the spray-paint attack on Lopez, who was heading home from work at about 6:30 p.m. when rioting broke out on April 29, 1992, at the corner of Florence and Normandie avenues in South Los Angeles.
The riots broke out shortly after a jury in suburban Simi Valley acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of state charges in the March 3, 1991, beating of Rodney King.
Williams' co-defendant in the trial, Henry Keith Watson, 28, is not charged with any crimes in the attack on Lopez.
However, both Williams and Watson are charged with the attempted murder of truck driver Reginald Denny, 37, of suburban Covina. The videotaped beating of Denny received extensive coverage during the riots.
Also Wednesday, prosecutors said they are investigating a potential new witness - a woman who says she was present during the violence.
"If she's legitimate and if she pans out, we may seek to call her," Deputy District Attorney Janet Moore told Judge John Ouderkirk.
Moore told reporters the woman contacted the court during the trial, saying she might be able to make an identification of one or both of the defendants.
Earlier, under questioning by Moore, Lopez testified that he quickly was surrounded by a group of people after he stopped his 1980 GMC pickup truck behind a car at the intersection.