Police Officers Under the Gun in Aftermath of King Beating : Law enforcement: Officers find themselves confronted by video cameras, taunting. Some departments are stepping up community-relations work.

Huntington Park police officer John Maley was on a routine patrol when he noticed that he was being tailed by a carload of youths with a video camera.

“They keyed on me and followed me around for five minutes until I lost them in heavy traffic,” the officer said.

Imagine a day at the office with a video camera taping your every move. Some law enforcement officers in the Southeast and Long Beach areas say they are starting to feel as if their actions are under the microscope in the aftermath of the Rodney G. King beating that was videotaped by an amateur cameraman.

Los Angeles police officers were shown hitting King with their batons more than 50 times March 3 after a car chase in the San Fernando Valley. Four LAPD officers have been indicted in connection with the beating.

In the weeks since, Sheriff’s deputies and police officers in the Southeast say they have been videotaped, heckled and resisted as never before.

Deputy Ray Mades said he had a scare recently while arresting two suspected gang members in the stabbing of a youth outside the Lakewood Center Mall. “People started coming out of the mall telling them they don’t have to obey me,” Mades said. “They started shouting things like ‘Are you going to beat them too?’ ”

Compton officers said they have encountered similar reactions.

“You get a lot more back talk from a suspect or someone you’re questioning,” Compton officer George Betor said. “People will say such things as, ‘You have no right to ask me those questions,’ or ‘What are you going to do, beat me?’ ”

In Downey, officer Sean Penrose recalled a routine baton-training session that took place outside the station a couple of days after the Rodney King incident.

“We had vehicles stop and they yelled out the window, ‘That’s right, teach them how to beat more people,’ ” Penrose said.

Numerous law enforcement officers report being videotaped. In Bell, for example, Police Chief Jim Edwards said his officers have been videotaped on at least four occasions since King was beaten.

Sometimes, baiting accompanies the videotaping, authorities said.

Sheriff’s Deputy Jim Ramsey was one of several deputies who went to a Norwalk residence about a week ago to arrest a 16-year-old for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon. Another child in the family was stationed under a tree, filming the arrest.

“The parents were trying to provoke deputies into doing something,” he said. “They started calling the Hispanic deputies wetbacks.”

The officers said they are concerned that the camera will catch only their use of force and not the action that justified it, and some say they have become more reluctant to use force necessary to ensure their safety. Some administrators have asked officers to begin making audio recordings of arrests, as they have done in the past.

“The circumstances they work with are tough enough,” said Sgt. Steve Biagini, who works at the sheriff’s station in Norwalk. “They don’t need any more pressure out there.”

But Biagini also conceded that such vigilance is not all bad. “It could be positive to stop . . . guys who were doing stuff wrong, or who were thinking about it,” Biagini said. “You’d have to be naive to think this stuff wasn’t going on before.”

Some of the officers also said they are encountering a more fearful public at times.

Norwalk Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Pippin begins to stew as he recalls an incident about a week ago when his deputies took a mentally ill woman into protective custody. She had been hiding in some bushes with her 7-year-old daughter.

“Suddenly the little girl starts to scream, ‘Please don’t kill my mommy. Don’t shoot my mommy!’ ” Pippin recalled. “I was incensed that this is the perception a 7-year-old girl has of police. It’s just not fair. I’m not going to defend the Rodney King incident, but enough is enough.”

The Sheriff’s Department patrols numerous Southeast cities, including Artesia, Bellflower, Commerce, Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens, Lakewood, La Mirada, Lynwood, Norwalk, Paramount, Pico Rivera and Santa Fe Springs. It also patrols part of Long Beach.

In the wake of the King incident, police officials say they now remind their officers regularly about proper use of force and give frequent pep talks, urging them to be especially courteous despite public criticism. Some administrators are also reviewing department use-of-force policies.

In South Gate, officers will start using Mace for the first time in about five years to help subdue suspects, Police Chief Ronald George said. The tear gas is carried in a small canister and is sprayed in the face of suspects. The department is also providing more training for officers so they can subdue suspects in hand-to-hand combat, George said. “We are looking at all the tools we can use, before using our guns,” George said.

Administrators in other departments said they were not planning such changes, but they said they had discussed the King case and the use of force with their officers and deputies.

Compton Sgt. M. D. Button said his administrative staff reminds officers repeatedly that they are expected to perform professionally despite any animosity resulting from the King incident. The message is delivered at every roll-call session--when each new shift is briefed before hitting the streets, Button said.

Compton police also have been under criticism in the wake of the shooting deaths of two unarmed Samoan brothers by veteran Compton officer Alfred Skiles. The Samoan community staged protests demanding that Skiles be prosecuted, after an autopsy report showed that the brothers had been shot several times, and that many wounds were in their backs.

Meanwhile, law enforcement officials are stepping up their public relations campaigns.

Montebello Police Chief Steve Simonian said he has instructed three of his officers, who regularly visit local middle schools, to explain to students that what happened to King was a mistake.

The chief also has talked about the King incident to children touring the police station.

“I can tell it’s really been bothering the kids, they are really struggling for an answer,” Simonian said. “I tell them that police officers are human, and sometimes they make mistakes.”

Compton officers routinely hand out plastic police badges and other novelties to youngsters, but several officers say they have stepped up their efforts to display the friendly, helping side of their profession.

Officer Linda Hollins said she has made a point of waving as she passes people on her patrol rounds.

“You kind of get the feeling that they don’t see you as a friend any more. It’s a real intense environment now for all of us.”

Local law enforcement officers say they will work through these trying times, just as they have weathered similar controversies of past years.

There was public outcry after the 1981 death of college football running back Ron Settles while he was a prisoner in the Signal Hill Jail. Signal Hill officials maintained that Settles took his own life. The Settles family disputed that and filed a wrongful-death lawsuit. The lawsuit was settled for an estimated $1 million.

In Huntington Park, two officers were jailed after they tortured a teen-age burglary suspect with an electric stun gun to extract a confession in 1986. Both officers were incarcerated, and the youth’s family received a $300,000 out-of-court settlement from the city.

And Long Beach officers recalled the negative reaction they encountered two years ago after a television crew filmed a traffic arrest in which activist Don Jackson apparently was shoved through a plate-glass window by a Long Beach police officer.

“They would say, ‘Are you going to throw me through a window?’ ” Long Beach Officer Dennis Parker recalled.

Former officers Mark Dickey and Mark Ramsey, now retired because of stress-related disabilities, are being tried on charges of falsifying a police report of the incident. Dickey is also charged with assault.

Times Staff Writers Michele Fuetsch, Tina Griego, Lee Harris and Roxana Kopetman contributed to this story.