Verdict Shocks O.C. Chiefs, Black Leaders

Shock and outrage were expressed by a number of Orange County police chiefs and leaders of the county’s black community in the wake of the acquittal Wednesday of four Los Angeles police officers on charges that arose from the videotaped beating of Rodney G. King.

“As a citizen more than as a professional police officer, I am shocked that some criminal charges weren’t found,” Fullerton Police Chief Phil Goehring said.

“Most of the Orange County chiefs and command-level officers that I talked to before the trial began were, from the nature and tone of their comments, of the opinion that the conduct of these officers was improper.”

Although the jury did not find anyone guilty in the March, 1991, incident, several chiefs said they don’t expect that the acquitted officers will be allowed to continue in law enforcement after their actions are reviewed by their peers.

“I only hope the administrative process bars them from ever again being a police officer. What they did was wrong,” said Laguna Beach Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr., who added that he personally found the jury’s verdicts “sickening.”

Late Wednesday evening, as Orange County residents watched television coverage of street riots that broke out after the verdict, they deluged local police agencies with phone calls on 911 emergency lines.

“They were watching television and feeling a sense of outrage and helplessness when they saw people being assaulted. They just wanted something done,” said Sgt. Ed Pierson of the Anaheim Police Department. He estimated that the department received at least 120 such calls in an hour and a half, tying up the department’s emergency line.

The question of what constitutes acceptable force by police will continue to be “a lingering question,” said Hugh Foster, acting director of the criminal justice training center at Golden West College in Huntington Beach. He said he expects that the center will increase the classroom time it devotes to teaching arrest and control procedures and cultural sensitivity.

Purcell said that last year the King incident coupled with a police brutality case in his own city greatly undermined the citizens’ respect for the department and made his officers’ job much more difficult.

“They couldn’t make a car stop or pedestrian stop without this being thrown in their face all the time,” he said. “I think it took its toll on officers. There was a kind of backing off.”

Purcell noted that last year arrests in the city were down 39% although there was no decline in crime.

In the immediate weeks following the King beating, citizens in Santa Ana whipped out their video cameras whenever there was a police confrontation, Santa Ana Police Chief Paul M. Walters said. He added, though, that more recently that practice seems to be on the wane.

Of the police chiefs interviewed, only Brea Chief Donald L. Forkus said he was not surprised by the verdict.

Forkus said that although he at first was “appalled” by the videotape, “I understand the criminal justice system and having to prove criminal intent. I don’t think you could hold them criminally and personally responsible for what they did that night.”

However, “one may disagree with the tactics under which they were trained,” he added.

Forkus said Los Angeles police may respond more forcefully than Brea police because they work in a different environment.

“I really do believe in certain parts of L.A. they deal with a different client than we do,” he said. “They deal with neighborhoods that are much more difficult to police.”

Forkus said he has talked to his officers about the King case. “I said all you need to be aware of is that we are going to be under very close scrutiny because it has raised public awareness of the conduct of the police, and I said the videotape does not look good. People are typically going to prejudge that without knowing any of the facts.”

The King verdict will rekindle public anger toward police, especially among young black men, predicted Milton Grimes, a Santa Ana criminal defense attorney, who said he had received 10 calls from incensed young black men after the verdict was announced. “It is going to be a hot summer,” he said.

Like other critics of the verdicts, Grimes said he does not think that the officers would have been acquitted if the trial had been held in Los Angeles, where there might have been blacks on the jury.

“I am afraid white jurors do not have feeling for black people that gives them a high regard for black life,” he said. “Half (the defense’s) battle was won when they got (the trial) moved to Ventura County.”

Thomas Parham, director of the counseling and career center at UC Irvine, said: “If Rodney King had been a white man who resided in Beverly Hills, there would be a different system of accountability. It wouldn’t have been a matter of figuring out if they were guilty but how much time they will get. Justice is not blind.”

Parham added, “I hope that we, as an African-American community, will be able to channel some of our disgust and anger to effect a change in the way our community is policed.”

Within hours after the verdict, the African American Student Union at UC Irvine arranged to hold a noon rally on campus today to protest the verdict.

“I think it is a horrendous verdict,” said Fred Smoller, a political science professor at Chapman University in Orange. “One can’t help but conclude that there is an element of racism here. . . . There’s no way to believe that this happened in self-defense. This was a police riot on one man.”

Smoller said he thought that the verdict was as momentous as the shooting of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

John McReynolds, senior pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Santa Ana, said he had discussed the King case in his sermons several times since the beating.

“I told them that we need to allow the judicial system to make its decision, that we need to be careful what we feel and say, (so that) one act of violence does not precipitate another, that the arc of the moral universe is long, but that it does bend toward justice.”

McReynolds said he would continue to urge his 1,500 parishioners to keep cool but was concerned about those living in impoverished, urban areas.

“I know that in South-Central L.A. and all across the country that our minority community is a powder keg with a fuse,” he said. “People are angry, people are out of work and feel neglected.”

Times staff writers Rose Kim, Kristina Lindgren and Eric Young contributed to this report.