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By Donna Foote
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In many ways, it is the same case. Like the trial in California state court last year, the federal proceedings against four police officers accused of violating Rodney King's civil rights turns on an interpretation of 81 seconds of searing videotape. The prosecution claims the recording shows a heinous use of unreasonable force. The defense argues the beating was justified because of the officers' perception that King was a threat. Which of those two views a jury finds more plausible will govern whether the cops are convicted or set free.
Yet there is one powerful difference between this Rodney King trial, still in its early stages, and the one that ended in Los Angeles burning. This time Rodney King told his story. No longer did jurors have to wonder what he thought or felt, or to guess how he might respond to defense portrayals of his behavior that night of March 3, 1991. Last week King took the stand. There were some inconsistencies in his testimony, but he largely gave a controlled and poignant account. Some excerpts, followed by commentary from Donna Foote, NEWSWEEK'S correspondent at the trial:
"I don't know if I was speeding ... I stopped at all the stop signs ... I was on parole and I was scared to go back to prison."
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"I was ordered to open the car door from the outside ... I was face down looking at the police lady and she kept saying I mean it, I mean it ... and she had the gun pointed at me ... so I did like that [makes a sound and snaps his head] because I didn't want to watch her shoot me ... I received a kick or a blow by a hard object to the right side of my face ... I was facing into ... ground asphalt. And the police put my hands behind my back. Then. . . one of then applied pressure like he was trying to snap my wrist in half. That's when I went 'AARGH' and I heard someone say, 'back, back,' and all of them backed away from me and I'm waiting on the ground to be handcuffed. Shortly after that I was shocked by the taser."
"I got shocked ... and it felt like the blood was boiling inside me ... I just kinda lay down and took it ... Finally the shocking stopped and my blood started to come back and . . . they asked me, 'How do you feel now?'. . . It was hard to even breathe and I just tried to laugh it off ... They said, 'We're going to kill you nigger, run.'"
"The whole incident is still very hazy to me ... I lied to the investigators [after the arrest]."
"I was trying to stay alive, sir-trying to stay alive, and they never gave me a chance to stay still. I never had a chance to stay still."
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