Word: koonings
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...kept their eyes away from the four defendants. An anxious city and nation listened as court clerk Jim Holmes began to read, in a practiced drone, the verdict the jurors had just handed Judge John Davies. How did the panel find on the charge that police sergeant Stacey Koon "did willfully permit" the savage beating of Rodney King by three other cops under his command, thus depriving King of his constitutional rights? Said Holmes: "Guilty...
...everyone agreed. Some blacks saw only partial justice. And some white policemen took the convictions of Koon and Powell as a slap in the face. But even among white cops, that feeling mingled with an almost giddy relief at the prospect of not having to cope with a riot on the scale of the one last year that left 53 people dead. "Everybody in Los Angeles is just happy that this cloud has finally been dispelled," said police captain Patrick Froehle. Many % blacks agreed. Said one woman, buying bacon at Sun's Market on Avalon Street, which was burned...
...said the juror, the tape was "basically what convicted them." Some other evidence that legal experts -- including a defense attorney -- thought weighed heavily: Koon's assertion that he wanted to "break bones" to get King to submit, Powell's laughter when he called an ambulance and "war stories" told to fellow officers, and King's appearance on the stand. King did not appear to be the PCP-crazed monster that Koon had described...
...observers felt he provided this trial's most compelling moments. Rather than experience him only as a silent presence or a moving shadow on videotape, jurors could see the fateful night through his eyes. He described lying on the ground waiting to be handcuffed, only to be shocked by Koon with a stun gun. He recalled running toward his car, throwing his hands over his face. He said, in complete accord with the evidence, "I wasn't trying to hit any police officer." Said Denver trial lawyer Dan Caplis, a consultant on the case for NBC News: "The whole defense...
...previous testimony by Officer Theodore Briseno suggesting that King was indeed beaten on the head, unnecessarily and intentionally; this undermined the "unified defense" Briseno had since joined. The prosecution's summation, too, was more compelling than the defendants'. Observers predicted conviction for Officer Laurence Powell and possibly Sergeant Stacey Koon. But Judge Davies feared that the jury would find itself deadlocked...