In Split Decision, Ethnic Minorities Express Varied Emotions, Opinions

The verdicts came over his transistor radio Saturday morning as James Joseph (J.J.) King was about to tee off on the 11th fairway at a Mission Viejo golf course.

“I just breathed a sigh of relief,” said King, a member of Neighbors, an Orange County association of black residents. “It was nothing to celebrate. Why should you want to celebrate when people are doing the right thing? I thought maybe there is justice after all.”

After a federal jury convicted two Los Angeles police officers of violating Rodney G. King’s civil rights and acquitted two others, members of Orange County’s Latino, black and Asian communities expressed a range of emotions and opinions about the trial.

Some felt justice had been served. Others said all four defendants should have been convicted. Some questioned the constitutionality of trying the officers twice--first in state court last year, where they were acquitted, then federal court. Others said the verdicts reaffirmed their faith in the judicial system.

Some looked beyond the trial, focusing on ways to attack what many consider the culprits of last spring’s riots: poverty, racism and injustice.

“Let’s get down now to the real work,” said Joseph L. White, director of the African-American Studies Program at UC Irvine. “Justice had been served, the community’s not going to riot, so let’s address the issues. This is a moment in time when everybody is listening.”

Throughout the county, residents rose early Saturday to watch the 7 a.m. reading of the verdicts on television.

The Rev. John McReynolds said he didn’t sleep much the night before, and got up 15 minutes before the verdicts were due.

“Tears welled up in my eyes when they read the verdicts, and tears welled up during the last verdict too,” said McReynolds, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Santa Ana, one of the county’s largest black churches. “It was like, my goodness, there was a thing called justice, and the American system of jurisprudence does have value.”

But while he is “elated” that the potential for violence in Los Angeles was diffused, he had mixed feelings about the verdicts.

“I’m glad the verdicts came in the way they did, but I do feel that all four officers were guilty,” McReynolds said.

Fran Williams, vice chairman of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, and a few others, shared McReynolds’ view.

“I’m pleased about the verdicts for Koon and Power,” said Williams, who is black. “And I was disappointed that the others weren’t found guilty as well. . . . But I can live with the verdicts, have to live with the verdicts.”

Becky Esparza, chairwoman of the Human Relations Commission, is glad the trial is over. However, “I’m saddened by the fact that minorities and people of color have to go to such length to seek justice.”

Others were happy with the verdicts.

Alfredo Amezcua, 42, is legal counsel for the United Gangs Council, a coalition of gang members and neighborhood groups that came together last year to broker a truce among Orange County gangs.

Amezcua, who watched the live television broadcast in his Santa Ana law office, said he breathed a deep sigh of relief at hearing the first two verdicts, both guilty.

“If there were only not-guilty verdicts, there was the potential for trouble in Orange County,” Amezcua said.

“The fact that the verdicts were unanimous and that the two most important characters were convicted brings a sense of confidence in the judicial system,” Amezcua said. “We remain solidly behind our African-American brothers in their quest for peace and justice.”

“I think the verdict is fair,” said Garden Grove Councilman Ho Chung, who is Korean-American. “Two guilty and two not guilty seems to me very fair. . . . I have had contact with several leaders in the Korean community, and they also feel the same way I feel. We don’t worry about any possible unrest today or the upcoming evening.”

Still, some feel the four police officers shouldn’t have have been tried again after last year’s state trial in Simi Valley. To John Yoo, a 23-year-old Korean-American college student, the federal case was a judicial double jeopardy.

“I personally feel that this trial may be motivated by public opinions and political pressure,” Yoo said.

While commenting on the verdicts, some community leaders looked beyond the trial.

Some think that the videotaped beating of King will teach police to be more sensitive.

Justice is a concept that includes respectful treatment of minorities by police, said Thomas Parham, a psychologist and director of UC Irvine’s Counseling Center and Career Planning and Placement Center. Beatings by officers like the one King received, he said, should not be allowed.

“Justice is developing a department policy that condemns that kind of action,” he said.

Amezcua said the verdicts will “make law enforcement agencies more careful and sensitive in the way they approach a person of color.”

Esparza said the trial will reinforce the importance of community-oriented policing.

UC Irvine’s White called for local and national leaders to work on the underlying problems that created the violent reaction to the acquittals of all four officers that followed last year’s trial.

Daniel Tsang , a Chinese-American lecturer at UC Irvine, echoed Jesse Jackson when he said that Los Angeles has to deal with the issues of poverty, justice and jobs.

“Otherwise nothing will change,” Tsang said. “I don’t think the city had done very much to rebuild itself after last year.”

Msgr. Jaime Soto, vicar for the Roman Catholic Latino community in the Diocese of Orange, hopes things will change for the better.

“I would hope in the wake of these verdicts that people would make a special effort to do the simple acts of kindness that can make a difference in our neighborhoods, whether we be police, business people or the neighbor down the street,” Soto said.