`CAN WE ALL GET GOING?' YES, BUT IT GETS TOUGHER

A verdict has been returned in the Rodney King beating ~trial, Part II, and Los Angeles is not ablaze. Let us be thankful for this considerable favor. While Los Angeles is 1,800 miles away from our region, the impact of the King arrest and the subsequent trials of the police officers who beat him has been felt here, casting shadows on the credibility of law enforcement authorities and heightening racial tensions. We are pleased that violence in the form of misapplied legal authority has not again beget violence in the form of murderous civil unrest.

Were four Los Angeles police officers guilty of wrongdoing in their March 1991 arrest of Rodney King? One jury said no, and now another has said yes, sort of. In the verdict announced Saturday, two of the officers, including the supervisor, were found guilty of violating King's civil rights. That was the outcome of a federal trial brought about after a state court jury had cleared the officers of beating King while arresting him. Those acquittals touched off an outburst of rioting that left 54 people dead and $1 billion in property damage in Los Angeles. Incidents of violence in other cities across the nation also greeted that "not guilty" verdict.

There is some context we, in a rural area in the Midwest, lack in understanding the King case from beginning to end. It is difficult to know, observing news reports of the trial half a nation away, everything that the jury was presented as evidence; while the brief video of the beating, replayed repeatedly on network news shows, was horrifying, there may have been much the nation wasn't privy to. And, it is difficult to know what our feelings would be as members of minority groups in an urban setting where the sentiment is pervasive that a racially based double standard applies.

However, there are some facts that stand as indisputable. One is that the riots touched off by the first King verdict far exceeded the original incident of beating and carry no justification. This was no understandable reaction to a supposed injustice ... it was simple lawlessness. Another is that Rodney King is no hero, despite the celebrity he now enjoys. Never mind that he stands to profit as the martyr of this cruel episode, or that members of the Los Angeles Dodgers have him to the ballpark as their guest; his outlaw behavior set in motion a widespread program of vio~lence.

Still another consideration is that most law enforcement officials across this nation are dedicated public servants who understand the hazards of their work and recognize restraint as part of their business; probably the Americans most disturbed by the Los Angeles beating are the street-level police officers, whose work is made more difficult by the suspicion this incident elicited.

Rodney King, at the height of the riots his criminal actions helped trigger, asked a haunting question: "Can we all get along?" This second trial is over, an appeal will likely be forthcoming and civil lawsuits are almost a certainty. Yes, we can get along, but the Rodney King beating and its aftermath have done nothing to help us achieve the harmony his plea suggests.