LOS ANGELES -- For a brief moment two years ago today, four police officers and an anxious city thought the Rodney King nightmare would end.
It was just beginning.
Across-the-board acquittals ignited the worst rioting of the century. And within a year, the four officers were back in court on federal civil rights charges. Two were convicted.
And the angst continues today.
Fifteen city police officers - including the original four and former police chief Daryl Gates - face punitive damages in King's civil suit.
The emotional stress caused by the March 3, 1991 beating shows up at every turn of this convoluted case.
Wednesday, a police psychologist testified Sgt. Mark Conta, a police training expert whose testimony last year helped convict Sgt. Stacey Koon and Officer Laurence Powell, was too stressed to take the stand again.
A judge has ordered him to testify when the trial resumes Monday.
Koon, who testified this week in a blue prison uniform, has lost 40 pounds since his conviction a year ago.
Theodore Briseno, who broke ranks with his fellow officers by testifying in the first trial that the beating was not justified, said he feels like the villain. "I think, 'Is it only me that's admitted something wrong happened out there?' " he said. "For three years I've put up with this and it hurts."
Conta has suffered shaking and trouble speaking since being subpoenaed, police psychologist Debra Glaser said.
Even the lawyers are showing stress: Briseno's lawyer, Greg Peterson, was hospitalized Thursday for a possible stroke after complaining of pain in his left arm and numbness in his face.
His illness forced the judge to suspend the trial until Monday.
And while many want this all to end, the legal battles are far from over.
Jurors are in the second phase of King's lawsuit to determine whether to award punitive damages against 15 people. King last week was awarded $ 3.8 million from the city.
This is the first time that all four original defendants - Koon, Powell, Briseno and Timothy Wind, who have already been tried twice on criminal charges - have testified in one case.
Ten other Los Angeles police officers who were at the scene of the beating are named in the suit, although King's lawyers may drop some of them.
Gates, who was forced to resign after the beating and rioting, is also named. He could testify as early as Monday.
"The four main defendants will be pointing the finger at the LAPD," says Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson. "Gates will be telling his own tale. And when you bring Daryl Gates into the mix, anything can happen."
"His mouth is his worst enemy," says civil rights lawyer Thomas E. Beck.. "Any comments that get him in hot water these days are his own."
Gates called King a "jerk" last week after the jury awarded King compensatory damages from the city.
Uncertain: Whether the city will pay for Gates, as it did before, or some of the others. The city is not expected to pay for the original four.
Lawyers for the four are making sure the jury knows their clients are broke - two in prison and two unemployed.
"They can disregard that evidence. They can accept it. They can weigh it into the balance," says Beck. "But if they wanted to penalize these guys big time, they could do it."
