Sergeant Stacey Cornell Koon, the supervising officer at
the
arrest
of Rodney King, wanted nothing so much as to be known as a
good cop who
did his job in a professional manner. Forty-one at
the time of
the
King incident, Koon believed then--and continued to
believe throughout
his trials--that his actions may well have saved Rodney
King's
life.
Looking back at March 3, 1991 many years later, Koon said,
"I wouldn't
change what happened one iota."
Koon was a well-respected fourteen-year veteran of the
LAPD
with a masters
degree in criminology. In his years on the force,
he earned over
ninety commendations and just three reprimands.
His courage was
legendary.
While working out of the tough South Central district,
Koon once
witnessed
a black transvestite prostitute--who had been brought in
for
booking--fall
over from an apparent heart attack. Even though
AIDs was rampant
in the area and the prostitute had symptomatic open
mouth sores, Koon
dropped
to the floor and administered mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation. (The
prostitute did in fact have AIDS).
Fellow black officers considered Koon to be committed
to
racial equality.
One black officer on the force said of him, "Stacey is a
guy you can
walk
up to and he'll give you the shirt off his back."
Koon once
investigated
a police brutality charge brought against a white
officer by two black
transients--a charge most officers might have let
drop. He even
angered
many officers by ordering the accused officer to stand
in a line-up for
identification by the transients. (The officer was
later found
guilty
of using excessive force.)
On the night of March 3, 1991, Koon ordered CHP
officers to
stand away.
He said later he thought the CHP officers' use of
drawn guns was
"a lousy tactic." Instead, he twice tried tasing
King. The
ineffectiveness of the Taser convinced Koon that King
was "dusted," or
on the drug PCP. When the Taser and swarming King
proved
unsuccessful,
Koon, according to one investigator, "looked around and
saw a bunch of
rookies--he tunneled in."
Koon may have won the case for the defense in the Simi
Valley
trial.
Although Prosecutor Terry White thought Koon to be "an
arrogant
sonofabitch,"
he came across as a sincere witness who genuinely
believed that the
force
used against King was managed and controlled. One
of the most
dramatic
moments of the trial came when his attorney Daryll
Mounger asked him
what
he was "thinking at the time you saw Melanie Singer
approaching with a
gun in her hand?" Koon fought back tears as he
answered: "They
show
you a picture when you are in the Academy [taken] at the
morgue, and it
is four [highway patrol] officers in full uniform that
are on a slab
and
they are dead, and it is the Newhall shooting."
At the federal trial, Koon revealed none of the
emotions that
came through
in Simi Valley--and that might have sealed his
fate. To some
observers,
he came across as cool or "cocky."
After his conviction in the federal trial, Koon served
over
two years
in federal prison. Shortly before his parole in
December of 1995,
an unsuccessful attempt was made on his life.
In recent years, Koon--ineligible as a convicted felon
to
serve on a
police force--sought satisfaction in part-time paralegal
work and in
being
a "house husband."
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