Furor Over Police Beating

The Black Journalists Assn. of Southern California strenuously objects to the front-page article stating that King was legally drunk at the time of the incident.

We believe the article was flawed on several journalistic grounds. Most serious was the omission of the fact that King was never charged with drunken driving. Because King has not been accused of a crime, we believe statements from the police on this issue were not worthy of an article displayed so prominently.

We also do not believe that the article fully supported the lead. The fact that the tests were taken five hours after King was arrested leaves open a number of questions about the validity of the tests that were not addressed in the article. It also failed to fully address conflicting test results cited in earlier articles.

DARLENE DONLOE, BJASC Board of Directors