King Denies Refusing Blood Test in Arrest : Hearing: He tells DMV officer he was confused in Orange drunk driving incident and had ‘flashbacks’ to earlier beating, lawyer says.

COSTA MESA —  Rodney G. King, the driver whose videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers last year triggered a nationwide furor, denied on Monday that he refused to take a blood test in another incident, his July arrest in Orange County on suspicion of drunk driving.

At a hearing before an officer of the Department of Motor Vehicles, King said he had not understood at the time that he was being asked to take a test, Milton C. Grimes, one of King’s two lawyers present at the hearing, said afterward. The hearing, which lasted nearly four hours, was closed to the public.

Grimes said King had been distracted at the Santa Ana office of the California Highway Patrol because a CHP officer had challenged the credibility of King’s report of his March 3, 1991, beating.

“(King) said he had flashbacks and saw lights and began to be confused. He did not know what was going on,” Grimes said. “The cop was out of line.”

The Orange County district attorney has declined to file drunk driving charges against King stemming from his July 16 arrest in the parking lot of a Denny’s restaurant in Orange. However, King’s driver’s license was automatically suspended for his alleged refusal to take a test to determine the alcohol content in his blood at the time of the arrest. Although he received a temporary license that was good for 45 days, pending his appeal of the DMV action, that license has expired.

Monday was the third full day of King’s administrative appeal before hearing officer Kathleen Anderson, who is expected to render a decision by the end of next week. Meanwhile, Grimes said, King must depend on his wife and friends to drive for him.

After arriving at the hearing Monday to testify on his behalf, King declined to speak to reporters. He said “thanks for asking” when asked about his health, but otherwise responded “no comment” to every question and slipped out a side door after the proceedings.

DMV spokesman Bill Madison allowed television cameras into the small hearing room only briefly and kept out all newspaper reporters, saying space was limited and that he was concerned about protecting the confidentiality of King’s testimony regarding his physical and mental health when he was arrested.

A short taping by television camera crews showed King testifying that on July 15 he spent much of the day with his lawyer and probation officer. King said that when he returned to his home in Altadena about 9:30 p.m. he found his wife and a gathering of friends. He said he drank one beer and started on a second. At 12:30 a.m., he said, he and his wife, Crystal, left home to drive to Residence Inn in Orange, where they had been staying temporarily to evade the media. He said his wife drove.

But when they got to the hotel, King said, his wife said she wanted something to eat. So he took the wheel and drove about a block and a half to Denny’s.

Arresting officers have contended that King attracted their attention by his erratic driving in the parking lot. However, George Nuttall, a retired CHP captain who developed a course in enforcement of drunk driving laws for CHP cadets, said he does not believe from his investigation that the officers had “probable cause” for suspecting King of being intoxicated.

Nuttall, who testified Monday on King’s behalf, said in an interview that four days after CHP officers reported seeing skid marks in the Denny’s parking lot, allegedly left by the 1986 Chevrolet Blazer that King was driving, the marks were gone.

“I believe Rodney King was sober,” said Nuttall. “I don’t think there was probable cause or grounds for his arrest.” Nuttall contends that a man driving drunk would not have been able to back a car into a parking stall as King did.

Moreover, Nuttall noted that while King waited in the car for his wife, who was inside the restaurant getting food, he dialed a long series of numbers on a mobile telephone to talk to a friend in Los Angeles.

Nuttall contended that the field test for sobriety that officers gave King at the parking lot was exceptionally difficult. Among other things, he said, King was required to stand on one foot, although his right leg had been fractured in the beating and was still giving him pain.

Grimes said that after King completed the field sobriety test, he questioned the need for a breath test when an officer suggested it. He said an officer countered by telling King he had another test to pass that involved placing his hands behind his head and counting to 40. When King followed those instructions, Grimes said, he was handcuffed.

Grimes said King does not remember any other reference to a blood alcohol test when he was taken to the CHP station, although a CHP officer said he was asked again to take it, and King acknowledges that he was confused by remarks about the previous beating incident.

“A nurse at the jail said he showed no symptoms of being under the influence,” Grimes added.

Times staff writer Len Hall contributed to this story.