Police brutality trial starts in L.A.

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N09316742.htm

LOS ANGELES, July 9 (Reuters) - A black teenager whose videotaped beating at the hands of a white police officer inflamed racial tension in Los Angeles last summer, started the brawl by attacking police and grabbing for their weapons, a Los Angeles court heard on Wednesday.

In a closely-watched trial in a city still tarred by the 1991 beating of Rodney King and the ensuing riots, lawyers defended police tactics in the latest case of alleged brutality as "appropriate and reasonable."

Former police officer Jeremy Morse, 25, is accused of assault under the color of authority. His partner Bijan Darvish is charged with filing a false police report. Both face prison terms of up to three years if found guilty by the jury of six women and six men, one of whom is African-American.

Morse, who is white and has since been fired from the police force, and Darvish were indicted in July last year after a bystander captured Morse on videotape slamming handcuffed 16-year-old Donovan Jackson against a patrol car and punching him in the face during an altercation at a gas station in Inglewood, near Los Angeles International Airport.

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