Williams Denies Hitting Denny, Urges Gang Peace : Riots: Defendant says he is not the person shown on video striking trucker in the head with a brick.

Damian Monroe Williams, while maintaining his innocence in the beating of truck driver Reginald O. Denny, appealed for peace Monday, asking gang members to put down their weapons and end black-on-black violence.

It is time for gangs to “come together as one big family and unite,” said Williams, who with Henry Keith Watson is charged with attempted murder in the beating of Denny and others as rioting broke out in Los Angeles last year.

“I say to all the brothers and sisters out there: Put your weapons down,” Williams said. “It’s time to make a change.”

Williams, 20, made his appeal during an interview at the Men’s Central Jail with The Times and KCOP-TV Channel 13--his first face-to-face interview with reporters since he was jailed 16 months ago.

In the wide-ranging session, Williams said he feels sorry for what happened to Denny, but he denied that he is the person shown on videotape hitting the trucker in the head with a brick. He also criticized the criminal justice system, said he is being made a scapegoat for the riots, and spoke of leaning toward embracing Islam.

He was accompanied throughout the session by his attorney, Edi M.O. Faal, and David Lynn, a defense investigator. Faal would not allow Williams to say whether he was at Florence and Normandie avenues as rioting erupted, but Williams could describe what he had seen on videotapes of the incident.

In one of the most searing images from last years’s riots, a man was captured on videotape hitting Denny in the head with a brick and doing a little celebratory dance after the trucker had been beaten by others at the intersection.

Williams said Monday that he is not that assailant.

He also labeled as false a statement he gave police shortly after his arrest on May 12, 1992, admitting he hurled the brick.

He said he had been arrested early in the morning and had been held for several hours when he made the statement. “Through that whole ordeal, I was sleepy, tired,” he said. “I really couldn’t say what was going on.”

Prosecutors have agreed not to use Williams’ statement to police in his trial, which began last week with jury selection. Faal has argued that police promised Williams leniency and tricked him into making the admission.

Williams said he “most definitely” feels that he is “a scapegoat for the whole rebellion. But I’m here fighting this case. I have no fear. My head is up high. I feel I will have victory.”

The riots, he said, were the expression of a “lot of frustration” people have with what he called injustices they face every day. “I think the system is very unfair to African-Americans and other minority races,” he said. “I don’t think there is such a word as justice in the justice system we have here in America.”

The fact that no young black men were selected to serve on the racially mixed jury hearing his case does not bother him, he said. The jury includes three middle-aged African-Americans, two women and a man.

“Like my mother says, regardless of what race is on that jury panel, God is looking on,” he said. “He’s going to make the decision. I have no problems, fear whatsoever. He’s going to bring me out of it. I’m just going to leave it in His hands.”

Williams also drew a comparison between the charges he faces and those filed against the four LAPD officers in the beating of Rodney G. King. The charges against him are unfair, he said, because he is accused of attempted murder and aggravated mayhem, while the officers faced less serious assault charges in the state case. Two officers, Laurence M. Powell and Stacey C. Koon, were convicted of violating King’s civil rights in a second, federal trial.

Williams said the beating of Denny was just as “unfortunate” as the police beating of King, adding that the King beating was “nothing new. That occurs every day in South-Central.” The officers should have been found guilty in the state trial, he said, “but we know how the system works when it comes down to race. They had an all-white jury, so you had to expect acquittal.”

The officers’ state jury was actually made up of 10 whites, an Asian-American and a Latina.

Williams said the 2 1/2-year sentences Koon and Powell were given in federal court were too low, but he added that he was surprised that they were given any jail time at all.

“Honestly, I thought they’d get probation,” he said. He said he has already served the time the officers will have to serve, and that if he and Watson are found guilty, they will get stiffer sentences.

He insisted that he is not affiliated with a gang and said he agreed to be interviewed now “because I felt it was time to let people know who I really am. They have labeled me a criminal, a thug, a thief, whatever. I’m none of them. I’m a human being . . . with a caring heart.”

He was relaxed and talkative during most of the hourlong interview, but he became irritated when asked about the morning he was arrested. Former Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, wearing a bullet-proof vest, led a force of more than 100 FBI agents and Los Angeles police officers who surrounded Williams’ home.

“Mr. Daryl Gates said he personally arrested me,” Williams said. “That is a lie.”

Williams said he came out after FBI agents telephoned his home, said the house was surrounded and ordered him out.

“When I got about five steps from the car, a camera(man) came running. Daryl Gates grabbed my shoulder. It was a shock to me. I was thinking, ‘Where did he come from?’ ”

He said he and Gates never exchanged words, as the former chief said afterward.

“I never said: ‘Chief Gates, you’re going.’ He never said: ‘Football, you’re going first.’ That never occurred.”

Since being locked up, Williams, a high school dropout, said he has learned a lot in jail, where he has been reading “about my African heritage. I’m learning who I am and what I am and what my people are.”

His reading list has included “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” George Jackson’s prison diary, “Soledad Brother,” and works by Elijah Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam, and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, among others.

Asked if he would have read any of these books had they been assigned in class five years ago, he broke into laughter and answered: “Possibly not.”

His reading has drawn him closer to Islam, and he said he will know in the near future--as he digests more material--whether he will embrace the religion.

He appeared confident that he will “return to society” and be able to attend college and pursue a dream of becoming a professional football or baseball player.

Williams has a 19-month-old son, Jordan, who he said “means a lot to me. My dream is to get back out there so he doesn’t have to walk in the footsteps of me or anyone else. I want to raise him right. My child’s mother is supporting him, and I love her for doing it. Even though I’m not there physically, my soul is near.”

He said he realized that he is a symbol of a soldier to a lot of young people. But he appealed to them “to stay in school . . . please. Education is very important. The first thing you have to do is know yourself.”