Gang Expert Identifies 2 Denny Defendants From Videotape : Courts: Footage of beating and robbery is used to implicate Damian Williams and Antoine Miller.

A police gang expert on Wednesday identified two defendants charged with assaulting Reginald O. Denny from videotaped footage of the attack on the truck driver at Normandie and Florence avenues, an early flash point of the Los Angeles riots.

LAPD Officer Michael McMahan said he recognized defendants Damian Monroe (Football) Williams, 19, and Antoine Eugene Miller, 20, from his 3 1/2-year stint monitoring the Eight-Tray Gangster Crips and an affiliated group, the 7-1 Hustlers, for the police gang unit.

McMahan interpreted tattoos on Williams’ arms as gang insignias. One has the acronym for the Gangsters--ETG. Another, McMahan said, mourns the loss of a fellow gang member felled in a gang shootout.

The gang officer’s testimony capped a day in which 11 witnesses took the stand at a preliminary hearing for Williams, Miller and Henry Keith Watson, 29--all charged with attempted murder, aggravated mayhem, torture and robbery in the attack on Denny. The gang officer, who has not yet been cross-examined, did not identify Watson.

The assault took place April 29, the day not guilty verdicts were returned in the trial of four police officers charged in the beating of Rodney G. King.

After the hearing, expected to conclude today, Municipal Judge Larry Paul Fidler will decide if prosecutors have shown a reasonable suspicion that the three defendants committed the crimes, a legal prerequisite for a jury trial.

They have pleaded not guilty. Their case has sparked impassioned responses from supporters who say the three defendants are wrongly accused and should be freed as compensation for the lack of justice in the King case.

McMahan said Williams was shown on the video hitting Denny with a brick--one of the most searing visual images of the riot--then flashing his gang’s sign for the television cameras overhead. Miller is shown opening the door of Denny’s red truck and taking his wallet, the officer testified under questioning from Deputy Dist. Atty. Lawrence C. Morrison.

A statement Miller made to investigators, saying he threw some rocks and robbed Denny, but didn’t attack anyone, was read into the court record by a detective. “I wanted to take the truck, but I realized I didn’t know how to drive it,� Miller told police, according to the statement.

Morrison and co-prosecutor Frank Sundstedt said they will conclude their case today by seeking to play a tape of incriminating statements made by Williams after his arrest. Williams’ defense attorney, Dennis Palmieri, has said he will argue that the statements were illegally obtained by police and are not admissible.

Until Wednesday, the defendants had been identified by one witness, news helicopter pilot Bob Tur, who reported from the air on the attack.

Then on Wednesday, Francisco Aragon, who was also assaulted at the intersection, tentatively identified Williams as being at the scene of the attack, though he said he was not certain. Previously, Aragon had identified Miller from a photo lineup.

Aragon’s wife, Marisa Bejar, testified that Miller was the man who threw a telephone book encased in metal at her, opening a gash in her head. The couple’s 7-month-old baby was showered with shattered glass but suffered only scratches.

But most of the motorists, caught up in a blur of flying bricks and punches, could not say who attacked them. Prosecutors say such testimony from victims is not needed if other evidence, such as the videotape or statements from bystanders, is available.

Los Angeles Fire Department Battalion Chief Terrance Manning said he ducked when someone tried to smash the windshield of his patrol car with a champagne bottle. The bottle did not break, but became embedded in the shattered windshield glass, said Manning, who was speeding to a fire when he was attacked at the intersection. A pickax was thrust through the car’s roof, he said.