DINNER RAISES $2,500 FOR POWELL'S LEGAL FEES.

Byline: Brian Witte Associated Press Writer

A conservative legal group raised about $2,500 for former Los Angeles policeman Laurence Powell's legal defense against Justice Department efforts to send him back to prison for the 1991 beating of Rodney King.

Powell told a crowd of about 100 well wishers at a "Homecoming Dinner" on his behalf Thursday night that he was "doing my job as I was trained that night"

The dinner was held two days after the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the sentences Powell and fellow former Officer Stacey Koon eventually received for the videotaped beating of King were too lenient.

"People want to make this into more than it is; well, then, that's a burden they're putting on me," Powell said. "But I'm not going to let them use me, and tear me apart, tear my family apart, tear my friends apart, tear apart police departments all over the country or tear apart the communities."

About 30 members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People protested the dinner outside the hotel where it took place.

"One of the things that brought us out is that we are totally appalled at an affair in this city being held to honor a police officer who brutalized Rodney King," said Sylvia Williams, executive director for the Washington branch of the NAACP.