NOTHING' WRONG WITH 'THE SYSTEM'.

Byline: CHRIS WEINKOPF

WE'VE all heard the hypotheticals. They are common in the aftermath of any racially charged incident, and the Inglewood police beating of 16-year- old Donovan Jackson is no exception.

It's an old guessing game: How would the public's reaction, the media's coverage, the politicians' response differ if the racial tables were turned?

Would Johnnie Cochran and Al Sharpton rush to the aid of Jackson, an African-American teen beaten by a white officer, Jeremy Morse, if Jackson were white and Morse were black?

Would the story command national attention?

And would the awful episode have ever happened at all - that is, would officers have reacted as violently to a white youth, or do cops consider African-Americans fair game for excessive force?

That's the presumption of the TV pundits, the professional protesters like Sharpton and the countless others drawing facile comparisons to Rodney King. But it's a rash - and dangerous - conclusion to draw.

Based on what's known so far, it's too soon to assume the guilt of Morse or his partner, Bijan Darvish, who also struck Jackson, and who has also been indicted. Fugitive/cameraman Mitchell Crooks' widely replayed home video of the incident is damning, but far from complete.

The footage, now ingrained in the minds of anyone who has set foot near a TV in the past week, shows Morse slamming a handcuffed and seemingly defenseless Jackson onto the hood of a car, in a move straight out of the WWF, then striking him in the face with an uppercut worthy of Oscar de la Hoya.

Taken on its own, the video would seem to present an open-and-shut case. But then there's the cop's defense, which, if true, is compelling:

Jackson had already struck Morse before Crooks' camera started rolling. He menacingly moved his hand around inside his pocket, suggesting that he could have had a weapon, despite being ordered to remove it. The officers needed to spread him out on the hood of the car because he refused to stand up, and they wanted to put a stop to an off-camera scuffle on the ground. Finally, even as Jackson appeared cuffed and under control, he grabbed and squeezed at Morse's crotch, thus inviting the punch - an anguished act of self-defense.

If it's all true, then Morse is a cop just doing his job, his life now all but ruined by a single convincing, albeit misleading, piece of evidence. Of course, it could also be a lie. Cops who take liberties with their suspects' civil liberties aren't likely to lose any sleep about falsifying police reports.

Fortunately, there's more evidence to come: Gas station security cameras, eyewitnesses, Morse's past record, doctors' examinations of both the alleged aggressor and the alleged victim. There are also four separate investigations under way. If Morse is never convicted of any crimes stemming from the way he either handled or manhandled Jackson, it won't be for lack of prosecutorial effort.

Yet even if Morse is the thug his critics allege, there's no evidence of the sort of broader, systemic corruption that surfaced in the wake of Rodney King and the infamous history of the LAPD. In the city of Inglewood and in its Police Department, whites are the minority. The police chief, the mayor and most other city leaders are African-American. It hardly seems the sort of place where a belligerent white bigot can routinely violate civil rights and evade punishment.

Then there are all those investigations. Every elected official from the mayor of Inglewood to the president of the United States has demanded thorough inquiries. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the state Assembly have both called for a broader investigation of police brutality.

In other words, no one is trying to stage a cover-up.

If anything, all those hypothetical questions about race - the likelihood that this episode has garnered so much attention precisely because Jackson is African-American - should dispel any idea that ``the system'' is innately racist. Instead, it would seem that ``the system,'' having learned the lessons of a less-than-honorable past, has proved that it reacts swiftly and forcefully to possible evidence of bigotry on the beat.

All of which makes the Sharpton grandstanding and the Rodney King comparisons seem largely unjustified - a cheap ploy to stoke racial discontent on what's ultimately a shaky pretext.

At the end of all the investigations, Morse may find himself spending many years behind bars due to a richly deserved conviction. Or he could be acquitted, not because of a miscarriage of justice, but because he may well be innocent.

The public should be prepared for that possibility. Otherwise, those who try to turn Donovan Jackson into the next Rodney King risk sowing the seeds of the next Rodney King riot.