officers - The Black Vault

FD·350 (Rev. 5·8·81)
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(Mount Clipping in Space Below)
page, name of
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LOS ANGELES TIMES
- Date: TUES. MAR 19, 1991
:Bradley Urged Release ...," B::::ys:::::N~::::E 2 :F
• . · • . Title: TRANSCRIPT t POLITICAL
() f Transcript; P() li ttcal-~~EAT c::::s RIGHTS
By GLENN F. BUNTING
TIMES STAFF WRITER.
-Heat Rises
Before leaving City Hall at noon Monday for a
busine~s trip to Hawaii; Mayor Toni Bradley initiated
yet another in a series of moves tl:lat is certain to crank
up the pressure on Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to
resign over the Rodney G. King affair. ·
The mayor ordered his appointees on the Poli~e:
Commission to work with Gates to disclose potentially
volatile radio and computer communications made by
some officers in the minutes before and after King, a
25-year-old black man, was struck more than 50 times
with nightsticks. Hours later, the Police Department
released the transmissions.
Transcripts of the computer messages show that a·
police officer involved in the assault told another
officer that he "hadn't beaten anyone this bad in a· long
time." Another message reveals that an officer
referred to an earlier police call-involving a black
family's domestic dispute-as ''right out of 'Gorillas in
the Mist.'"
Police Commissioner Melanie Lomax said she did not
believe that Bradley's order was "politically motivated.''
Rather, she said that Gates put the mayor in a
"very awkward position" by indicating the contents of
the tape to Bradley and police commissioners last
week, then refusing to release the messages to the
public.
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Classifteation: 80-33B
Submitting Office:
LOS ANGELES
Indexing:
StARCHED.
S~RIAIJZEP.
INDEXED
FILED
MAR 2 2 1991
LOS ANGELES I
IG'fiJ
FBI -
"I would predict that it [release of the tapes] will
intensify the demands that [Gates] step down," added
r Lomax, a Los Angeles civil rights attorney.
Sources close to the mayor's office said that Deputy.
Mayor Mark Fabiani continues to direct a campaign
intended to get Gates to resign. The effort picked up
steam Friday when Bradley appointed Stanley Sheinbaum,
a civil libertarian and Gates critic, to fill one of
two vacancies on the Police Cominission. ..
Last week, Bradley denied a Times report that
Fabiani was in charge· of an effort to oust Gates. "I
have had no participation, no strategy whatsoever to
.force, to urge, to demand that Chief Gates retire or
· resign," Bradley told a news conference.
. The mayor was criticized on 'Sunday by the Rev.
; Jesse Jackson for not publicly demanding that Gates
resign. The remarks by Jackson only hardened
£radley's resolve not to become embr~iled in a
political controversy with Gates, said sources· close to
themayor ..
"He does not have a lot. of respect for Jesse
• Jackson," said one source who spoke on condition of
anonym,i.ty. "When people try to put pressure on T_om
like that, it never works and it only serves to keep him
pretty steadfast.'' .
As political fallout from the King incident intensified
·Monday, Bradley flew to Hawaii to help the city of Los
, Angeles iJ:l its attempt to be named host of the Super
· Bowl in 1993. The mayor considered remaining in LOs
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