officers - The Black Vault

FD·350 (Rev. 5·8·81)
•
l(in,dica1te page, name of
newspaper, city and state.)
(Mount
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'~For ChiefG~t~s,_!:P.e Brutal
.'Truth: He Has a Final
· :Qbligatioiito i~~D~:;
In some editions of Friday's View
section, -Rutten's column was
· scrambled. This is the correct 'l!ersion.
0
ver the last decade, it's
possible that only smog has
· created more bad publicity
for Los Angeles than Daryl Gates.
Our police chief's episodic affronts
to members of this city's
·minority communities-to Latinos,
to African Americans, to homosex-
·. uals, to Soviet Jews, to Salvadoran
immigrants-have come to be regarded
as something like brush
fires, a cyclic natural disaster compounded
by hubris and human
folly.
There is no need to rehearse
. here the details of Rodney King's
. brutalization at the hands of more
than a dozen officers from the
LAPD's Foothill Division. Television
has seen to that. Doubtless,
the .facts elicited by the County
Grand Jury and by the Justice
Department investigation that
Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh ordered
Thursday will do still more.
But this case of police brutality is
different from those that have gone
before. For one ·thing, African ·
Americans and Latinos are outraged
by an extreme -example of
the official abuse they say is a 'fact .
of life in their communities. Confronted
for the first tirrie with a
firsthand view of police misconduct,
even those Anglos who do not
share that experience are embarrassed.
The result, a dramatic erosion of
confidence in Gates' leadership,
·could be seen all over City Hall this
week:
It could be heard on the lips of.
the community leaders who
thronged to the microphone at the
· City Council's Public Safety Committee's
hearing Tuesday. The
common feature of their tes'timOI;lY
was the word disgrace.
It could be heard in the comments
of a mayoral confidant who
said that whatever Tom Bradley
may say about Charter amendments,
he privately believes the
.chief ought to resign. Those sentiments
were echoed-though again
· in private-by two members of the
·council with whom I talked, though
· .., both believe Gates would survive
by taking refuge 'in the bunker of
civil service.
. .Poli.~-~- CommJ.s~!5l!l~ .. Mela!lie
Lomax, the tough-minded labor
.lawyer who will help decide Gates'
fate, was less reticent. "The chief,"
· she said; "will have to convince me
that he has changed. He has to take
responsibility for what has taken
place. I'm determined to find out
~ whether there is any relationship'
. between the chief's aggressive and
inflammatQry posture and behavior
of his officers. I suspect there is a
marginal group of those officers
who have taken Chief Gates' comments
as license to adopt a cowboy
. mentality."
If he· runs true to form, Gates
:wm respond to such inquiries with
' disdain. I wonder, though, if he
"would feel the same if he had
'listened to the ·two veteran LAPD
officers with wh'om I spoke. Both'
are men of long service. Unlike the
• 60 police officials who rallied to
Gates' defense Wednesday, neither
is invofved in administration or
hQlds.a commission. ·
According to their accounts, the
affair already has divided the department.
Gates has · t~ken the ~ing case
away from the department's internal
affairs division and handed it
over ·to detectives from major
crimes. The detectives have· been
put under intense pressure from· a
chief who, according to one officer,
: had "no -concept what the hell he
was talking about" when he demanded
that the detectives file the
· case within hours. The obstacle of
.due process aside, the detectives
. have been frustrated by the district
· attorney's absolute refusal to cooperate
with the police in any way
until after the grand jury finishes
its work.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
~~:=~J.iON • I l\1AR 18 I 19 91
VIEW SECTION, PAGE 6
Title: FOR CHIEF GATES,
BRUTAL TRUTH: HE
FINAL OBLIGATION
Character:
01'
LAPD
CIVIL RIGHTS
80-33B
Submitting Office:
LOS ANGELES
MAR ~ 6 !991
~ "The whole .thing is . screwed
. up," the Qfficer said. "All these
, little tin gods want their piece of
···flesh."
~ Despite such· resentment, that
• same officer said he is "sure a case
.... can be made" for Lomax's concern
i: ·()ver Gates' loose-lipped rhetoric.
· "After he says one of these
things-like that stuff about shooting
casual drug users-you people
ju~! kind of chuckle.
"This last thing about drunken
· Salvadorans is the same. To .the
. police mind, that's what they were:
a couple of drunken. Salvadorans·
·sitting on the curb ~rinking beer,
hk • .Jt • ' - ~ • ~-·
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FBI/DOJ