officers - The Black Vault

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and procedures on the use of force.
• The mayor's office, as part of its
iffort to put pressure on Gates, ?as
~en work,ing to form an indep~nd­
Emt citizens panel patterned after
tlhe Knapp Commission, whi.ch i~vestigated
police corruption m
New York City two decades ago.
Jilradley said Wednesday that he
plans to appoint the blue-ribbon
4ommission, which. would investi­
~ate the Police Department, sometime
next week.
I "[Gates] beat them to the
~unch," said one police lieutenant
who is familiar with the Gates plan
qnd asked not to be named. "He's
going to have his own Knapp
Commission."
rlrhe five-member group ap-
1 pointed by Gates, which he
'called the "Arguelles Panel," also
. ·includes James Zumberge, retiring
president of the University of
Southern California. The three remaining
members will be announced
later. ·
Gates' panel does not conflict
with the citizens commission that
the mayor's office is putting together,
Bradley said. The mayor·
added that he is not yet ready to
name his panel but pledged it
would be a group of "independent,
credible members . . . whose reputations
are beyond question or
reproach."
: The citizens panel is just one of
several strategies designed by
Deputy Mayor Fabiani to exert so
much political and public pressure
on Gates that he will give up his
$168,000-a-year job. .
· These include naming activist
and civil libertarian Stanley Shein:.
·baum, a Gates critic, to fill one of
two vacancies on the Police Com­
. mission, and on Tuesday replacing
ohe of five Civil Service commissioners
who eventually could determine
whether Gates should be
disciplined or fired. ·
Council President.John Ferraro
said it is clear to him that both
appointments reflect political
"scheming" by the mayor's office.
He suggested that the council
should consider rejecting Sheinbaum
and labor lawyer Larry Drasin,
the mayor's nominee .to the
Civil Service Commission.
· "It seems like it's a concerted
effort to pack the commissions.
with people who might not look at
t~is openly and be prejudiced
against the chief when they arrive,''
said Ferraro, who ·SUpports
G,ates.
Bradley, who has denied any
attempt by the mayor's office to
get Gates to quit, also rejected ·
suggestions that the two commission
appointments were politically
motivated. "There has been no
desire whatsoever to load up . . .
any commission,'~ the mayor said.
He urged council members to
"wait and hear from the nominees
.... Those are carefully con­
. sidered nominations [that] I think
are going to stand up."
. Fabiani, the mayor's chief of
s~ff, met Wednesday with repre- ·
sentatives of the church-based
Southern California Organizing
Committee, who have scheduled a
Friday press conferenc~ to demand
Gates' resignation, said spokesman
Rev. David O'Connell.
Group officials, who say th~y
repr.esent 83,000 families in the
~uthern sections of Los Angeles,
djscussed with Fabiani "what we
would be working for in the next
f~w months," O'Connell said after
the meeting. He said the group's
$and and the timing of its demand
fP.r Gates' resignation were decided
independently of Bra~:Uey'r; oJfice._~
: __ .. .. " ~ -
'"We are on our own agenda," he
said. · '
The United Neighborhood Organization,
an Eastside sister group
of the Southern California Organizing
Committee, has scheduled a
press .conference today to demand
that 'Gates resign. United Neigh-.
borhood officials said they were ··
not aware of any communications
with Bradley's office.
· Several City Council members
said they have been in touch with
the mayor and Fabiani, and have
been kept abrea.st of developments
in the movement to dump Gates .
Woa said he phoned Bradley
· minutes before his news
conference to make sure that his
call for Gates' ouster would not
interfere with any plans in the
mayor's office.
Bradley said it was "OK," Woo
recalled. ·
Woo said that calling for Gates to
step down "has not been an easy ·
decision for me." He cited several
reasons why Gates is· "no longer
capable" of providing moral leadership
and setting the right tone
for the conduct of his officers. He
·said that Gates has made "comments
about Rodney. King's past
criminal record, as if it partially
justified the beating." ·
More troublesome, Woo said, are
the concentrated efforts by Gates
to saye his job rather than "managing
the department:."
'·'By pitting his personal supporters
against his critics, Chief Gates
has placed himself at the center of
.a fight which threatens to tear this
city apart," Woo,.said. ·
Woo schedule~ his press'conference
to begin 30 minutes before
'Braude's after.: learning that
·· Braude intended :to make a statement
about Gates, City Hall
sources said. But Braude stopped
short of calling for Gates' ouster.
"This has become a major catas- '
trophe for the city and l!- major
disaster for the Los Angeles Police
Department," Braude said. "I am
deeply concerned with Chief Da~yl
Gates' assessment that the beating
"represented a mere aberration."
Braude sciid it is clear that the
King episode represents a pattern
of abuse. He said that Gates either
knew sucb a pattern existed and.
tolerated it_.or should have known
about the problem.
.. Only when repeatedly pressed
'· by reporters .~id Braude say that he
· .' favored the removal of Gates. "I
would lik~ to see him resign, but I
am not df;ll;llanding his resignation
at this time," }le said.
An effort to recall Gates was
given legal clearance on W ednesday
by the city ~ttorney's office.
Deputy City Atty. Arthur B. Walsh
wrote in an opinion to the city
. clerk that Gates can legally be
recalled, despite laws requiring
employees to ·receive a hearing
before they are disciplined. Voters
can 'decide a recall "upon any basis
which they see fit," Walsh wrote.
. ; Gates has been. ser~ed with a
.·. notice ·of the recall attempt,
initiated by City Council candidate
Kerman Maadox, and has until
April 5 to submit a 300-word
· response, said City Clerk Elias
Martinez. Recall proponents t)len
have' 120 days ·to .collect nearly
64,000 signatures needed to place
the recall question on the ballot.
City law gives the cierk and City
.Council up to four months after
that ·to put the matter befor.e::
voters, Martinez said. . . . ...