officers - The Black Vault

FD·350 (Rev. 5·8·81)
i!ll' ....
(Indicate page, name of
newspaper, city and state.)
Officers
AreSad­
~ndAngry
(Mount Clipping in Space Below)
By SHERYL STOLBERG
TIMES STAFF WRITER
he moment the big news hit, Los Angeles
T Police Detective Charles Press was there
to see it. His coffee cup in hand, Press looked ·
.• on in silent. disbelief Thursday as Police Chief .
~-Daryl F. Gates-his chief-emerged from a
~ closed- 1
door meeting to announce before the
, hot wh1te lights of the television cameras that
he had been placed on leave for 60 days.
"It's the greatest injustice I have ever
heard about in my 26 years as a law
enforcement officer," a disgusted Press proclaimed
as the media peppered the chief with
questions. "The mayor is practicing political
.. prostitution .... It's a joke. Mayor Bradley
· ought to resign."
· Throughout the LAPD-in the corridors
and elevators at Parker Center headquarters,
in substations from the West Valley to the
Harbor to South-Central' Los Angeles-the
reaction was much the same. For many, there
were no words harsh enough to express the
outrage and sadness, the dismay and betrayal
they felt as they learned that their leader had
. been temporarily pushe'd out of office. .
"Moscow-L.A.," one officer muttered bit:.
· t:erly as he watched a live television broadcast
·. of the Police Commission announcing its
. action. "That's where I live. I don't live in
• America:"
· . "I'm not in a very good mood," said
-another. "I don't think you'd like what I have
'·to say."
"I feel shaken by it," said a third. "I'm at a
loss for words."
Meanwhil~. the president of the Los Angeles
Police Protective League, the union that
represents police officers, called a press
conference to denounce the commission action
as a "political mess."
Lt. George Aliano said that if the City
· Council does not overturn the Police Commis­
,sion's decision, he will call meetings of the
union's 8,100 members to discuss the possibility
of taking a job action, perhaps a work
slowdown, or a speedup in which officers
would hand out tickets for minor infractions
-they would normally overlook.
Aliano said the union .usually shies away
fro111 those forms of protest, ~elieving them to
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Da~~: FRI APRIL 5 , 1991
EditJonFRONT SECTION 1
PAGE 23
Title:
OFFICERS ARE SAD -
ANGRY
CIVIL RIGHTS
Character:
or
Classifteation:
Submitting Office:
be unprofessional. But this time, he said, "No
one's getting the message how upset we are."
At the Civic Center, such an action-albeit
unofficial;-appeared to already be under
way. At least one pair of patrolmen were
, unusually active Thursday afternoon, hand­
~ng out jaywalking citations and ticketing
press vehicles parked on the sidewalk of City
Hall, where radio and television true~ normally
park with impunity.
There is a certain code of stoicism among
the city's men and women in blue, and this
was evident Thursday. There were no tears;
angry outbursts were rare. There was only
stone-faced silence and measured words from
a rank-a~d:..file that has demonstrated intense
loyalty to Gates since the March 3
police beating of motorist Rodney G. King.
Some officers began wearing black strips of
tape over their badges in a show of "mourning"
for the chief-the traditional sign that an
officer has died in the line of duty. ·
Others, speaking in jargon of the criminal
justice system, complained that Gates had not
been given "due process," that his "rights
80-33B
LOS ANGELES
Indexing:
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SE!IIAUZEO·---
APR 15 1991
FBI -
LOS ANGELES
AND
FBI/DOJ