officers - The Black Vault

I• FD-350 (P~v. 5-8·81)
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(lndicalt> page, name of
newspaper, city and state.)
l
r--~~--------__:(_M_o_un_t Clipping in Space Below)
for the Chief, a
Quiet Exitand
/.~
a Vow to Return
• Departure: Gates
, cicknowledges humiliation
but asserts that he will be
'
back one day from his
involuntary leave.
~y DAVID FERRELL
TIMES STAFF WRITER
·Acomputer-printed sign above
the door of Room 619 pro-
; claimed, "GATES MUST STAY­
GATES MUST 'STAY." But as the
.door opened late Thursday after­
.noon, Daryl F. Gates was leaving,
perhaps never to return as chief of
Police in Los Angeles. ·
.Carrying a jam-packed satchel in
each hand, a stern-looking Gates
:ftepped from his sixth-floor office
at police headquarters at 4:10 p.m.,
four hours after the city Police
Commission stripped him of power
pending ongoing investigations into
the beating of black motorist
Rodney G. King. .
· "Well, I guess there's humiliation
in all of this, as you might
expect," Gates said quietly, looking
straight ahead, as he moved
through a steamy hallway obstructed.
by reporters and television
cameras. "[But] I think we'll
get through it. I anticipate getting
through it."
Gates was asked whether he
expected to return from the
involuntary 60-day leave, which
he has vowed to fight in court and
which has seemed tQ signal · a
~welling political tide to remove
him permanently from office. His
answer was emphatic: "Oh, absolutely.
No question about it, I'm
coming back." · ·
The departure, about the· same
time that Mayor Tom Bradley was
·briefing reporters qn the issue at
Los Angeles International !UrPort,
~~
J -~:· :;
was qui'ck: ·and seemingly anticlimactic,
the end of a slightly shortened
but 'busy workday for the
man who has been t~e city's powerful
and controversial police chief
for 13 years.
Gates was dressed in gray slacks
and a blue blazer. He had ordered
out for half a tuna sandwich after
the commission action shortly before
noon. He then spent much .of
the afternoon behind closed doors,
he said, negotiating details of his
leave with members of the commission.
The throng of reporters awaiting
Gates' departure witnessed two
false alarms, once when the embattled
chief stepped from his of-
. fice to walk ·20 feet to a hallway
drinking fountain,. a journey that
required two bodyguards to keep·
back aggressive cameramen. Gates
later trav~led the long corridor to
the elevator to take care of personal
business on the eighth ·noor,
declining to answer questions as
his staff tried to keep the cameras
out of his way.
"CNN, how about backing off?"
one bodyguard yelled.
"Back off, CNN!" another hollered.
Gates returned 15 minutes later.
He had been videotaping a
goodby message to officers in the
department.
"They do feel badly about all of
this," he said later. "I'm c'oncerned
about them. But they're strongwilled
people. They're professionals
. . . and I know they're going to
do a great job."
By the time Gates did,Ieave, the
crowd of media people had thinned
to half a dozen die-bards. ·
As a guard shut the door behind
him, Gates walked past his conference
room~the same room where
nearly a month earlier he appeared
at a press conference to thank.
Date: LOS ANGELES TH1ES
Edition:FRI APRIL 5 1 1991
FRONT SECTION, PAGE 22
TitldfOR THE CHIEF I A QUIET
EXIT AND A VOW TO RETURN
c~ter.CIVIL
or
Classifteation:
Submitting Office:
lOS ANGELES
Indexing:
8 0-3 3B
RIGHTS
SEARCHED INDEXED·-~':-. --1
SERIALIZED bh - fiLEt~&:'-
APR 15 1991
FBI -
LOS ANGELES I
amateur photographer George
Holliday for turning over the videotape
of the King beating.
Gates said the satchels in his
hanqs contained just a few df .the
many mementos he kept -~ 'his
... office. · ~-J~·
~:. "I've got a lot of personal
·~~ things," he said. "If I had ~o get all
r my personal things out!' ·of the
• office; I'd have to have :a' couple
r trucks." . .' . .;'
; He left behind a display case
• filled with some of them-including
plaques from the nations of
Israel and Argentina and a gold
; trophy presented by . the department's
Northeast Division in 1986, ·'
1, with the· inscription: "Our sincere
~ t appreciation for the Number One
~·! Chief of the Number One Police