officers - The Black Vault

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. Gates Hearing Attr£t~ts
. ·· !a Sideshow
By SCOIT HARRIS
jTIMES STAFF WRITER
:The pottrait.is as unflattering as
• they come: Daryl F. Gates as
; der Fuehrer.
; Bob Stickman had taken the
l image of the Los Angeles police
tchief, painted in a Hitler mustache
;with the demand '~GATES MUST
~GO" abo'lle it, and sUk-screened
£hundreds of T-shirts to sell at $10
~apiece.
t After selling 175 shirts at the
-}anti-Gates rally at Parker Center
·'on Saturday and another 65 on
iVenice Beach on Sunday, Stickman
pvore one of his creations to the Los
1Angeles County Courthouse on
_fMonday morning to witness the
latest maneuvers in the political
battle concerning Gates' future.
"The object," -Stickman said, "is
to keep the pressure on. . . . A
couple people question the mustache.
But I say, look, I got a
mortgage to pay anq these shirts
are selling like hot cakes."
A few hours later, Lorenzo Moriel
presented a different kind of
1mage--,one that. cop-ttirned-author
Joseph Wambaugh called
"The Blue Knight." ·
Neatly turned out in the midnight
blue of tlie Police Department
that employs him; Moriel had
come to court to testify on a routine
arrest he ·had made. He had wandered
up to the 8th floor just to
watch t!le fmbbub. ·- ____ _ -·
That's what Moriel was telling a
reporter Monday when, suddenly,
he was caught in the glaring white
light of a TV news camera and
microphones were in his face. /
Moriel seemed taken aback at
first, then responded to the challenge.
The news that Gates -'would
be reinstated to his job "kind of
makes me feel like the chief's been
vindicated," .the officer declared.
As far as he was concerned, Moriel
- added, "the chief is being persecuted
for something a few .officers ·
did."
With confidence in the -city's
leaders and its Police Department
wavering, there are no bystanders.
As lawyers debated legal points
before Superior Court Judge 'Ron-
LOS ANGELES TINES
Editi~n: APRIL 9 1 19 91 1 TUES
Front Section, Page 2
Title: GATES HEARING ATTRACTS A
SIDESHOW
Character: CIVIL RIGHTS
or
Classification:
Submitting Office: 80-33B
lOS ANGELES
Indexing:
SEARCHED • INDEXED /
SERIAliZED \ &": fiLED V"""'"'"
APR 1 5 1991
FBI
LOS ANGELES I
aid ~- $ohigian, a full battalion of
Los 'Angeles' Fourth Estate had
tonvened inside and outside the
.courtroom for the media event du
jour. Someone counted 17 TV news
cameraS in all.
"It -must be a celebrity thing,"
one passerby muttered.
"This here is unbelievable," said
county employee Aildy Seaman,
who tends th~ eight elevators and
36 escalators in the courthouse.
'!I've been here 10 years, and I've
never seen this much."
But the courthouse on Hill Street
did not host the trials for McMartin
defendants, Zsa Zsa Gabor or
Christian Brando. As media events
go, ,zsa Zsa being a 10, this was
,abouta4.
"I'm not Impressed," sniffed city
attorney spokesman Ted Goldstein.
Not that it isn't a good story, he
added, saying that in more than 20
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