THE LOS ANGELES TIMES March 15 , 1991
Mayor's Office
Seen Directing
Ouster Effort
Bv GLE'.'JN F. BUNTING
T l.\tES STAFF W RITER
While Mayor Tom Bradley has
refrained from calling for the oust­er
of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.
his chief of staff has been busy
orchestrating moves to " turn up
the heat" on Gates and force him to
resign over last week's po li ce beat­ing.
it was learned Thursday.
The behind-the-scenes cam­pa
ign. directed by Deputy Mayor
~lark Fabiani. is designed to exert
so much political and public pres­sure
on Gates that he eventually
will give up his Sl68.000-a-year
post for the good of the Police
Department and the community,
said City Hall sources familiar with
the effort.
Within days. Bradley is expected
to fill one of two vacancies on the
city' s Police Comm1ss1on with an
appointment intended to jolt the
Parker Center police headquarters.
according to the sources. who
·spoke on condition of anonymity.
The mayor also revealed Thursday
th at he is considering whether to
:create an independent citizens
panel to investigate the Police
Department.
Bradley refused to be interviewed ·
for this story and F'abiani declined to
' discuss his strategies to persuade
-Gates to leave after 13 y ean in
office. But in an interview F'abiani
· teft little doubt about his sentiments.
" We have received literally
-Lhousands of letters and phone
[c alls, and a vast majority have
1
soug~t. ,the chief's resignation. " he
.
1
said. "'f.h>s is clearly a broad-based
ou tcr y on the part of all segment.I
of the't.otnmumty and it's growing.
l We s<;~ no signs here at City Hall
I
that e_e2ple 's anger 1s diminishing.''
The mayor and his staff realize
1
that it could take weeks. perhaps
months, before Gates could be
i coaxed into stepping down, the
1
1
sources said.
Ir. an interview Thursday. Gates
I said he has no intention of walking
~way from the department during ·a Cr!SlS • .
I • "The rocks arc all being aimed nght at me as if I created all this. the
I entire problem. and that my ouster
will solve the problem," Gates said.
"!don'! (ttl that way. So therefore l
I
. don't nave any plans to leave the
department-much to the unhappi-
1 ness ~ ~ot of people. l'm sure."
i
I
L
I .£\ ~ktd if he was awa re that the
~i,ir ·s o ffi c e was p lotting to
haste~is departure. Gates said : " l
ha v&'h'; i}i y idea. l susp e ct th ey ' re
ove rfl\e~e thinking ver y hard. "
Gates said he recognized that the
I
mayor • considers him a "po l1t1 cal
1l ab1lity~ . . . l thin k an y po l1t1 cal
l eader~ who t hinks the ch ief of
1 police ~J l1ab il1ty wants to get ri d I or him,. .,
: R~g¥'4ing Bradley . th e chief
l add ~.-: :flobody 's asking him to
1
1
ret1 re,-ana he ·s been there longer
t han'llUve."
1 Bradley has carefully side-
! stepped questions about whether
Gates should quit over the March 3
I 1nc1 dent in which three officers
I were videotaped striking Rod ney
I G. King. 25. of Altadena. more than
50 t imes with n1ghtst1cks while 12
I other offi cers wa tched.
• "That's a dec1s1on that the chief I has to make and I'm not going to
• intervene 1n that." Bradley s aid at I a recent news conference. " If l
were to do 1l [c all for Gates' I r cs1gnat1on j, you would simply
have a.nother distracting . . . con- ! trovl!'rt,J .'between the mayor and
the ~~ff. and I'm not going to
I co11U11-.. lo that."
I aa!ll) and Gates have feuded
for yeaJ'.9. Last fall. their animos1 -
lies boiled over when Gales said
I Bradley'. had wntten a "dumb let-ter"
calling for an investigation of
alleged police improprieties sur ­rounding
a violen t drug raid on
apartments near 39lh Street and
Dalton A venue.
For years. the mayor has been
frustrated by his inability to dis­miss
city department heads under
Civil Service protection rules.
Bradley proposed a City Charter
amendment on Tuesday that would
subicct the police chief and all
other department managers to a
performance review and possible
dismissal every five years.
After tolerating one embarrass­ing
episode after another from
Gates. the mayor's office seized the
King incident to go after the chief
because it outraged virtually ev -
eryone in Los Angeles rather than
a single ethnic or community group
as in the past. the sources said. The
mayor's advisers felt that with the
national spotlight focused on Gates
and the department. the King
beating presented the best oppor­tunity
yet to push the IH- year-old
Gates into retirement.
The mayor's current strategy of
using Fabiani to bring intense pres­sure
on Gates while he remains
publicly silent on the chiefs s1..1 tus 1s
a familiar one. The same approach
was employed by Bradley recently
in soliciting the res1gnat1ons of th ree
Clly department heads-Joh n Tuite
of t he Community Redev elo pment
Agency. Warren Thomas o( the zoo
and Ken Topping of th e Planiung
Department.
But driv ing Gates out o( offic e
could be more difficult.
"Daryl Gates 1s not K en Topr1n ~
and the LAPD is not th e P lanning
Department." said one city cou n -
c1lman. who said he was aware of
the mayor's plan to oust Gates but
asked to remain anonymous. " l
don ' t think they will succeed."
The chief enioys strong support
from the City Council. which could
not muster enough votes W ednes •
day to summon Gates to Cit y Hall
to explain how his department is
responding to the King beallng.
Council President John Ferraro
said several members have "hinted
around" that Gates should resign.
but " I don't think any of them are
brave enough to come out and say
1t."
Sources say that the strategy to
remove Gates. largely devised b y
Fabiani and approved by the may­or.
mcludes the following:
• Bradley plans to fill the t wo
vacancies on the Police Commis­sion
with prominent candidates
who wtll send a strong message to
Gales that he will be held account­able
for police misconduct. The
first of the replacements is expect ­ed
lo be announced soon. possib ly
as _early as today.
In a meeting with community
leaders this week, Bradley was
urged to appoint strong community
leaders who " would be willi ng to
take a hard look at Daryl Gates and
the department, and would have
the guts to remove him ," said John
Mack. president of the Los Angeles
Urban League.
Bradley began overhauling the
commission late last year by ap ­pointing
two prominent minority
lawyers. Dan Garcia and Melanie
Lomax, and sources say that their
m1ss1on is, in part. to scrutinize
Gates' performance. Two other
comm1ss 1on s cats hccamc vacant
last week when Herbert F' . Oocck -
mann and Reva 8 . Tooley resigned
in protest ov er a new ethics law
that required them to tl1sclose t heir
personal finances 1n detail.
• The ma yor intends to set up a
hlue-ribbon comm1ss1on cons1sllng
of c1t1zens who would examine the
Police Department from top to
bottom. The mayor 's office has
researched the poss1b1l1ty of t rans­ferring
the Police Comm1ss10n 's
subpoena powers to the c1t1zens
group. said a source familiar with
the plan.
On Thursday. Bradley a11-
nounced t hat he 1s cons1rler111g
whether t o appoint such an inde­pendent
panel, but said that he has
not yet made up his mind.
The panel would be s1m1lar to
the Knapp Comri11ss1on. wjl1ch was
established in 1970 by Mayor John
Lindsay to investigate police cor­ruption
in New York City. Three
out of four Los Angeles residents
favor setting up a c1v11ian board to
review alleged cases of misconduct
by police officers. according to a
Times poll conducted last week.
• The mayor's office will main­tain
constant pressure on Gates t o
resign by establishing contact with
a broad cross -section of com m unt­ty
. business and co llege gro ups
who have cJllcd fo r his ouster .
On Thu rsda y. s tudents ,1t L!SC
;rnd members of the anll-Jbort1on
movement s taged protests calling
for Ga tes to resign. A ~t anct111 g
room only crowd 1ammed rolice
h0adriuartcrs to attend a ro mmis ­s1011
hearing and c hanted. " Hey,
hey. ho. ho' Dar yl Gates has got to
go !" And the executive board of the
Los Angeles County federation of
Labor passed a resolution demand­ing
that Gates quit.
<. <. I think the sense of o utrage
and urgency 1s unprecedent­ed."
s aid \1ark Ridley -Thomas.
head of t he local Southern Chris ­tian
Leadership Conference who is
running for the 8th Council District
scat. " And 1t 1s a calculated mistake
on the part of the chief to underes­timate
how deep t his sentiment
runs . ... l don 't think that this 1s
somethmg that will go away."
Police Comm1ss1oner Garcia said:
" (don't envy (Gatesj in his role ri~ht
now . I think this 1s the toughest
thing he has ever faced. How long 1t
will persist I don 't know."
Over the last two days. the
campaign by t he mayor 's office
received an unexpected boost: On
Thursday. U.S. Atty . Gen. Dick
Thornburgh ordered a Justice De­partment
review of all police bru-t
al1t y co mplain ts « ~am st Los An­~
cles police r1urin l{ r. hc last ~ rx
yea rs to uetcrm1nc 1f t he K111 g
heJttng 1s ran of a pat te rn u f
m isconduct. And on Wcdncsr1av.
conse r vative eolu m rllst Geor~e
Will. one o f Ga tes· fa v orite writers.
castigated the chief. " Cates h;i~
I on ~ been a special pinup of the
kmd of conservatives who c utton
to pr1m1t1v1sm. " Will wrote.
F'ab1a111 said: "Cl early . George
Will ' s expression represents a con­servative
viewpoint that is not
ordinarily crillcal of the chief. One
of the real questions now 1s how far
the protest in Los Angeles will
spread. . The George W ill co l­umn
seems to indicate that no let up
IS 111 Sight. "
The c hief's adver~anes . i nclud­ing
those in the mayor·s office . ~aid
they are hopeful that Gates wi ll dig
himself an even deeper hole
through his public remarks. They
po111t to the fact that Gates. in
apolog17.ing to King. s a1ct in part.
" He' s on parole. He ' s a convictect
robber. In spite of the fact that he · ~
on parole and a convicted robber.
I'd be glad to apologize ."
Ridley -Thomas said: " The apol -
ogy was half - hearted. dis111~enuous
and missed the point. And t here
was no good reason to do that. ..
Times staff wrtters Bob Bakef and
J"M Katz contrit»uted to this story.