Deputy Chief Is Named Police Commission Aide

The Los Angeles Police Commission has appointed Deputy Police Chief David D. Dotson to serve as its chief administrative aide, a move that is expected to improve the commission’s relationship with the department’s brass. The appointment also figures to result in a reshuffling of the department’s top-level managers.

Dotson, 51, the first deputy chief named to the position, which was previously held by a commander, will advise the commission on policy matters, serve as liaison to Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and conduct special investigations on the commission’s behalf. He will also represent the panel at City Council meetings and before other city agencies.

Dotson is replacing Cmdr. Jack White, who resigned last November to become the head of the district attorney’s bureau of investigations. White was perceived by many in the department as being outside the mainstream of the top management surrounding Gates.

Dotson, who has been a generally non-controversial figure in the department, will continue to attend Gates’ regular staff meetings.

Both Dotson and Police Commission President Stephen D. Yslas said Friday that they hope the appointment of a deputy chief to the position--officially titled commission services coordinator--will bridge the gap that has developed in recent years between the commission and the department’s top brass.

“Honorable people seeking solutions to problems generally will agree if they have the same base of information upon which to act,” Dotson said. “I see my job as making certain that the commission has all of the information they need to make an appropriate decision and that the chief has the same base of information.

“If that occurs, it just seems to me that, generally, agreement will be reached without controversy.”

Closing the ‘Perception Gap’

Yslas said Dotson’s appointment “provides a real unique opportunity to even better continue to develop open communication with the chief’s office.” He said that differences between the commission and the chief “have been more of a perception than a real gap” and that “Dave (Dotson) can certainly close the perception gap.”

Since Gates was appointed chief in 1978, the commission has disagreed with him on several issues.

The most notable controversies between them include the Eulia Love shooting, which the commission held was a violation of police policy; officers’ use of the carotid chokehold, which the commission banned, and the activities of the public disorder intelligence division, which was disbanded by the commission and replaced by a more closely regulated anti-terrorist division.

Dotson is a 27-year veteran of the department who has been the commanding officer of the personnel and training bureau for the last four years and a deputy chief for five years. Yslas said Dotson was chosen because of his “experience, his reputation for independent thinking. And yet he is well integrated into the mainstream of the department management.”

As head of personnel and training, Dotson served as chairman on each of the department’s review boards that examine officers’ use of force. Yslas said that Dotson demonstrated his independence when he disagreed “on a number of occasions” with other senior officers on whether certain officer-involved shootings were within department policy.

Ripple Effect Expected

The appointment of Dotson is expected to have a ripple effect on the department’s seven other deputy chiefs, all of whom earn between $72,000 and $89,000 a year.

The City Council voted in 1982 to eliminate by attrition three deputy chief positions--including Dotson’s--and to make one other spot a civilian post. Being phased out along with the personnel and training slot are positions in the special investigations and headquarters bureaus. The post in the support services bureau is slated to be taken over by a civilian.

But Assistant Chief Marvin D. Iannone, the acting chief Friday in the absence of Gates, who was ill, said the department will fight to keep a deputy chief in personnel and training.

“We feel very, very strongly that the (personnel and training) bureau should not be directed by anyone less than a deputy chief,” Iannone said. The deputy chief’s position at the bureau of special investigations, which oversees the narcotics and administrative vice divisions, “would be the first to be attritioned out,” he said.

Impending lateral movements of the department’s top managers will be discussed when Gates recovers from his illness, Iannone said.