Council to Discuss Gun Parts Case With Gates

Los Angeles City Council members have directed Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to meet with them to discuss allegations that officers pilfered and sold parts from hundreds of confiscated guns destined for destruction.

Gates is to appear July 3 before the council’s Police, Fire and Public Safety Committee.

The committee’s chairman, Councilman Richard Alatorre, introduced a motion Wednesday requesting the meeting after The Times reported that the former commander of the Police Department’s firearms and explosives section had accused officers in the unit of stripping and selling parts from confiscated guns for personal profit.

Lt. Jimmie J. Finn, Gates’ former adjutant, has also alleged that officers took thousands of rounds of ammunition from police property rooms without authorization. Finn said that police administrators would not investigate the allegations until he went outside the chain of command to the civilian Los Angeles Police Commission, which oversees the department.

Alatorre said Thursday that he and other council members intend to ask Gates about procedures and safeguards within the department to prevent the theft of confiscated weapons and ammunition.

“We want to make sure that incidents like those alleged don’t happen again and that guns or gun parts that are supposed to be destroyed do not end up on the black market or on the street for unlawful purposes,” Alatorre said.

Through a spokesman, Gates on Thursday declined to comment publicly on the allegations raised by Finn, a highly decorated, 23-year police veteran.