Bradley Lauds Pastors for Their Protest of Low Bail in Slaying

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley congratulated a group of black ministers Saturday on their protest of the lenient treatment of two white students charged in the murder of a black minister, but he stopped short of saying the incident was racially provoked.

“I think you sent a message that one standard of justice is what we expect,” Bradley told members of the Ministers’ Fellowship of the Greater San Fernando Valley, who met in a Pacoima church.

Reacting to a community protest, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office apologized on Friday to the family of Carl White, the late pastor of the Apostolic Temple Church in Pacoima. The district attorney’s office also announced a new policy that will prohibit bail in almost all murder cases.

The ministers and others in the northeast Valley were outraged when prosecutors recommended bail of only $20,000 for the two teen-agers charged in the July 28 murder. Bail was revoked a day later.

When one of the ministers asked Bradley on Saturday if he thought the request for low bail had been racially motivated, he said it was a “highly speculative” question.

“I don’t have any facts that it was clearly a racist reaction or it wasn’t,” Bradley said.

The mayor, who had asked to appear before the group, also fielded questions about black staffing in his office and in the office of Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who represents the area.

Bernardi last week selected Richard Packard, who is black, to become an aide in his district office. In appointing Packard, however, Bernardi rejected a list of three people recommended to him by the ministers’ group.

Before the meeting, fellowship members said they would press Bradley to appoint a black deputy to represent the concerns of black constituents in the Valley. This spring, Bradley selected Richard Alarcon, a Latino, to replace Doris (Dodo) Meyer, his longtime Valley liaison.

But the ministers did not press hard on the issue and told Bradley they did not expect an answer immediately.

“We would like to lay before you for your consideration the appointment of a black pastor in your office to directly relate and key in to the largest black constituency in the Valley,” said the Rev. James V. Lyles, the fellowship’s president. After the meeting, Lyles said the black representative did not have to be a minister.

When another minister applauded Lyles’ suggestion, Bradley responded: “I made a note. I will follow up on that.”