Bradley Fires the ‘Dumb’ Word Back at Chief Gates

Escalating a verbal war, Mayor Tom Bradley on Thursday said Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates has a history of making “dumb statements” and has done so again with remarks about the “39th and Dalton” case.

“Chief Gates, who has made so many dumb statements in his lifetime, knows a dumb statement when he sees one,” Bradley told reporters on the steps of City Hall. “And I think he has put his foot in his mouth one more time.”

The exchange of insults between the mayor and the police chief began on Wednesday, when Gates said Bradley had written a “dumb letter” calling for an investigation of possible police improprieties in the defense of four officers charged with vandalism during a drug raid two years ago on apartments near 39th Street and Dalton Avenue.

Bradley’s call for the inquiry came after a report in The Times last week that an on-duty Los Angeles police sergeant said he had worked for six weeks this summer for defense lawyers handling the criminal cases against the officers. Bradley called the sergeant’s defense work “a blatant waste of taxpayers’ money.”

But Gates said on Wednesday there had been no impropriety and that Bradley requested the investigation “to get the heat off himself” because he had been traveling in Europe last month and “didn’t know what was going on.”

“That’s bull,” Bradley said when asked on Thursday about the statement. He said he had been apprised of the controversy by fax.

Bradley did not specify the “dumb statements” Gates has made in the past, but last month, Gates told a U.S. Senate committee that casual drug users “ought to be taken out and shot.”

Meanwhile, Robert Talcott, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, said Thursday that he has had several discussions with Gates about the chief’s tendency to use “language that is inappropriate.”

“I think there’s really no need or room for that kind of colloquy within city government,” Talcott said.

“I think both the mayor and the chief understand their respective responsibilities and they should carry them out without this rhetoric,” he added. “I think it’s counterproductive on the chief’s part. We have already had discussions about this, both in the past and in the present. He uses language that is inappropriate. It undermines the public confidence in the Police Department.”

Gates had no response on Thursday to Bradley’s attack.