NEWS ANALYSIS : Bradley’s Options Limited by System : City government: Civil Service bureaucracy denies the mayor power to take charge of a department during a crisis. Calls continue for Gates to resign.

It is one of the most painful crises to befall Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in the 18 years he has held office. Yet, as a black man and a former policeman, Bradley is especially qualified to handle an incident that undermines the Police Department and enrages the black community.

What Bradley lacks, however, is the authority to act directly and decisively. In the aftermath of the vicious police beating that has stunned the nation, Bradley for now must stand by, placing his trust in an old adversary, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, to defuse a combustible situation that many people are blaming indirectly on Gates’ tough-talking style of leadership.

“Certainly, no other issue in the history of the mayor’s tenure has touched people so intensely,” Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani said Thursday. “The volume of calls is absolutely unprecedented and so is their unanimity. The vast majority want Chief (Daryl F.) Gates removed from office.”

Fabiani would not elaborate on the calls, but others in City Hall said many of the callers contend that Gates’ rough and tumble rhetoric regarding several ethnic groups and recommending that casual drug users “be taken out and shot” has contributed to an atmosphere conducive to excessive violence by police officers.

Bradley alluded to his own powerlessness in the matter when he said Thursday that the issue of Gates’ future as chief “is a matter that is not under the control of the Police Commission or the mayor. . . . We have Civil Service protection for our employees, including the chief of police. They cannot be summarily fired.”

For years, Bradley has struggled in vain to change a Civil Service system that denies the mayor the power to take charge of a department in a time of crisis. Fighting to preserve his independence, Gates has resisted the mayor’s efforts to change the system. Last year, Bradley appointed two close political allies to the city’s five-member board of police commissioners in the hopes of strengthening his hand.

But his appointees say there is little they can do at the moment.

“The first thing the commission has to do is await the outcome of the Police Department’s own investigation,” said Melanie Lomax, a lawyer and one of Bradley’s recent commission appointees.

At the same time, Lomax said, Gates’ inflammatory remarks over the years have caused her to question whether he has contributed to a climate that encourages excessive force. “There is a question in my mind whether there is a relationship, subliminal or direct, between what happened at Lake View Terrace and Gates’ comments about drunken Salvadorans or shooting casual drug users,” she said.

A group of Los Angeles civil rights activists also called for Gates to resign.

“Mr. Gates created an atmosphere and created the incentive for this kind of Klan-like action to take place in the city,” said Bishop E. Lynn Brown of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. “We demand that Chief Gates be fired and that the police officers involved not only be fired but sent to jail.”

So far, Bradley has shown no outward sign that he wants to remove Gates.

“It’s Chief Gates’ decision about what he will do,” Bradley told a news conference Thursday. “He has the control over his life in terms of whether he will retire or stay. I’m going to leave that to him. He has to answer to his public.”

Ed Davis, a former city police chief and now a state senator, said Thursday that he called Bradley to compliment him on the restraint he has shown in nationally televised news conferences about the incident. In interviews, Bradley has refused to point a finger at Gates or to make sweeping criticisms of the Police Department.

“He was so reserved. He was beautiful,” Davis said. “I know how awful he felt about what he saw on that tape.” He was referring to the videotape, made by a Lake View Terrace resident, of several city policemen kicking and beating an unemployed black construction worker who was stopped for speeding Sunday morning.

But even if Bradley wanted to replace Gates, he would have an extremely difficult time.

Under the City Charter, the city’s police commissioners can discipline or remove a department head for “cause,” usually interpreted to mean misconduct or willful neglect of official duties. The official in question is entitled to appeal the action to the city’s Civil Service Commission and to the courts.

The city’s two efforts in recent years to remove other department heads were reversed on appeal.

The Police Commission disciplined Gates for comments he made about black people nine years ago. The commission reprimanded him after saying that “some blacks” may be more susceptible than “normal people” to police officers’ use of a controversial chokehold, since banned.

A few months after he became police chief in 1978, Gates offended Latinos by saying that some Latino officers were not promoted because they were “lazy.”

Two years later, he offended some women when he described a local television anchor woman as an “Aryan broad.”

In 1982, he angered many Jews with an in-house report suggesting that the Soviets were sending criminals disguised as Jewish emigrants to disrupt the 1984 Olympics.

Recently, he angered Latinos again by referring to the killer of a policewoman as a “drunken Salvadoran.”

Bradley said Thursday there was “no hidden agenda, no secret effort to force the chief out.” However, sources close to the mayor said there is little doubt that Bradley would like to see Gates step down.

“Obviously, the mayor would like to have another chief,” said one source who asked to remain anonymous. “How you achieve it is the question. Whether it is achievable in the short run is unclear.”

In the past, Gates’ political popularity has discouraged efforts to seek his ouster. The chief has frequently expressed interest in running for mayor and has enjoyed a strong base of support among white, conservative middle-class voters.

That base is still there, according to pollster Arnold Steinberg. “No question there is a firm, substantial, intense base of support for Gates,” he said.

While several City Council members said they have received numerous phone calls urging Gates’ ouster, they did not echo that sentiment.

“I don’t have a judgment on the question of resignation,” said Councilman Richard Alatorre, who chairs the council’s Police, Fire and Public Safety Committee.

Alatorre said that Gates’ public comments are often “insensitive” and could contribute to problems of excessive force, but he said he did not believe that Gates intended for his remarks to have that effect.

“He has used very colorful language, but I don’t believe the chief condones the use of violence and brutality on citizens,” said Alatorre.

“I don’t think this incident should cause him to resign,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who has been one of the chief’s harshest critics on the council. Yaroslavsky said that Gates’ statement Thursday that criminal charges should be filed against the officers responsible for the beating “went a long way” toward reassuring the public that the Police Department was taking appropriate action.

Meanwhile, Gates made it clear he has no intention of stepping down.

On his way to a briefing in the mayor’s office, he said about the clamor among some for his resignation: “There always is that. There always is. And the answer is the same. No. No. No. No.”