Hard Questions for Chief Daryl Gates : Thursday’s hearing must yield some honest answers

The Los Angeles Police Commission is scheduled to hold a special session on Thursday in response to the videotaped police beating of Rodney King. Among the many urgent issues the commission must address is the job Chief Daryl Gates is doing--or not doing.

Here are some of the questions the Police Commission must ask:

1. Is there a pattern of harsh and unequal treatment directed at minorities in Los Angeles?

If there is, what has Chief Gates done to change the behavior of those officers who have betrayed their colleagues and the people they are sworn to protect and serve? Gates rose through the ranks during his 42 years on the LAPD. He has been the chief for 13 years, which is certainly long enough to get the right message across about his expectations of how the department should operate and how the officers under his command should conduct themselves--including the all-important issue of when to use force.

That beating--captured on videotape by an amateur cameraman and televised repeatedly--has provoked a growing national outrage, most notably among minorities. Those shocking images have also disgusted some like-minded people, including many big-city cops and business leaders who privately--and a few publicly--have expressed distress over the King incident and how it affects the city’s image and commerce.

2. Can Gates do anything now to counterbalance his history of inflammatory statements?

In the wake of the uproar over the King beating, the chief has begun to aggressively preach against police brutality. In his own videotape played during weekend roll calls for all officers, Gates sounded like a stern father as he told his officers: “When the law says you will use only that force which is necessary, you will only use the force that is necessary. People look to you for protection. They don’t look to you for a beating.” But, after more than a dozen years at the helm, why was it necessary for the chief to make such an obvious point after all this time?

The lecture surely came too late for King, who was savagely beaten by LAPD officers following a police chase prompted by a speeding violation. By Gates’ own tally, officers clubbed King as many as 56 times with nightsticks wielded high over their heads like baseball bats.

Is such behavior part of a pattern, a problem the chief has helped foster? Why has he continued his inflammatory style of leadership despite repeated criticism? What message was given when Gates said black people were more likely to die from chokeholds because they didn’t react the way “normal people” did? What conclusions were drawn when Gates said a Latino father was “probably lucky” that he had only received a broken nose during a raid by police officers who suspected the man’s son was a gang member?

To what extent has the chief been sending two very different messages-- the official and the unofficial? To what extent have his off-the-cuff remarks encouraged those cops to take the law into their own hands?

3. To whom, if anyone, is the police chief of Los Angeles accountable?

Chief Gates is responsible for inflammatory comments, for the actions of his officers and for the $8 million in taxpayer money paid out last year to satisfy complaints against the department. But because of rigid civil service protections, the police chief is not accountable to the mayor, the City Council or to the city’s voters.

In the aftermath of King’s beating, the chief must answer to the Police Commission. He must also answer on Friday the questions of civil rights leaders who look at LAPD history and don’t believe that this police beating was an aberration. Will Gates’ answers silence the growing chorus of calls for his resignation? Or further inflame a controversy that won’t go away?