Mayor to Seek Power to Oust Top Officials

Amid the furor over the Los Angeles police beating of an Altadena man, Mayor Tom Bradley attempted to seize the political initiative Tuesday and press an issue that he has supported for years: gaining the authority to fire the police chief and other Civil Service department heads.

At a City Hall news conference, the mayor proposed that the chief and all other department managers be subject to a performance review and possible dismissal every five years. He said he has asked the City Council to put his proposal to the voters in the form of a charter amendment, although it is not clear whether that could be done in time for the June ballot.

“I have long supported the idea of all city managers being subject not only to appointment and confirmation,” Bradley said, “but that they be subject to guidelines that would permit the mayor to have authority to remove them.”

Bradley has tried three times in the past 10 years to obtain the power to remove city department heads. In each case, the voters have turned him down, rejecting proposed City Charter amendments. Even if such an amendment passed, there are legal questions about whether Bradley could use it to oust Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

The mayor’s announcement came as the Los Angeles County grand jury convened for the second day of its criminal investigation into actions of Los Angeles police officers who were involved in the March 3 beating of a motorist. The 23-member citizens panel, which conducts its proceedings in secret, heard testimony for four hours Tuesday.

Also, law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation say that the grand jury inquiry is expected to last longer than the original estimate of one to three days and that it will be more extensive than the one conducted by the Police Department.

“The scope is ever-expanding,” one source said. The source described the Police Department investigation--which Gates cited in recommending that three of the 15 officers at the scene be prosecuted--as “limited.”

Altadena resident Rodney G. King, an unemployed construction worker who was on parole after a robbery conviction, was pulled over after allegedly leading authorities on a high-speed chase through the San Fernando Valley. The incident, captured on videotape by an amateur photographer, showed several Los Angeles police officers kicking King, who had been shot with a Taser stun gun, and striking him up to 56 times with their batons.

The beating sparked a public outcry over police misconduct in Los Angeles, as well as numerous calls for Gates’ resignation. At noon Tuesday, a small group of protesters gathered in front of Parker Center, the Police Department’s headquarters downtown, to call for the chief’s ouster.

Since the beating, Bradley has insisted that he is not trying to pressure Gates to step down, saying that he would leave the decision to the chief. When pressed by reporters, the mayor dodged the issue, saying that he did not want to get into a confrontation with the chief.

Nonetheless, Bradley made it clear that Gates was on his mind.

“I get letters from all over the country from people saying that I should fire Daryl Gates,” Bradley told reporters. “But they don’t understand that it can’t be done. The charter doesn’t permit it.”

Gates has repeatedly said he has no plans to leave office. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday on Bradley’s proposal.

The idea for a charter amendment was recently suggested to Bradley by members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights groups, all of which have been extremely critical of Gates since the beating of King, who is black. The officers involved in the beating are white.

At a meeting Tuesday of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, leaders from those groups said they would favor a fixed, five-year term for all future police chiefs.

“It will become like any other job,” said R. Samuel Paz of the Police Commission’s Hispanic Advisory Council. “If the council is not satisfied with the chief’s performance, they can ask him to leave and appoint somebody new.”

To achieve that change, city officials say voters would have to alter the City Charter in at least two ways--by exempting the police chief from Civil Service protection and by relaxing the strict criteria for his removal, as spelled out in the charter.

Under the current charter, the board of Civil Service commissioners holds the authority to remove top-level city employees. These employees can be dismissed only “for cause,” which amounts to a finding that the employee is not “fit and suitable” to perform the essential duties of the job, according to Diane Wentworth, assistant city attorney for employee relations.

Traditionally, these criteria--which have been in place since 1937--have been seen as a way of protecting top-level city employees from being removed for purely political reasons.

As the charter now reads, department heads who are being threatened with removal have the constitutional right to a hearing before the Civil Service Commission. “I am not sure you can take that right away from an incumbent officeholder,” Wentworth said.

As the political debate continued in City Hall, the county grand jury Tuesday was hearing from another round of witnesses in the King case. Law enforcement sources said the citizens panel, which is expected to consider assault charges against the officers, will also look into possible violations of state civil rights laws.

Four witnesses were on hand Tuesday: California Highway Patrol Officer Melanie Singer, who participated in a car chase involving King; Los Angeles Police Sgt. John Amott, a traffic officer who was not present during the beating but who said he handled some of the paperwork; and two Los Angeles Unified School District police officers who were at the scene of the beating.

The wife of one of the school police officers said in an interview Tuesday evening that her husband, Paul J. Beauregard, was not watching while the beating occurred.

“I don’t know why they’re grilling him,” she said.

Her husband declined comment.

Times staff writers Leslie Berger, Glenn F. Bunting, Frank Clifford, Scott Harris, Lois Timnick, Hector Tobar and Tracy Wood contributed to this story.