For Chief Daryl Gates, the Moment Has Come

The Los Angeles Police Department deserves respect and support. It has fought hard against internal corruption, served as a virtual laboratory for testing many policing innovations and struggled, often courageously, against an increasing crime rate even though it has fewer officers per population density than most other major departments. It is a proud force that takes its job seriously. Under Chief Daryl F. Gates for the past 13 years, it has initiated improvements in urban policing that have been widely praised and in some cases emulated by other police departments around the country.

Today, alas, that reputation for excellence may have sunk to a low because of the Rodney King-police beating case. It may be a very long time before the LAPD lives down that videotape monument to police brutality. The shocking sight of officers either kicking and clubbing an unarmed man or standing around and watching the assault has brought to a head long-held reservations about the department. And Monday’s revelations of racially disparaging comments on police tapes prior to the beating only add to those concerns.

THE GENERAL PROBLEM: Now there are calls for the resignation of Gates--a 42-year LAPD veteran. Because the chief is the boss, Gates himself is now the target of much of the built-up enmity for the department, much of the criticism and the doubt. Entirely fair or not, his exit is regarded by many as a precondition for healing and for progress.

That won’t be easy to accomplish. Gates is protected by intricate and daunting layers of civil service law: He cannot simply be fired, and he is insisting that he’ll not go. But the issue here is not what’s best for Gates but what’s best for Los Angeles. The question is not whether he can stay on, but whether he should .

If the King case were an aberration, there would be fewer calls for his resignation. But this horror occurred on a watch that for 13 years has been marked by a history of the chief saying things that he shouldn’t, and by some officers sometimes doing things that they shouldn’t.

The King beating, seen by everyone with a television set, is unacceptable no matter what the race of the citizen-victim. It raises questions about command and control, about training, about the street-level values of officers. But the fact that the victim was black and that the beating happened in a city where minorities of all walks of life, including black businessmen and athletes, have complained for years of police harassment adds measurably to the pain.

Because the King case is a symptom of a larger problem, larger questions must be raised. The problem is that the department is in danger of losing support from significant sections of Los Angeles and the trend must not be permitted to accelerate. “They hate us and clearly they hate me,” Gates said of his critics, to an applauding crowd of police officers last week as he sought to rally support for his continued incumbency. It’s true that there are a small number of Angelenos who do hate cops. But the large majority of law-abiding citizens of this town are deeply sincere in their criticisms and are looking for positive reform. Gates’ “us-against-them” statement is unintentionally revealing and illustrates the flaw at the heart of his command. There should be no “them,” there should be only one Los Angeles with one police chief concerned with all the people of this city.

THE PERVASIVE WORRY: This city has changed a great deal since Gates joined the department in 1949. More African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and women assert their rights and demand to be heard. Even so, the chief of 13 years proceeds apace with a public image of insensitivity. Those who know Gates well insist that he is a caring man, but his public persona comes across more often than not as something else entirely.

What must be faced is that all of the polarizing remarks by the chief, as innocuous as he thinks they were, were made about blacks and Latinos and women, not white men--not about the people who have been in power but the people, until very recently at least, who have been out of power. Such political tone-deafness by this top cop is worrisome.

Worse still is the fact that during his 13-year tenure police misconduct complaints against the LAPD increased perceptibly, and the city has paid many millions in police misconduct settlements and judgments.

And now all the fury that is focused on the King case hampers the ability of the good cops to do their jobs properly because trust in the police has fallen. The current atmosphere is harmful to public safety.

CONCLUSION: Daryl Gates believes that stepping down under the current circumstances would be a dangerous precedent and would demoralize his department. But after giving 42 years of his life to a police force and job that he loves, the chief must reflect on the wisdom of staying on much longer.

If he is a true patriot of the city and a true believer in the LAPD, he must not let his pride and his ego cloud his judgment. He should submit to the suggestions and recommendations of those in this city who have come to the conclusion that for the good of Los Angeles he should resign. He should not simply walk out, of course, but step down in an orderly fashion to insure a smooth transition to a new chief.

Chief Gates should move on not because of legal necessity--there is none--but because of moral wisdom. In the future that decision will be seen as a sign not of weakness but of strength. Chief Gates can now set the LAPD free of the controversy that surrounds him and thus set off a rebuilding of public confidence in the police. Many wounds have been opened during the King case. The chief now has the opportunity to start the healing.