Council of Recreant Avoidance : City Council debates LAPD issue: Where does it stand?

The Los Angeles City Council’s first public discussion of the Rodney King beating was a model of the recreant politics of avoidance. The council, ostensibly, summoned Police Chief Daryl Gates to explain more about a 1985 police brutality case before it would agree to pay a $265,000 settlement.

Countless times before, the council has routinely signed off on such legal settlements. But with the King case highlighted daily in the news over the last two weeks, the council decided to use the opportunity to ask Gates more about the beating. Fair enough, except that this same council voted down the direct opportunity to question Gates about the King beating last week. When Councilman Michael Woo put forth a motion to do just that, he couldn’t get enough support from colleagues. The council, it seems, was only comfortable daring to ask questions if it could do so indirectly through the 1985 case--which, before the King attack, would have received barely a raised eyebrow from most council members.

The savage beating of King, an unarmed black man, at the hands of Los Angeles Police officers has been so riveting a case of brutality that it has caught the attention even of President Bush, who on Thursday called the beating “outrageous.”

With that sort of national interest, you’d think the city’s legislative body would be eager to ask lots of tough questions of the police chief. That’s what’s expected when you are the boss. You get the glory when your troops do well, and you have to answer when they don’t.

Yet it was the council that seemed to be on the defensive Wednesday, mostly prefacing any remarks with 1) how shocked it was by the beating and 2) how much it supports LAPD officers, most of whom are fine cops. Certainly.

But by avoiding the difficult issue of whether Chief Gates should step down for the good of the city--as many now believe he should--most of the council members seemed to be tripping over each other, trying to dodge the very leadership they claim to want.