CRISIS IN THE LAPD: THE RODNEY KING BEATING : Black Forum Ends Meetings With Gates

When a Latino police officer killed a black motorcyclist in Miami in 1988, the city’s African-American neighborhoods exploded in anger and riots.

To prevent a similar tragedy here, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates contacted leaders of several local civil rights groups the next year in the hopes of beginning meetings aimed at helping defuse potentially explosive situations and giving blacks greater access to the Police Department.

The group, called the Black Community Forum, grew to include 25 representatives of black organizations, businesses and churches and began meeting with Gates bimonthly.

But the partnership has fallen victim to the controversy surrounding the beating by police of Rodney G. King.

When the forum was to hold a regularly scheduled meeting with Gates last Wednesday, the group instead met without the chief and decided that he would not be asked to attend future gatherings. At an earlier emergency meeting of the forum, the members told Gates that he was no longer fit to lead the Police Department.

Joe Duff, president of the Los Angeles branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said that during that emergency meeting he was told by Gates, “I’m disappointed in you, Joe Duff.”

“The disappointment is mutual,” Duff said he replied.

Forum members said they do not intend to disband. They said they will meet with other high-ranking members of the Police Department, Police Commission and City Council as necessary.

“If we want to speak with someone in the LAPD, they will be there at our invitation. There will not be a standing invitation,” said Mark Ridley-Thomas, executive director of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a candidate in the 8th District City Council race.

Bill Shearer, vice president and general manager of radio station KGFJ and a forum member, said the group would like to see Jesse Brewer, a former assistant chief who retired this month, replace Gates until a new chief could be found.

Despite repercussions from the King beating, Gates has said he will not resign. He has not commented publicly about the break with the Black Community Forum.

According to Ridley-Thomas, what Gates did and said in the wake of the beating convinced the group that “we hadn’t gotten through to the guy in the two years we had been talking to him about the gravity of the problems facing the African-American community.”

Most galling, he said, was the chief’s insistence that the King incident was an “aberration.”

“For two years we have been telling him about case after case of police harassment,” Ridley-Thomas said. “We have criticized him for the outrageous statements he makes, making it clear that they were not appropriate for someone in a position of leadership.”

Gates was sometimes defensive in the face of such criticism, Ridley-Thomas said, but that for the most part Gates seemed sincere about ironing out difficulties.

“I must say that 80% or 90% of the time he was a very careful listener and gave us the impression that he was earnest,” Ridley-Thomas said.