CRISIS IN THE LAPD: THE RODNEY KING BEATING : FBI to Interview Foothill Officers : Police: Chief Gates says he is upset at the plan. He assures 3,000 supporters he will not resign.

After reassuring a boisterous rally of about 3,000 supporters that he would not resign, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates told reporters Sunday he was “very upset” with FBI plans to interview officers from the division where four police officers are charged with beating motorist Rodney G. King.

Beginning today, FBI agents will visit the homes of the more than 200 officers who work out of Foothill Division to learn if there is a pattern of civil rights abuses, Gates told reporters after the rally at the Los Angeles Police Academy.

Four white officers from Foothill Division were indicted earlier this month on felony charges in the March 3 beating of King, a black Altadena resident. The incident, which was videotaped by an amateur photographer, has sparked cries from many quarters for Gates’ resignation.

Gates said he had no specific quarrel with the FBI, but rather with the Justice Department “bureaucrat (who) made that decision. I think it’s a bad decision.”

Without pointing a finger at anyone specifically in Washington, Gates declared he would prefer that FBI agents do their interviewing at the police station, rather than in the officers’ family environment.

“I’m unhappy they’re going to go to the officers’ homes,” he said.

Gates said Special Agent Lawrence G. Lawler, who is in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, assured him that his agents would try to question the officers “in a very sensitive way” with “a series of questions” about the King beating and any other incidents. He did not elaborate.

Police spokesman Lt. Fred Nixon said the FBI asked for names, addresses and telephone numbers of every officer at the division.

Lawler was not available for comment Sunday.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League said it has advised officers that they have the right to have an attorney present during the questioning and that they should tell agents they are cooperating “under duress.”

Gates, 64, police chief since 1978, spoke to his vocal supporters in a parking lot in front of the Police Academy in Elysian Park.

Wearing a white sweater with light blue and green patches and blue jeans, Gates appeared relaxed as he waved to the crowd from a balcony with his wife, Sima, at his side. Over his head was an arch of red, white and blue balloons.

The crowd loudly booed any mention of Mayor Tom Bradley, who recently said that “the only way” for the Police Department to recover from the King controversy was for Gates “to remove himself.” Several anti-Bradley signs were displayed Sunday.

Among the speakers supporting Gates was Los Angeles attorney and civil rights activist Gloria Allred. “Surprise, surprise,” she told the crowd, in expectation of raised eyebrows at her taking a stand in support of Gates.

Allred said “there is no question that excessive force was used” in the King beating, but that the public should be concerned about the civil rights of the accused police officers, and Gates, as well.

“I care about the rights of King,” she said, “and yes, I care about the civil rights of Police Chief Daryl Gates.”

Gates received an ovation as he stepped to the podium.

“I’m awed,” he said. “I’m humbled.”

The crowd, carrying pro-Gates banners and signs, began chanting, “Gates must stay.” Finally, Gates made a familiar announcement, yet the one everyone wanted to hear:

“Maybe we ought to deal with that issue right at the outset,” he said. “Folks, I am going to stay.”

Gates declared that he, too, was angry over the King beating. He said the incident “would be forever etched” in his mind and those of all Los Angeles police officers, whose reputations were called into question after the incident.

But the chief also said that, in his mind, the media has overplayed the videotape of the Lake View Terrace incident, which has been seen many times on national television.

Of the four officers charged in the beating, Gates told the crowd “they deserve to be heard. . . . They deserve a fair trial.”