CRISIS IN THE LAPD: THE RODNEY KING CASE : More Than ‘Plain Folks’ : Organization: Behind the outpouring of support for Gates are four media-savvy professionals.

The night before a newly formed support group for Police Chief Daryl F. Gates was unveiled at a news conference at Parker Center, its leaders met at the home of actress Peggy Rowe Estrada for lessons in how to respond to reporters’ questions.

Playing reporter at the mock press conference March 20 was political consultant Eric Rose, an adviser to Gates during his exploratory campaign for governor in 1988. Estrada, the former wife of television star Erik Estrada of “CHiPS” fame, bore the brunt of Rose’s bruising questions.

“This is a lot different than what I’d done before because this is real life,” said Estrada, a spokeswoman for Citizens in Support of the Chief of Police (CISCOP). “I thought, ‘Give me a script and I’ll be fine.’ ”

In fact, much of the group’s campaign to save Gates’ job seems to have been scripted, despite what Gates has described as a traditional grass-roots movement of “just plain folks” rushing forward in his defense.

The group has come a long way since that evening. At a luncheon Friday attended by more than 1,000 Gates supporters, CISCOP pulled a public relations coup: Gates and George Holliday on the same dais.

“George who?” a woman in the crowd asked when Holliday was introduced. “Oh, that guy!”

It was Holliday, a San Fernando Valley plumbing business manager, whose videotape of the beating of black motorist Rodney G. King last March 3 shocked the world.

Now, Gates stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Holliday, the man who, it could be argued, nearly cost Gates his job as head of the Los Angeles Police Department. They shook hands as the crowd broke into applause and TV news cameras recorded the event.

It was another victory, albeit small, for CISCOP. But the images of Gates and Holliday exchanging pleasantries would make the TV news Friday night and give the chief a much-needed public relations boost as he struggles to stay in office.

The pro-Gates group has, in only a few weeks, attracted thousands of adherents, mainly from the extended families of police officers and segments of the Los Angeles business community.

But at its core, CISCOP is run by four media-savvy professionals.

Estrada--a tall, 35-year-old Van Nuys mother of two--acknowledges that her acting experience has helped her through intense questioning by reporters from across the nation seeking so-called average citizens who support the chief. In fact, she has ties to many people in Hollywood and is now the point woman at pro-Gates rallies and news conferences.

Working with her is Ed Cholakian, 55, an influential San Fernando Valley businessman, who sits on 14 corporate boards and owns what is believed to be the world’s largest collection of antique Cadillacs. He founded the citizens’ booster club at the LAPD’s Foothill Division, the unit that is under scrutiny over the King beating. His role at CISCOP functions is to line up support from businessmen and elected officials throughout the Valley.

Adelaide Nimitz, 57, is a public relations expert and founder of Crime Prevention Committee, a citizens’ group that helps organize Neighborhood Watch programs. Through her contacts, she promotes CISCOP events and works the phones looking for volunteers.

Behind them all, however, is Rose, a 25-year-old political consultant who normally makes $1,000 a day shepherding the campaigns of conservative political aspirants, the most recent of whom was Los Angeles County supervisorial candidate Sarah Flores.

Rose, a former aide to state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Northridge), who was Gates’ predecessor as police chief, said he was asked by Gates’ office to help CISCOP with media relations free of charge. He has orchestrated virtually every step the pro-Gates forces have taken in the past two weeks.

These people and a handful of dedicated volunteers have combined their talents and contacts to hold a boisterous rally for Gates at the Los Angeles Police Academy that was attended by 4,000 people. Among them was feminist attorney Gloria Allred, who stepped up to the microphone and said: “Surprise! Surprise!” The attorney, who has made a career battling the Establishment, said she was invited by Rose.

The group also has gathered 14,000 signatures on petitions circulated throughout the city calling on Gates to remain on the job.

The luncheon Friday at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City came one day after the Police Commission put Gates on a paid 60-day leave of absence. The controversial furlough was “a big help in ticket sales,” Rose said.

Holliday, who is trying to sell his life story to a movie production company, readily accepted Rose’s invitation a week ago to attend the $25-a-plate luncheon and receive a CISCOP award for “community service.”

At the luncheon, Gates denied that he has orchestrated a public relations effort on his own behalf, insisting that thousands of “just plain folks” have come to his defense.

“It’s been said I’ve had a public relations campaign,” Gates told the audience, which greeted him with a standing ovation and chants of “Gates must stay!”

“All of this has been spontaneous,” Gates said. “Folks, yesterday I felt horrible. Today, I feel good.”

Indeed, the chief felt so good, he couldn’t resist a joke. Turning to Holliday, he quipped: “As a guy who never goes to the movies and loves home movies, that was a lousy movie. . . . If it wasn’t for our helicopter, the lighting would have been terrible.” The audience laughed loudly.

Standing nearby, Rose surveyed the Police Chief and Holliday with satisfaction. He had pulled off the unthinkable in only a week and a half, and on a shoestring budget.

As he said before the event: “See, everything we do in this society is visual. What more visual way is there to express what we believe than to honor the man that took the video--pure and simple.

“What he (Holliday) did for the department was a brave and wonderful thing in the long run--simple.”

Rose’s efforts may be aimed beyond just getting Gates nestled comfortably back in the chief’s suite at Parker Center.

The chief was recently considered a candidate for the posts of FBI director and President Bush’s drug czar. Some who know him well have suggested he may well have postponed his long-awaited departure from the LAPD until a similar high post or political seat becomes available. But to do so, his office must not be tarnished.

To that end, CISCOP is a valuable ally. Rose has coached the group’s leaders to tackle the beating incident with this phrase: “What happened to Rodney King was a horrible incident, but let’s not castigate Chief Gates and the entire Police Department for it.”

At Rose’s insistance, that message is driven home in the first paragraph of every CISCOP press release, and in the first words spoken by CISCOP leaders at public gatherings.

Before Rose arrived to give them “a theme and focus,” the people who would become CISCOP leaders were working independently to drum up support for Gates in the week after King’s beating.

Estrada was circulating a “support petition” in the parking lot of a San Fernando Valley mall near her home. Cholakian was handing out “back our men in blue” cards at power lunches and Chamber of Commerce meetings. Nimitz was pleading with the Police Department to give her an opportunity to take its case public.

Rose, who was already recording every sound bite he could on the King case, wrote a letter to Gates. “If there is anything I can do to help,” he wrote, “don’t hesitate to call.”

On March 19, Rose said he received a call from Gates’ security aide, Officer Eugene Arreola, “who took me up on the offer.”

In an interview, Arreola denied that Gates personally sought Rose out, although he acknowledged discussing the possibility of working with him.

The Police Department’s community relations office introduced Rose to Estrada, Cholakian, Nimitz and others actively supporting the chief.

Cholakian said CISCOP provided him with an opportunity to vent his frustrations over what he called “negative publicity” arising from the King affair.

“I had officers coming into my office and saying, ‘Gosh, people are flipping us off and spitting at us,’ ” recalled Cholakian. “I was so overwrought by this whole thing I would sit there and cry about the defaming of our police officers.”

Cholakian said that among his many friends in the department is one of the officers who has been indicted in the King beating. “He’s a good officer,” Cholakian said.

Rose cringes when he hears such comments. The smooth political adviser complained that some CISCOP members “are neglecting to say every time they speak that what happened to King was wrong.”

Estrada said Rose taught her well in that regard. “They’re the first five lines I speak at press conferences,” she said.