Marchers Demand Ouster of Gates : Protest: Jesse Jackson urges a boycott of Super Bowl and conventions until police chief leaves. Event is peaceful and there are no arrests.

At a boisterous but peaceful rally in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson called for a boycott of the 1993 Super Bowl and future conventions in Los Angeles in response to the televised beating of Rodney G. King and the ongoing political battle over Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

“I say if we can use a boycott in Birmingham, and if we can boycott in Montgomery, if we can use it in South Africa, then we can stop the Super Bowl and conventions from coming to Los Angeles,” Jackson told protesters who gathered in front of police headquarters. Police estimated the crowd at 5,000.

“We must not just remove Gates, we must remove Gateism,” Jackson told the crowd in front of Parker Center. “We know the absence of Gates is not the presence of justice. The aberration wasn’t the violence, it was the video camera. The beating of Rodney King exposed a national malady.”

Jackson’s remarks came after he led a wave of placard-carrying demonstrators on a march through downtown Los Angeles to demand the ouster of Gates and to condemn the City Council for ordering the reinstatement of the embattled department head.

It was the largest rally yet in opposition to the chief.

Mayor Tom Bradley said in an interview Saturday that he objects to Jackson’s call for a boycott of Los Angeles by tourists and conventioneers.

“I think that it would be wrong to punish the whole city, to threaten the economy of the city and the jobs created at the Convention Center and at the hotels by saying to conventioneers, ‘Don’t come to Los Angeles,’ ” Bradley said.

However, he defended Jackson’s right to call for the boycott. “Jesse Jackson is a distinguished leader in this country whose voice is heard and listened to by many people. He has the authority and the right to come make his statement.”

At the rally, protesters chanting “Daryl Gates must go, Daryl Gates must go,” descended on police headquarters and cheered as speakers blasted Gates, Bradley and other officials involved in the political fight over the police chief.

Although the angry crowd often shouted directly at police who lined the streets along the route, there were no incidents during the demonstration, which lasted nearly five hours. Police estimated that nearly 1,000 people who lined the path of the demonstration joined the march, which began at Olympic Boulevard and Broadway and ended at Parker Center.

The tensest moment came as a group of about 100 protesters walked directly in front of the Parker Center entrance shouting “No more Gates,” as two dozen police officers stood on the other side of the glass. Police officials said the multiethnic crowd was well-behaved and reported no arrests.

The demonstration included more that a dozen civil rights and activist groups, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to Janitors for Justice. The rally began as a phalanx of marchers massed behind a colorful 30-foot-wide yellow and black sign proclaiming “Gates must Go. Stop Police Brutality.”

There were virtually no counterdemonstrators, although one man, W.T. Minamoto, 46, held up a pro-Gates sign and walked for awhile in front of the marchers, his young daughter riding on his shoulders.

“I’m sticking up for one of the finest men in our city,” Minamoto said.

The rally, originally timed to coincide with the 23rd anniversary of the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., was planned before the City Council’s decision Friday to reinstate Gates. The council took the action just one day after he had been put on paid leave by the Police Commission.

The events that led to the demonstration were triggered by the March 3 beating of King, a 25-year-old black parolee from Altadena, by white officers after a car chase in the San Fernando Valley. The incident was captured on videotape by an amateur cameraman and the stark images have repeatedly been broadcast around the world.

Councilman Michael Woo, one of three council members who voted against Gates’ reinstatement, said that the action “raises questions about the entire future of this city. What’s very clear is that this crisis can only be resolved through new leadership in the Police Department.”

Several speakers, including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), also called for the ouster of those Los Angeles City Council members who voted to block the Police Commission’s effort to put Gates on a leave of absence.

“Nate Holden’s got to go,” Waters chanted, referring to the one black councilman who voted against the commission’s action. “Joan Milke Flores’s got to go,” Waters added.

Former Hawthorne Police Officer Don Jackson stated the sentiment more pointedly, saying: “There is a color problem in this city when we see Nate Holden backing up the Police Department. Nate Holden, you gotta go.”

Jackson, who is black, focused attention on police abuse three years ago when an incident was videotaped in which a white Long Beach policeman allegedly pushed Jackson’s head through a plate-glass window after stopping the car in which Jackson was riding.

Other speakers added the name of Councilman Richard Alatorre to the list of targeted council members.

Waters stood on the platform with a group of public officials that included state Democratic Assemblywomen from Los Angeles, Teresa P. Hughes, Marguerite Archie-Hudson and Gwen Moore; state Sen. Bill Greene (D-Los Angeles) and Jackie Goldberg, president of the Los Angeles Unified School District board.

Onlookers along the march route occasionally cheered but mostly were content to stop and look. An RTD bus driver drew cheers from the marchers when he waved, smiled and honked his horn in support.

Some of the protesters carried pictures of alleged victims of police brutality and hundreds waved homemade signs such as one that proclaimed: “Daryl just say yes.” Several demonstrators said that they came to vent anger that has simmered in ethnic communities for years.

“If Gates isn’t the disease, he’s certainly one of the symptoms,” said Compton resident Georgia Cave. “The people in this community have been angry for years. This isn’t an isolated incident. It’s just the first one caught on film.”