Bradley Back Pedals on His Call for Gates’ Resignation

Faced with criticism from business leaders and a decline in his public approval ratings, Mayor Tom Bradley is attempting to extricate himself from the volatile political struggle generated by the police beating of Rodney G. King.

The mayor’s desire to pull back from what had been shaping up as a titanic--and highly public--struggle with the City Council and Police Chief Daryl F. Gates prompted a summit meeting Tuesday afternoon among Bradley, Gates and council President John Ferraro.

At a news conference after the hourlong meeting, Ferraro was hailed by Gates for his role as a “peacemaker” in arranging the session, which produced a promise from the three to quiet the battle over whether Gates should be replaced.

But City Hall sources, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Bradley and his chief of staff, Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani, actually initiated the session after it became clear that Fabiani’s behind-the-scenes campaign to orchestrate Gate’s removal was in serious trouble.

While the mayor said at the news conference that he still believes Gates should be removed, aides said he has no plans to pursue the chief’s ouster, at least publicly. Bradley has denied that there was an underground attempt to oust Gates, although mayoral sources consistently have said otherwise. It is not known if the private anti-Gates campaign will continue, but some sources doubt it.

“Everyone in the mayor’s office is running for cover” said one source familiar with the Bradley Administration’s strategy.

Another source said the mayor has been left little choice but to alter his strategy regarding Gates, and added that Bradley’s willingness to allow Ferraro to don the mantle of meditator was telling: “That Bradley would have agreed to let Ferraro bring them together when he knew that Ferraro was a Gates loyalist was an incredible admission on his part.”

Bradley spokesman Bill Chandler denied that Tuesday’s joint statement with Gates signaled a retreat by the mayor: “The mayor’s position regarding the chief and the Police Commission remains firm and unchanged.”

Some sources close to the mayor suggested that one motive behind Bradley’s withdrawal was a pending two-week tour of Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. The trip begins Friday and before then, a source said, Bradley needed “to clear the air.”

“If everybody is still screaming, how does (Bradley) get out of town and not look like he’s walking away from a disaster?” asked one Bradley Administration official.

Tuesday’s meeting was only the latest in a series of developments that drastically altered what had seemed a smooth-running attempt to force Gates to resign as head of the 8,300-officer department.

First, Bradley last week publicly demanded Gates’ resignation. Two days later, Bradley’s appointees on the Police Commission placed the chief on a 60-day leave of absence. On Friday, the council surprised Bradley by ordering the city attorney to settle any lawsuit filed by Gates as a result of the Police Commission action. And a Superior Court judge on Monday temporarily reinstated the chief, but delayed a decision on the legal challenge to the chief’s disciplining.

Against that backdrop, some of Bradley’s strongest supporters in the business community began last week to publicly--and, sources said, in private conversations with the mayor--question the mayor’s political strategy regarding Gates.

For instance, Richard Riordan, a prominent Los Angeles attorney and longtime Bradley stalwart, said in an interview that the mayor has “got to back off. . . . I think he cannot go ahead (with a plan to seek the chief’s removal). I think he would be just (putting) himself deeper and deeper into a hole.”

Such comments sent Bradley a strong signal.

“It became dangerous,” said one source. “ . . . He was hearing from people who disagreed with the manner in which he was dividing the city.”

Also, a Times Poll late last week found that 6 out of 10 Los Angeles residents believed that in calling for Gates to resign, the mayor had sought to further his political aspirations. The poll also found that Bradley’s approval rating had slipped somewhat.

Ferraro, who had voted with a council majority to effectively override Gates’ removal, said the first suggestion of a conciliatory meeting between the mayor and the police chief came Monday after he bumped into Deputy Mayor Fabiani in a hallway.

Ferraro and Fabiani had “detailed conversations” about a possible summit and compromises, a knowledgeable source said.