Petition to Put Gates Back on Leave Is Rejected : Courts: The action allows the chief to stay on the job until his suit against the Police Commission is heard on April 25.

A state Court of Appeal on Tuesday denied a petition by the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners to place Police Chief Daryl F. Gates back on paid leave, marking another victory for the embattled chief as he attempts to preserve his job and the image of his department.

In denying the request, the panel of three judges allowed a complicated political battle to remain as it stands and Gates to stay at his job at least until April 25, when a lawsuit he has filed against the Police Commission will be heard by Superior Court Judge Ronald M. Sohigian.

The commission placed Gates on a paid 60-day leave April 4 in the wake of the Rodney G. King beating. But the defiant chief returned to work the following week after winning a court order that temporarily barred the commission from placing him on leave. The chief also returned to work with City Council assurances that it would settle his case out of court, allowing him to return to work.

On Tuesday, as he entered his first Police Commission meeting since his forced leave, a sunburned and smiling Gates told reporters, “I’m pleased,” and praised the judges who ruled in his favor as “very fine people, very thoughtful people.”

Asked whether he felt vindicated, Gates said: “This is just one step. What ought to happen is that we resolve this legal mumbo jumbo and go on and do our jobs.”

His attorneys, Jay Grodin and Harry G. Melkonian, said they will try to implement the City Council’s settlement of their lawsuit when they return to court April 25. If that fails, Grodin said, they will pursue the lawsuit “and the city can expect substantial monetary damages.”

Police Commission President Daniel P. Garcia said the board would have to “decide among ourselves what, if anything, to do” about Tuesday’s ruling. He and Commissioner Melanie E. Lomax noted that the court did not bar them from filing another petition after the April 25 hearing.

In taking Gates’ case to a higher court, the commissioners had hoped to clarify whether they are authorized by the City Charter to manage and control the Police Department, and whether the City Council acted out of turn when it voted to settle Gates’ lawsuit.

“I still think that there’s a serious question about the separation of powers and that the Court of Appeal should review it,” Lomax said Tuesday.

A similar petition filed by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference also was denied Tuesday by the Court of Appeal, which called the request premature.

Although the March 3 King incident was not on the commission’s agenda Tuesday, it nonetheless overshadowed even routine business and was addressed by five out of seven public speakers, including U.S. Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton), who said he had been shamed during a recent tour of South Africa when he was questioned during apartheid discussions.

“Everywhere I went, I was faced with the question of Rodney King,” said Dymally, who called on Gates to resign.

Another public speaker, community activist Mary Henry, presented the commission with copies of what appeared to be a Ku Klux Klan recruitment letter. Henry said the letters were distributed at 10 Los Angeles Police Department stations last week.

“I hope the commission will take some steps to inform officers that this isn’t what they’re out there for,” Henry said.

Lomax said she, too, had received a copy of the letter from an anonymous black police officer, and she called on Gates to investigate the matter as well as make it “absolutely clear this activity will be repudiated in the strongest possible terms.”

Gates said he knew nothing about the alleged KKK recruitment.

Tuesday’s meeting was the first attended by newly appointed Commissioner Stanley K. Sheinbaum.

In the San Fernando Valley, meanwhile, a group of Latino community leaders announced their support of a campaign to recall Mayor Tom Bradley, citing longstanding grievances against the mayor as well as his recent handling of the King incident.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Julian Nava, representing a loose network of about 100 professionals and community groups, said during a news conference at his Northridge home that Latino leaders have long felt that Bradley is insensitive to their concerns and that he has never done enough to ensure adequate Latino political representation in city government.

Nava, who also served on the school board for 12 years, and Raul Nunez, president of the Los Angeles County Chicano Employees Assn., said Latino leaders have complained for years about excessive force used by police. But they said their grievances were ignored while Gates and the Police Department received laudatory performance evaluations.

“The Chicano community has experienced brutality at the hands of the police, but if Daryl Gates is going to be condemned for a lack of leadership, Bradley should be condemned as well,” Nunez said.

“We have known about these kinds of incidents going on for years, and we have brought them to the attention of the mayor, but not once has the mayor or the Police Commission spoken out in protest.”

Also on Tuesday, a panel formed to examine the Los Angeles Police Department because of the King beating began taking closed-door testimony from Hubert Williams, president of the Washington-based Police Foundation, a law enforcement research group.

Williams said he spent three hours answering questions from members of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department, informally named the Christopher Commission after its chairman, Warren Christopher, a former deputy secretary of state.

“They sort of looked at me as bringing a national perspective,” said Williams, a former chief of the Newark, N.J., Police Department. “They wanted a backdrop for what they are trying to do.”

He said the panel’s main concern seemed to be procedures and policies at other police departments.

Times staff writers Amy Louise Kazmin and Andrea Ford contributed to this story.