Black Ministers Hail Gates at Meeting : Police: Leaders of a South-Central church group praise the chief and offer prayers for him at small gathering.

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates received praise and prayers Thursday from a group of black ministers and community activists who gathered at a Compton church to hail him as a man appointed by God “to be a chief.”

“We want you to know, Chief Daryl Gates, that we are praying for you,” said Bishop A. J. Carpenter of Los Angeles, one of several speakers who addressed Gates from the pulpit of God’s Temple of Deliverance Church.

Gates, who made time in his schedule to attend the unusual “news conference-prayer meeting,” nodded approvingly from a front pew surrounded by news reporters and camera crews.

“We are concerned about our chief,” added Carpenter, who is bishop of the Christian Bible Kingdom Holiness Deliverance Ministries in South-Central Los Angeles. “The reason he is chief is because God appointed him to be a chief.”

Four other speakers struck a similar tone during the sparsely attended meeting organized by Ezola Foster, president of a community group called Black-Americans for Family Values.

“We have come together today to offer prayers for Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Police Department and Chief Gates during this time of crisis,” Foster said. “Our purpose is to show there is another side to all this.”

That message contrasted sharply with one espoused by African-American community and civil rights groups that have called on Gates to step down in the aftermath of the Rodney G. King police beating case.

“Never, let me just say never, in my time as chief of police have I ever felt so much love and so much warmth from a group as I do feel today,” Gates said. “You are sending out an enormously powerful message and hopefully it will be heard by all.”

But at least two of the 20 people who attended the small church in the 12000 block of Willowbrook Avenue said they were startled by what they heard.

John Gayle, 25, said he wandered into the meeting after a relative told him it was called to criticize the use of excessive force by police officers.

“I’m running a fever just listening to this stuff,” said Gayles, who owns a tow truck service in the area. “I’m sick in my stomach, I really am.”

A few feet away, Tony Hill, 29, said he was straining to keep from jumping up and shouting: “This is disgusting!”

“I’m shocked,” Hill said. “It was a great big show.”

Carpenter later dismissed the dissidents, saying: “When Jesus threw his net over the boat, he didn’t just collect fish. He got some sharks and crabs too.”