Council Escalates Fight Over Lomax, Police Panel

With Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley remaining silent for a third consecutive day, the fight surrounding his embattled police commissioner, Melanie Lomax, intensified Friday as the City Council pressed its attack on Lomax and her panel’s efforts to remove Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

In a move to take the Gates matter out of the hands of the Police Commission, Councilman Hal Bernson asked City Atty. James K. Hahn to rule on whether the commission is biased and should be barred from deciding on Gates’ future.

“The Police Commission is not capable of further handling this,” Bernson said, singling out Lomax, who has been under fire since Wednesday for giving confidential city legal memos to a civil rights group seeking Gates’ ouster.

“I think it shows that she’s eager to assist in getting the chief . . . that she cannot be objective,” said Bernson, a Gates supporter. Bernson asked Hahn for an opinion before the council’s next meeting on Tuesday.

A Hahn spokesman said the office is reviewing the request. If the commission is disqualified, Gates’ fate could be decided by a five-member board of council members--none of whom have demanded that Gates resign.

The chief’s tenure became an issue in the wake of the March 3 police beating of motorist Rodney G. King. The Police Commission placed the chief on a 60-day leave, but that was reversed by a City Council action that is the subject of a court fight. The commission also has initiated an investigation of Gates and his department that could lead to disciplinary action by the commission.

The controversy that is buffeting Lomax arose Wednesday when it was disclosed in a court hearing on the Gates case that she had given two confidential city attorney memos to a civil rights group seeking the chief’s ouster. Gates’ attorneys and several council members have called for Lomax’s removal.

City Council President John Ferraro, who has called on Bradley to fire Lomax, said Friday that he will ask the new Ethics Commission to look into whether Lomax violated the city’s ethics code. The code bars city officials from disclosing confidential information for “pecuniary or personal gain,” Ferraro said, adding that Lomax’s action may have been taken for personal gain.

In addition, Councilman Joel Wachs made a motion to call Lomax before the council to answer questions about the leaked documents. “For the last month or so, she’s basically been a media star,” Wachs said. “Now she’s unavailable to comment.” The council is to consider the motion Tuesday.

Lomax has refused interviews since the controversy erupted, and her office said Friday that she would make no public comment until after Tuesday’s Police Commission meeting. An attorney for the commission, Hillel Chodos, has denied that his client did anything improper, and the assistant city attorney involved in the Gates case has said Lomax did not appear to have violated any laws.

There is no legal reason to disqualify Lomax or the Police Commission, Chodos said. “If strong feelings about Chief Gates disqualify (someone) it seems to me the council is at least as disqualified.”

While the council was turning up the heat at City Hall, Lomax received a strong show of support Friday from a coalition of African-American groups. Church, civil rights and community leaders charged that pro-Gates forces are using intimidation tactics to silence Lomax, the chief’s leading Police Commission critic in the aftermath of the King beating.

The Lomax controversy is a “smoked herring being dragged across the trail” to distract public attention from the issue of police brutality, said the Rev. Cecil Murray, a prominent inner-city religious leader.

Danny Bakewell of the Brotherhood Crusade said Lomax has unfairly become a target of pro-Gates forces because she is a black woman who has forcefully advocated change in the Police Department. “But it just will not work,” he said. “We will not allow our community to be intimidated.” The civil rights groups said they intend to pack the Police Commission’s meeting Tuesday to show support for Lomax and opposition to Gates.

Friday’s developments highlighted the difficulty Bradley faces in the Lomax dispute, the latest turn in a controversy that has rocked the city since the beating.

The mayor has not yet publicly responded to demands that he fire Lomax, a friend and longtime political supporter. Bradley aides refused any comment again Friday, as the mayor headed out of town for a weekend trip to mark his 50th wedding anniversary.

Bradley is under pressure from some sections of his inner circle to get Lomax to step aside, City Hall sources said. Police Commission President Daniel Garcia has indicated that he may resign because he is concerned that Lomax’s presence is undermining the credibility of the Police Commission, said one source close to the mayor’s office, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Garcia declined to comment, except to say, “I haven’t made up my mind what I should do, if anything, at the present time.”

He did, however, express concern that Lomax’s actions give Gates’ attorneys an avenue to challenge whether the Police Commission can give the chief a fair hearing in any future decisions. A fair and impartial hearing is a requirement of state law and local Civil Service rules. “It wouldn’t be frivolous (for Gates’ lawyers) to raise (the issue),” said Garcia, an attorney. “It gets their foot in the door.

Chodos said Lomax has not compromised the Police Commission’s legal standing. She released the confidential memos so they could be presented in court to show that the Police Commission relied on the city attorney’s advice when it placed Gates on leave, Chodos said.

Lomax gave the documents to the lawyer representing civil rights groups intervening in the case because, at that point, the Police Commission had no attorney, Chodos said. The city attorney had switched sides in the dispute and was representing only the City Council, he said.

Beyond the legal issues, Garcia said, “The tragedy is it (the Lomax dispute) has served to distract from the underlying, extremely important issue about police conduct that we must get to.”

One of Bradley’s strongest City Hall allies, Councilman Richard Alatorre, said he believes Lomax “is a bigger liability than she is an asset, at this juncture.”

He said he spoke with Bradley on Friday and believes that the mayor is “struggling. It’s a very difficult one.” Lomax not only has strong support in the African-American community, but “she is kind of like his adopted daughter,” Alatorre said. “It’s a longstanding relationship, not just an ordinary commissioner.”

Bakewell and other Lomax supporters said Friday that they were not distressed by Bradley’s silence, and interpreted it as support for Lomax.

Lomax’s lawyer said the “only information I have is she doesn’t want to step down. She doesn’t intend to step down. And nobody but her announced adversaries” have called for her to resign, he said.

Meanwhile, an attorney for the Police Protective League notified the Police Commission that the league is demanding that Gates be reinstated because the commission violated the Brown Act when it placed Gates on leave April 4.

The league alleges that the Police Commission violated the act twice in the last month, according to a letter written by league attorney Cecil Marr. The first violation occurred when the commission met secretly to discuss the chief’s fate before an April 4 meeting in which he was placed on a 60-day paid leave of absence, the letter said.

The commission met again secretly to decide how to respond to the City Council’s reinstatement of Gates, the letter alleges.

Police Commission members have acknowledged that the meetings occurred, but they say they were advised by the city attorney’s office that the sessions were legally irrelevant to their decisions about the Gates matter, which ultimately were announced in open sessions.

In another development Friday, Bradley nominated attorney Amelia K. Sherman for a seat on the Civil Service Commission left vacant after the council’s refusal to confirm Bradley’s first choice, attorney Larry Drasin. The council rejected Drasin on Wednesday in a move intended to signal to Bradley that the council will not tolerate his meddling with the city’s Civil Service system, particularly in the midst of the controversy over Gates’ tenure. Drasin’s appointment was seen as an attempt to stack the commission, which could ultimately decide Gates’ fate, against the chief.