CALIFORNIA COMMENTARY : ‘I Intend to See This Through’ : A police commissioner at the center of controversy defends her own actions and says she will not resign.

The furor of the last two weeks over my alleged misconduct has been successfully used to divert attention from the legitimate issues raised by the Rodney King case. In response to my critics, let me say clearly that I am not dishonest and I did nothing improper in releasing legal opinions to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Further, I am not the issue.

However, the personal attack was, in my view, inevitable. I knew that when I stood up and confronted what I believed was wrong with the Los Angeles Police Department and the tone and philosophy of its chief, it was only a matter of time before that would be used to accuse me of being biased against Daryl Gates. But criticism of conduct and demands for accountability are not bias. Calling for a full and fair investigation, as demanded by the public, is not the same as prejudging what results should flow from such an investigation.

The allegations and the controversy over my role on the Police Commission have totally distorted my actions. While I have no hope of persuading political opportunists and those who believe in protecting the Police Department at all costs, I believe that the time has come to respond to these allegations--to place my side of this story before the reasonable and fair-minded and to comment on what I believe to be the motivations of those who are so relentlessly pursuing me.

The allegations against me focus on two issues: whether I acted improperly in releasing legal opinions to the SCLC, and whether, in a statement to a reporter, I denied having released those opinions. The answer to both of these allegations is no, but to understand this, a short chronology is necessary.

On April 4, the Police Commission placed the chief on a 60-day paid leave, based on legal advice from the city attorney’s office that the commission had the legal authority to take that action. The next day, Gates threatened to overturn this action with a lawsuit. The City Council and the city attorney proposed to settle this yet-to-be-filed litigation and to reinstate the chief. At the same time, the City Council denied the Police Commission separate counsel. Thereafter, the SCLC joined in a collective effort to challenge the purported settlement and to oppose the chief’s and City Council’s efforts to undermine authority that was granted to the Police Commission in the City Charter. At their request, I permitted the SCLC’s counsel to have access to the opinions the city attorney had written to the commission.

My rationale for doing this was twofold. First, it should be clear, these opinions did not contain any information about the chief that was confidential. Rather, they analyzed the legal basis, given by the city’s chief legal officer, for the commission’s authority to place the chief on paid administrative leave. Second, I believed it was important for these arguments to be placed before the court and, because the commission had no separate counsel, there was no other way at the time to provide the court with this information.

As the city attorney’s client, the commission had the prerogative to give copies of these memos to anyone it chose--any law student knows this. “Confidentiality” arises from the attorney-client privilege, which prohibits a lawyer from disclosing his advice. The client, not the lawyer, is the holder of the privilege and can waive the privilege at any time, for any reason. Further, the city attorney’s office has stated publicly on two occasions in the last week, while all this hue and cry raged, that I violated no law in releasing these opinions to the SCLC.

Finally, the object of the SCLC’s taxpayer’s intervener suit was not to “oust the chief of police,” but simply to establish the appropriate limits of legal authority between the Police Commission and the City Council. Therefore, the interests of the commission and the interveners were totally consistent.

The next wave of criticism of me rested on one statement I made to a television reporter.

The complete interview was at least five minutes long and these specific subjects were discussed just before the 10 to 15 seconds that were aired. In the context of my entire conversation with the reporter, it seems clear to me that what I denied was a charge by Gates’ attorney that I had written a letter in support of that SCLC’s position (which I did not) and that I had released “confidential” documents to the SCLC, which I did not, because the opinions were not confidential--they could be disclosed by any member of the Police Commission. It was never my intention to deny giving these opinions to the SCLC, only to refute the characterization of them as unauthorized disclosures. If I failed to make a clear distinction in what I was denying, then that is my responsibility, and I regret that.

My conduct has been mischaracterized in an effort to discredit me personally, to silence a vocal critic of police misconduct and, perhaps more important, to advance the personal and political agendas of others. This sound and fury have permitted certain members of the City Council to grab media attention and to continue to attempt to shield the chief and his department from inquiry in the aftermath of the King case.

It is also an attempt to derogate the authority of the Police Commission, as set forth in the City Charter, and thereby expand the authority of the City Council and informally amend the charter. This is old Chicago-style politics at its worst and a disgrace to this community. Such an end result would not only polarize us, it would give license to those tempted to engage in further such “aberrations” as the King beating.

The charge that the Police Commission now has a conflict of interest as a result of my actions is merely more of the same agenda--an end run around the lawful authority of the Police Commission to prevent it from supervising and managing the department.

If the effort to bring accountability to the Los Angeles Police Department fails, the citizens are the losers. If those who have demanded accountability from the department and the chief in the aftermath of the King case are silenced, what we are really saying in this city is that the police are beyond the will of the people and are not accountable.

In the last two months, I have put up with a million dollars worth of pressure and abuse in a non-paying position to prevent this result. I have examined my conduct and I am confident that there is no basis for me to resign. I intend to see this matter through until it is clear that the use of excessive force and the presence of institutionalized racism in our Police Department will not be tolerated in Los Angeles.