Head of Police Panel Resigns : Politics: Garcia says City Council has damaged the commission by its actions in the dispute over Gates.

Los Angeles Police Commission President Dan Garcia resigned Tuesday, saying that the integrity of the civilian panel has been “severely damaged” by an ongoing dispute with the City Council over Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

Garcia, a lawyer and lobbyist with close political ties to Mayor Tom Bradley, attacked the council for “interjecting” itself in Police Commission business by effectively reinstating Gates last month after the commission placed him on leave. He also criticized the council for withholding funds for a commission investigation of Los Angeles Police Department management in the aftermath of the police beating of Rodney G. King.

“It’s been a jurisdictional fight,” Garcia said, “a nasty, internal, raw fight about power. . . . I just don’t see how the commission can perform its responsibilities in the current environment.”

City Council members suggested that Garcia was stepping down because of his personal animosity and policy disagreements with Commissioner Melanie Lomax. They defended their actions in the Gates dispute.

Garcia’s resignation brought exclamations of dismay from council members who saw him as a stabilizing force on the five-member panel, which is intended to set policy and provide civilian oversight of the 8,300-officer Police Department.

Just hours after Garcia stepped down, the council voted unanimously to ask Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner to investigate whether the Police Commission violated the California Open Meetings Act by holding a secret session last month before voting to put Gates on a 60-day paid leave.

And in a rebuff to Lomax, now the acting president of the commission, the council turned down her offer to appear before the council today to explain why she gave legal memos to a civil rights group seeking Gates’ ouster. Lomax’s adversaries have said she leaked confidential documents; she insists that the written legal advice to the commission was not secret.

Garcia refused to attack Lomax on Tuesday, but he has said in recent days that her action in sharing the documents has called into question the impartiality of the commission in the Gates matter.

A popular figure around City Hall, Garcia was appointed to the Police Commission last fall in what was described then as a move by Bradley to toughen the commission’s oversight of the department. The commission had come to be seen in some quarters as little more than a rubber stamp for Police Department management.

After controversy arose over the King beating, City Hall sources had described for The Times a strategy for ousting Gates that relied heavily on Police Commission pressure. It was not known what impact, if any, Garcia’s departure would have on any effort to remove Gates. He had made few public statements about Gates since the March 3 beating.

Garcia, a major fund-raiser for Bradley’s political campaigns, had served for nearly a decade on the city’s Planning Commission, where he earned a reputation as a tough but fair administrator.

“It’s a real blow for Dan Garcia to leave,” said Councilman Michael Woo, the only council member to call for Gates’ resignation. “Dan Garcia commands a very high level of respect from all the members of the council.”

Woo said the council is to blame for his departure because it “pulled the rug out from under the concept of civilian oversight of the LAPD.”

Bradley said Tuesday at a news conference that Garcia had been indicating his desire to quit since the council first challenged the commission’s authority last month. Bradley said he met with Garcia Tuesday morning and “tried to talk him out of it, but his mind was made up.”

Gates, too, said Tuesday that he regrets Garcia’s departure: “I’m sorry he left the department. I think he added a dimension of strength and stability and I’m sorry to see him leave.”

Asked whether he could work with Lomax, Gates responded obliquely, “I can work with anyone who acts in good faith.”

Garcia somberly explained his decision at a Biltmore Hotel news conference early Tuesday. He told reporters that he does not believe a pending Superior Court case will resolve the question of whether the council or the commission has ultimate authority over the Police Department. He said an amendment to the City Charter may be necessary.

Garcia said: “Until the rules of the game with respect to whether there is civilian oversight and control and management of this department are straightened out, it’s going to be very difficult for anybody to serve in a meaningful capacity.”

After the commission furloughed Gates for 60 days, the council invoked its powers to settle lawsuits and ordered the city attorney to arrange a settlement with the chief that would end his anticipated legal challenge to the commission action by returning him to duty. Superior Court hearings related to the settlement continued Tuesday without resolution.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said Tuesday that Garcia told him on Monday that “he will not stay on that commission as long as she is there. He doesn’t want to have his reputation tainted by what’s going on in that commission.”

Garcia’s departure, Yaroslavsky said, seriously impairs the commission.

“Now one of its sane voices is gone.”

Yaroslavsky said Lomax should resign instead of Garcia, a sentiment that was echoed by many council members.

“He is a very decent and very objective person,” said Councilman Richard Alatorre. “She has a real credibility problem and I think it’s affecting the credibility of the commission.”

Garcia denied assertions that a dispute with Lomax forced his decision.

“Anybody who perceives me to be resigning simply because of what Melanie Lomax did or did not do is not on-target,” Garcia said. “I am not purporting to be her judge or jury.”

At a commission meeting Tuesday, Lomax said Garcia’s resignation is “not a welcome act. Obviously, it is a personal point of conscience . . . but I want to assure you that we have serious work to do and we will continue to do our work.”

Lomax, Gates and the two other remaining police commissioners met in executive session after the public meeting, but Gates, appearing irritated, left early. Commissioner Stanley Sheinbaum said later that Gates “was upset by the public attacks” that had occurred in a public hearing.

One speaker, 22-year-old Stephan De Leon, had called Gates “a piece of white trash that needed to be thrown out with the rest of the garbage.”

Meanwhile, the commission released a complete set of legal memos containing advice from the city attorney’s office about whether the commission could discipline Gates.

The commission made the documents public after the city attorney’s office complained during Tuesday’s court hearing that Lomax’s release of just two of the memos provided an incomplete picture of the office’s position.

Commissioners have said the city attorney advised them that they could legally place Gates on leave. The newly disclosed documents show that the city attorney also warned commission members that the council could reverse their action if Gates filed a lawsuit.

“The City Council controls litigation,” wrote Senior Assistant City Atty. Fred Merkin in a memo dated April 4, the day the commission voted to place Gates on leave. Merkin also predicted that Gates would seek a temporary restraining order and said there was a good chance the chief would win.

The debate over the legal memos was part of a four-hour hearing in which Judge Ronald M. Sohigian grilled lawyers for all sides--Gates, the City Council, the Police Commission and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, --over whether the SCLC, as a taxpayers group, should be permitted to intervene in the case.

Sohigian ordered the attorneys back to court on Thursday for what he said may be the final hearing in the case. In the meantime, an order remains in effect that allows Gates to stay on the job until the matter is resolved in court.

Also Tuesday, two attorneys asked the Police Commission to stop a Police Department practice that they say has allowed police dogs to attack almost 900 people during the last three years--most of them African-Americans or Latinos.

“The use of these dogs is related to race,” said attorney Robert Mann of the Police Misconduct Lawyer Referral Service. Mann said the Police Department’s own statistics show a great disparity between the use of dogs in white and black neighborhoods, even when the communities have similar incidences of the crimes for which police dogs are traditionally used.

Lomax said she was unaware of the problem and instructed the attorneys to give a copy of their findings to the Police Department for study. Gates had no comment.

Times staff writers Charisse Jones and Sheryl Stolberg contributed to this report.