Gates Formally Endorses Bernson in Council Runoff : Election: The police chief backs the embattled incumbent in a letter the campaign mailed to voters.

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates endorsed embattled City Councilman Hal Bernson for reelection Friday, saying he was “shocked at the attacks on Hal’s record” by challenger Julie Korenstein.

A Korenstein spokesman said the endorsement was improper and criticized Gates and Bernson for injecting politics into the Police Department at a time when it is under intense scrutiny in the wake of the videotaped beating of Rodney G. King by police officers.

Police Commissioner Stanley Sheinbaum said the chief’s action was inappropriate because as a civil servant he is “not permitted to engage in political activity.”

The Gates endorsement came in the form of a letter signed by the chief and mailed by Bernson’s campaign to several thousand voters Thursday night. A Bernson spokesman said the letter marked the first time the chief has formally endorsed a political candidate.

Gates could not be reached to confirm that Friday, but said in his letter, “I have never written a letter like this before.”

Bernson, a longtime Gates ally, has vocally opposed efforts to remove the chief from his job in the wake of the King beating. In the past, Gates has allowed candidates to reprint in their campaign brochures statements of praise from him that fell short of formal endorsements.

Gates’ endorsement of Bernson came less than three weeks before the June 4 runoff election between Bernson and Korenstein, a Los Angeles school board member. Korenstein forced Bernson into the runoff after a primary campaign during which she repeatedly attacked the 12-year incumbent for backing the mammoth Porter Ranch development north of Chatsworth.

The Gates letter served to underscore differences between Bernson, a conservative Republican, and Korenstein, a liberal Democrat, over whether the chief should have resigned in the aftermath of the King beating. Not long after the beating, Korenstein called for the chief to resign, but later said she opposed efforts to forcibly remove him from office.

Bernson said the endorsement letter was written after Gates approached him and “asked what he could do to help” the councilman. Bernson said the chief is “very concerned” about his election. In the letter, Gates said Bernson has “worked hard to keep San Fernando Valley neighborhoods safe” and noted his long support of the DARE anti-drug program and Neighborhood Watch activities in Bernson’s northwest San Fernando Valley council district.

Gates also took aim at a recent Korenstein campaign brochure that charged the number of crimes has risen 73% in the district since Bernson’s 1979 election.

“She is either deliberately misrepresenting the facts or simply doesn’t understand crime statistics,” said the chief, adding that so-called Part I crimes--10 categories ranging from murder to property crimes--increased only 2.6% between 1979 and 1986.

Korenstein campaign consultant Parke Skelton said her figures were correct and questioned why the chief did not count crimes committed in the district between 1986 and the present.

Bernson spokesman Greig Smith said the Gates letter was “a huge endorsement” in Bernson’s moderate-to-conservative district, which he said strongly backs Gates and the Police Department.

But Skelton said overdevelopment, not crime, is the main issue in the campaign and that the Gates letter will sway few voters.

Police Commissioner Sheinbaum said that Gates, as a civil servant, is prohibited from engaging in campaign activities but could cite no legal authority for such a ban.

Police Department spokesman Lt. Fred Nixon said Gates wrote the letter while off duty and as a private citizen, and that off-duty officers “are free to endorse whomever they want.”