Officials Dismiss Gates Plan to Head 2 Reform Panels

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates’ proposal to personally control implementation of Christopher Commission recommendations was all but dismissed Thursday by the panel’s leaders, who appear to have their own ideas about how to put the pending report into action.

Warren Christopher, who heads the panel formed after Rodney G. King’s beating to conduct a broad investigation of the LAPD, issued a terse statement that the commission did not endorse Gates’ plan to appoint himself in charge of the final report’s implementation.

“One of the subjects that the report will address,” Christopher stated, “is possible techniques for the implementation of the commission’s recommendations.”

John Arguelles, a Gates appointee to the panel who serves as vice president, said he doubts “very much” that the commission would agree that the chief should be ultimately responsible for enacting its work.

“It is unlikely that we are going to make such a recommendation,” said Arguelles, the commission’s vice president and a former California Supreme Court justice.

Gates this week circulated among city officials a five-page outline of how he intends to implement the Christopher Commission report, and the proposal has ignited a City Hall debate over how to enact recommendations that are not even scheduled to be released for two more weeks.

Mayor Tom Bradley and other Gates political adversaries are incensed by what they view as a power grab, and even the chief’s supporters on the City Council question the timing--if not the wisdom--of his proposal.

Under his proposal, Gates would serve as chairman of two small committees composed of city and community leaders. The committees would review the Christopher Commission recommendations and implement those they deemed appropriate over an 18-month period.

The mayor on Wednesday had termed it “illogical” for Gates to assume any authority over Christopher Commission follow-up--a charge that on Thursday the chief sharply rebuked.

“I don’t know what is logical or illogical as far as the mayor is concerned,” Gates said. “I simply wanted a process in place ready to go. That’s good management.”

He added, tartly: “I realize there are some in the city that don’t understand management, that truly don’t understand good management.”

The chief suggested that his City Hall detractors are the ones who are engineering a power play to commandeer the Christopher Commission’s recommendations.

“I think egos have gotten involved,” he said. “Not mine. Not mine at all.”

Gates defended his idea to place himself at the helm over any changes within the LAPD, which has come under criticism since a group of police officers were captured on videotape beating and kicking King during an arrest March 3 in the San Fernando Valley.

“Is it not going to be the Police Department” that is reviewed? Gates asked. “And am I not the chief of police? That’s what it’s all about. I don’t have to be the chairman (of the implementation plan). The chairman does a lot of work. I’d rather not be the chairman. But I just thought that I ought to take the lead.

“I mean, I may not like all the recommendations. I may oppose some of the recommendations.”

City Council President John Ferraro said the feud between Gates and Bradley recalls an earlier public disagreement that erupted after the King beating, in which Bradley called upon Gates to resign and the chief refused to budge.

Ferraro eventually forged an April truce between the two city leaders--a peace he now worries may be breaking.

“It had been pretty calm until the letter that Daryl wrote” appointing himself as chairman of the implementation program, the council president said.

Like other traditional supporters of Gates, Ferraro said he believes that the chief is moving too fast and too cavalierly in issuing his own implementation program.

“You’ve got to plan ahead but by the same token, a subject as sensitive as this, we have to wait and see what the report says and see how we implement it,” he said.

Likewise, Councilwoman Joy Picus, one of Gates’ staunchest backers at City Hall, said: “I find it hard to design an implementation scheme when you don’t know what the conclusions of the Christopher Commission are.”

She added: “I think essentially what he’s trying to do is seize the initiative in an aggressive fashion. You’ve got to give him credit for that.”

Melanie Lomax, acting president of the Police Commission that oversees the LAPD, was not as kind. She said the mayor, the council and the Police Commission are the appropriate bodies to implement the changes, and she dismissed Gates’ plan as “grossly premature and monumentally presumptuous.”

“Most people in the community view Daryl Gates as the primary problem as opposed to the solution,” she added. “Therefore, if he is the primary mover-and-shaker behind the implementation of the Christopher Commission, it will have widespread credibility problems in terms of healing the wounds in this community.”

Arguelles, the vice president of the Christopher Commission, said that, despite his skepticism about the merits of Gates’ proposal, there were positive signals contained in the chief’s implementation outline. Arguelles depicted Gates’ proposal as a well-intended--albeit “slightly premature”--attempt to take the commission’s recommendations seriously “whether he likes them or not.”

“I’m of the opinion,” Arguelles said, “that we will have to have his knowledge and cooperation in every step of the implementation regardless of what capacity he serves.”

Christopher, a prominent Los Angeles lawyer who served as a deputy secretary of state under President Carter, declined to elaborate on his brief statement about the Gates proposal, saying only that “others are speaking out on it quite eloquently.”

Christopher had proposed previously that the commission remain intact through the implementation of its recommendations, which will be based on public hearings and private testimony and review of police documents and procedures.

Bradley announced the formation of the Christopher Commission on April 1, at the height of the public furor over the King beating, and charged it with the responsibility of conducting a top-to-bottom evaluation of the LAPD, focusing on excessive use of force by police against citizens.

Later, the panel merged with a different group that had been created by Gates. Arguelles had been chairman of the Gates group and assumed the vice presidency of the combined commission. At the time, many community activists strongly criticized the merger, saying Arguelles and two other Gates appointees were there only to press the chief’s own agenda.

Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said she was surprised at Arguelles’ polite but lukewarm response to Gates’ proposal for how to implement the panel’s recommendation.

“I’m pleasantly surprised,” she said. “I am happy he is showing this kind of independence.”

Times staff writer Andrea Ford contributed to this story.