Council Majority Backs Police Panel Reform Package : Commission: They seek full implementation of the Christopher report, including its call for a new chief. Former Chief Davis also urges Gates to step aside.

Crucial City Council support broadened and solidified Wednesday behind the full package of reforms proposed by the Christopher Commission to stem racism and brutality in the Los Angeles Police Department--including the panel’s recommendation that Chief Daryl F. Gates leave office.

Eight of 14 council members--including one of Gates’ most faithful supporters--said Wednesday that they back the far-reaching slate of proposals contained in the commission’s 228-page report.

Prior to the report’s release on Tuesday, a majority of the council had strongly backed Gates. But on Wednesday a clear majority agreed not only that Gates should step down but that the full report should be implemented.

The blue-ribbon Christopher Commission, ending an unprecedented 100-day probe into the LAPD prompted by the videotaped beating by four white officers of black motorist Rodney G. King, found that racism and excessive force are tolerated within the department. Gates had said that the problems rest with a small number of officers, and he has refused to resign.

But as the Christopher Commission’s reforms began to gain momentum, there were several other developments Wednesday:

* Gates’ predecessor called for him to quit. “The fat lady has sung,” said Republican state Sen. Ed Davis, who retired as chief in 1978.

* Gates, facing mounting pressure to resign, went on a counteroffensive and told a radio audience that he will retire on his own schedule.

* Debate continued on how the Christopher reforms can be implemented, and city officials acknowledged that it could take a year for the recommendations to wind their way through the political process.

* Just a day after being ordered by Mayor Tom Bradley to begin the search process for a new police chief, city officials said they may call hearings to ask the public what kind of chief the city wants.

* The Christopher Commission released hundreds of computer messages in which police officers used racist and sexist slurs to describe the people of Los Angeles. One example: “Batton down the hatches, several thousand Zulus approaching from the north.”

And the commission was scheduled today to release transcripts of its interviews with Gates and three of his current and former top aides.

Political Jockeying at City Hall

If the commission’s recommendations are to be successful, support must come from the fractious City Council. Some of the proposed reforms--such as City Charter revisions limiting the police chief to two five-year terms and placing the department under stronger civilian control--cannot work without approval from the City Council.

“I would say the ball is in their court . . . ,” commission Chairman Warren Christopher told The Times. “We await their call.”

Inside City Hall, alliances were shifting. Council member Nate Holden, a staunch supporter of the chief, called for the adoption of the entire package of Christopher reforms. Joy Picus, also a defender of the chief, said she favored adoption of the recommendations.

Behind the scenes, council members were assessing just how prominently they want to be associated with the reforms. The entire package will come before the council’s Public Safety Committee on Monday morning.

Some council members were privately developing tactical plans aimed at moving the reforms through the bureaucracy. The package still lacks an official sponsor, and some council members are more eager than others to lend their names to it.

Despite early enthusiasm for the recommendations, it could take a year or longer to put them in place, city officials said.

A key unknown factor is whether the Police Protective League, which represents rank-and-file officers, will support the plan, which includes provisions that toughen disciplinary procedures for the league’s members. Labor law requires the city to “meet and confer” with employee unions before changing their contracts. Many of the proposals, such as the disciplinary reforms, would alter the union’s contract with the city.

“This is not a Gates issue any more,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky. “It’s a labor relations issue.”

“It could take a couple of years,” said John Emerson, executive assistant to City Atty. James K. Hahn.

Implementation of the Christopher report would require several changes in the City Charter, which requires a vote of the people. It can be put on the ballot by the City Council or through the initiative process. The next regularly scheduled election is in June, 1992.

Gates Launches Counteroffensive

Gates took to the air waves Wednesday morning to defend himself and the department against the scathing findings of the Christopher Commission.

He lashed out at several of his chief deputies whose testimony to the commission about failures of LAPD management proved damning. “You would think that I would hear that statement from their mouths. . . ,” Gates said on a KABC radio talk show.

The chief said that while the racist and sexist messages found in police computers were “intolerable,” he suggested they were part of a “black humor” banter exchanged, in many cases, between minority officers.

Finally, the 64-year-old chief said that while he plans to retire someday from the office he has held 13 years, it will not be within the next month.

Gates turns 65 in August, and Mayor Bradley had that fact on his mind.

“I think Daryl Gates should make his announcement that he’s going to retire on a given date, August, when he becomes 65,” Bradley said at a City Hall news conference.

To that end, city personnel officials, directed by Bradley to launch a nationwide search for Gates’ replacement, are drawing up the criteria for the next chief.

City Personnel Department General Manager Jack Driscoll said he is considering holding public hearings to determine “the skills, qualities and abilities we want in a chief.” But he conceded that most potential candidates will want to wait to make sure there is, indeed, an opening. Driscoll said that even if Gates were to resign immediately, the search for a new chief could take nine months to a year.

How the Council Members Line Up

A Times survey on Wednesday showed that eight of the 14 council members support the entire package of proposals outlined in the Christopher Commission report. One group of supporters is headed by Councilman Mike Woo and includes council newcomers Rita Walters and Mark Ridley-Thomas--all allies of Bradley.

Woo has said he will spearhead an effort to push the proposals, but he has not announced a plan of action.

Councilman Richard Alatorre, as chairman of the Public Safety Committee that oversees the Police Department, will be a key player in any attempt to get the package through the council. He has said he plans to move quickly to evaluate the proposals in his committee and to hold public hearings. Alatorre is generally considered an ally of the Police Department and may be able to hammer out compromises that will be palatable to the police league.

Others who said they support the package are council members Marvin Braude, Picus, Yaroslavsky and Holden.

One council seat is open pending an Aug. 13 runoff. Both candidates for that seat, Mike Hernandez and Sharon Mee Yung Lowe, Wednesday said they fully support the commission report and the move to replace Gates.

Council members Hal Bernson, Joan Milke Flores and Joel Wachs, meanwhile, said they object to some elements of the package. Bernson thinks Gates should not be forced out and that no limit should be set on the number of years a chief may serve. Flores also said she was troubled by the suggested limitation on the chief’s tenure.

Council members Ernani Bernardi and Ruth Galanter have taken no position on the matter.

Council President John Ferraro also has largely reserved judgment on the recommendations, but he has objected to the call for Gates to step aside.

Ferraro said he spoke with Gates on Tuesday after the report was released, but he would not disclose the contents of the conversation. “There is a tendency of people to stay too long,” Ferraro said, but “out of good manners and respect, we should allow him to make his own decision. . . . The more we stir things up, the more resistant he’ll be.”

Debate Swirls on How to Replace Gates

If Gates left before the charter changes are adopted, the city would face a complex chore in replacing him because the new chief would have the same virtual lifetime appointment that Gates enjoys, said Emerson of the city attorney’s office.

Some City Council members are privately raising the possibility of hiring a new chief under the current City Charter, but with a special contract that would eliminate the Civil Service protections that have made Gates virtually immune to firing.

Such a contract might not withstand a court challenge, Emerson said. But he said there may be a way to locate a new chief and hire him on an interim basis.

Under the charter, an interim chief of police may be appointed for 120 days and reappointed for one additional 120-day term, Emerson said.

That scenario is not popular among council members. Said Alatorre, “I don’t want an interim chief. I don’t want a caretaker.”

Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani said the mayor would favor appointing an interim chief. “You wouldn’t want to hire a new chief under the outmoded City Charter,” Fabiani said.

Racist, Anti-Women Computer Messages

Political maneuvering at City Hall came as the commission released new volumes of damaging evidence: hundreds of computer messages exchanged between police officers and laced with racist and anti-women comments.

In the messages, police used racial epithets or names of animals to refer to suspects and residents and spoke of the use of force with apparent relish.

Among the samples released Wednesday:

“Just citing drunks and Koreans”

“Oh, give me a home, where the baseheads do roam, and the queers and the transients play . . . where never is heard, a civilized word, and (name omitted) beats prisoners all day . . . Hahaahahaha”

From the 1-million-plus pages of documents that the commission reviewed, the computer messages may have had the greatest, most eye-opening impact, members said. It was there that commission members saw the extent and breadth of hostility expressed by a number of police officers, and they were surprised to find little discipline ever followed the derogatory comments.

Richard Mosk, a private lawyer appointed to the commission by Gates, said the messages were “somewhat amazing.”

“One can attribute remarks to locker room talk--that would be your first thought,” he said. “But to actually type it out while you’re driving around, that is a much more conscious act. . . . Why would anybody use those machines for that kind of banter? What they said was horrible . . . it was deplorable.”

Barbara Kelley, a lawyer who headed the racism and bias section for the Christopher Commission, said that virtually every ethnic group, women and gays were subjects of the offensive messages. “White males may be the only ones who are spared from that kind of treatment,” Kelley said.

She said the panel will conduct a follow-up study to try to determine the number of police patrol car units that exchanged inflammatory messages.

Times staff writers Henry Weinstein, Tracy Wood and Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this story.