Foothill Chief Criticized by Police Official : Testimony: Panel was told that division’s commander should have been reassigned after the King beating.

The commander of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division should have been reassigned after his men beat Rodney G. King because he had shown earlier insensitivity to the problem of police abuse, a top Police Department official testified before the Christopher Commission.

Foothill Capt. Tim McBride should have been moved “one, because of this lack of sensitivity, and two, because . . . you need to send the message that if you allow things to fester in your division that result in these terrible incidents . . . you’re going to be found less than satisfactory in that position,” Assistant Chief David D. Dotson told the commission.

The panel’s unprecedented, three-month review of Police Department conduct was triggered by the March 3 beating of King in the Foothill Division, the patrol area that covers the northeastern San Fernando Valley. Four Foothill officers face assault charges in the case.

A transcript of Dotson’s June 19 testimony, released Thursday, indicates Police Chief Daryl F. Gates considered transferring McBride, but the captain survived a shake-up that moved lower-ranking officers and he still oversees the 400-officer division. A police spokesman said McBride would have no immediate comment.

Gates stripped Dotson of command of Internal Affairs, the division that investigates police misconduct, on Wednesday, after the commission made public Dotson’s testimony criticizing Gates.

According to the transcript, Dotson also criticized management at the Foothill Division for mishandling “several” incidents involving abuse. Dotson cited the case of one problem officer who was allowed to move from job to job without apparent punishment, despite repeated misconduct.

At one point, Dotson testified, the officer was assigned to desk duty “where he at least would have to come around the desk to assault somebody.”

Dotson also expressed frustration upon learning that the officer was finally assigned to the Foothill Jail, which he considered a dangerous place for someone prone to violence.

“Now there is no place that I know of, where, if you have a tendency toward abusing people, you can do it more easily than in jail,” Dotson said. “The management out there didn’t understand those kinds of sensitivities.”

“Was it lack of comprehension, or just unwillingness to carry out . . ., “ commission General Counsel John Spiegel began to ask.

“No, no. I don’t think it was ever unwillingness,” Dotson interjected. “I honestly believed it was a lack of sensitivity with these kinds of things.”

Retired Assistant Police Chief Jesse A. Brewer also told the commission that McBride should have received an “immediate reassignment” after the King incident, according to the transcripts released Thursday.

“I think that was the least that we should have done,” said Brewer, who added that he was surprised to learn that Gates allowed McBride to remain at the division’s helm.

A police spokesman, Sgt. Dennis Zine, said McBride would have no immediate comment because “the official position right now is, if any response is to be made, it will come from downtown.”

McBride’s name was deleted from transcripts, in which he is referred to only by his rank and position as “the captain III in charge of the Foothill operation.” Zine confirmed that is McBride’s title.

Brewer told the commission that he never learned directly why McBride survived the shake-up at the Foothill Division in the wake of the King beating.

But he said Dotson told him that Gates planned to move McBride “for certain,” until McBride and an unidentified person “prevailed upon the chief” not to carry out the transfer. Community activists intervened on McBride’s behalf, persuading Gates that the captain had widespread local support, police sources have said.

Brewer, the highest ranking black in the Police Department before he retired in February, told the commission he was disappointed that Capt. Paul Jefferson, a black captain now in charge of patrols at Foothill, was not put in charge of the whole division, as Gates initially had planned.

“I thought he would be an excellent replacement,” Brewer said of Jefferson. He said that Gates “said ‘fine, keep it under your hat, that’s probably what I will do.’

“But then the next thing I heard,” Brewer continued, “was that the captain at Foothill was going to stay and that Capt. Paul Jefferson was going to go into Foothill as a Captain I,” making him subordinate to McBride.

Brewer said he thought that “was inappropriate because if Capt. Jefferson could be expected to go in and make any changes, I didn’t feel he had the full authority to do that” working for McBride, “who has a reputation for not being an outstanding manager, from my knowledge.”

Dotson also questioned McBride’s management. “Rodney King wasn’t the first incident” under McBride’s management “that caused me concern, there’ve been several,” Dotson told the commission.

Then he described an unnamed officer sent to Foothill because he was involved in the 39th and Dalton case--in which Police Department officers were accused, and ultimately acquitted, of vandalizing a black family’s home. “We transferred him to Foothill to get him the heck away from South Los Angeles,” Dotson said.

“Now he got out there and about one of his first acts was to take off his Sam Brown belt and challenge somebody to fight out on the street, and eventually, head-butted him, whatever, with his forehead, broke the guy’s lip, and so on,” Dotson testified.

The officer was assigned desk duty, then asked to work with detectives because he was bored. After a few days as a detective, Dotson told the commission, the officer made news with an unlawful arrest.

“So we took him--god, don’t you guys understand? He can’t be out there. He can’t be trusted. We’re still adjudicating all these complaints. So they pulled him back in,” Dotson continued.

“Who’s ‘they’ now? The bureau?” Spiegel asked.

“The management at Foothill area,” Dotson replied. “. . . The management out there didn’t understand those kinds of sensitivities.”