Testimony of Los Angeles Police Officials

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and three former and current aides testified under oath last month before the Christopher Commission. Their testimony provides an extraordinary glimpse into the attitudes and policies of the LAPD’s leadership on issues ranging from excessive force to officer discipline. Following are excerpts of transcripts released Thursday:

POLICE CHIEF DARYL F. GATES--TESTIFIED JUNE 14, 1991

Department’s auditing of officers’ computer communications:

Obviously, we’ve done a poor job in auditing that in the past, and I think you probably know why. It was very labor-intensive, and so while we thought we were getting an audit, we were not because everyone was throwing up their hands saying we just don’t have time to do that.

The number of those improper comments are not that great for it to show up like that, like an atomic bomb . . . it didn’t happen that often in the scheme of all of the conversations carried on the MDTs (mobile digital terminals).

On whether computer messages reflect a typical attitude by police:

I can’t tell until we look at individuals. All of you’ve been in locker rooms, all of you have, I suspect most of you have been in the service and been in situations where people talk and things, comments are brought up that are shocking and yet you look at the individual and you say, “I can’t believe he said that or she said that,” and so I don’t know. All I can tell you that is they are deeply offensive, disappointing to me, very disappointing, and I don’t know what they are reflective of. Police officers work in the garbage pail all the time, you know. They are constantly working in a very, very difficult arena . . . and some get very cynical, some get very hard, some of them are frightened, some of them are stressed.

On use of so-called street justice after police chases:

I can’t say that categorically that that does not exist because almost all of our surveys show that there is some of that that does exist. I can say that in my judgment that is not a being held by the vast majority of police officers. I think they understand what their position is, certainly I’ve preached . . . their responsibility (is) to live by the law for all the years that I’ve been chief. . . . They may not like what the courts do, they may not like what the Legislature does but they must have a reverence for the law.

Tools to deal with officers who repeatedly use excess force:

We can insist, and do insist, that they be tested by not only our own behavioral science but by the city’s psychiatrist and we often do that. We can also take them out of the field, and we’ve done that. That always is an issue that is challenged by the labor union. . . . You get to the point, we have about 300 light-duty officers right now. That is a tremendous drain on our resources and we get to a point where we have to find jobs for them or pension them off.

The system of discipline:

I think it has served the department and the people of the city of Los Angeles very, very well. I think it’s perceived--while if you ask police officers they will tell you that it’s too tough and that we discipline everybody for everything--I think that the record shows that it has worked extremely well in terms of being an administrative justice system that is protective of the people, protective of the officers and avoids political interference with the running of the Police Department.

Police Commission’s role in the discipline process:

The Police Commission ought to be involved in the oversight of the department in every capacity, they are indeed the head of the department despite what you read in the newspapers, despite what some of the current commissioners are saying, they are the head of the department and they have a responsibility. . . . They have to operate within the law, however, and not be a runaway as they presently are, some of them.

On the rising cost of litigation against police:

The system does not work well, the city attorney does not run a modern law office, it is badly staffed and the equipment is archaic, poorly managed, poorly organized.

On a proposal to equip police cars with video cameras:

I think it’s got a lot of merit. We’re trying the technology now. It’s one of those things that may solve a lot of problems. One of the things we have found is that we are better off if we have news cameras out there looking at what we are doing. Very often, they tell a story we would not be able to tell.

Women on the force:

When we decided to hire women . . . we had to also decide that there were going to be (inaudible) people coming into the department with, ah, physical limitations, in terms of strength, height and all of those kinds of things. And there were many of us, some of us very, very opposed to reducing any of those standards because our belief, height in particular, our belief that height was necessary to have the leverage to do the things you needed to control individuals. But then we went into the hiring of women, and I’ll just tell you quite frankly, and I tell you from a guy who probably was one of the most opposed to expanding the role of women in policing, and I’ll tell you, I think that they have done a magnificent job.

Recruiting gays and lesbians:

I’ve said I don’t think that the lifestyle or sexual orientation has anything to do with being a police officer and I’m not interested in going out and recruiting heterosexuals and I’m not interested in recruiting homosexuals, I’m not interested in recruiting anyone on the basis of their religious preference or lifestyle preference or their sexual preference. I’m looking to recruit good people who are the proper character and mental balance and all the other attributes necessary to be a good police officer. . . .

I will not allow harassment, we’ve had the problem of harassment of women in the department, and if gays think they’ve had a tough time, well, let me tell you, women in the Los Angeles Police Department have a real tough time right from the very beginning.

On his department:

I’ve always referred to us as an aggressive Police Department in pursuing the objective of the department, a reduction of crime and dealing with crime and being a hard-working Police Department. We are indeed the hardest-working Police Department in the country. You look at the attitude of a Los Angeles police officer versus the attitude of a New York police officer and you’ll find an entirely different attitude. . . .New York has too many police officers. They sit on their butts and they don’t do anything.

ASSISTANT CHIEF JESSE A. BREWER, RETIRED--TESTIFIED JUNE 19, 1991

On Gates’ supervision of assistants:

We are almost autonomous. . . . The chief is very, very busy, . . . so in a lot of cases we are unable to conduct our scheduled meetings. . . I would say frequently, they are canceled. . . . (It was) very, very difficult to get in to see the chief.

Rating the chief’s leadership:

I would say that, let me be very clear here: Chief Gates has been very good to me. . . . He saw fit to promote me to assistant chief. . . . He has done, I’d say, overall, a good job. . . . I would not give him a good grade in his handling of discipline. . . . I would probably give him a D. I think I would be generous in giving him a D in discipline. . . . That’s correct, yeah. I thought the chief was very light in discipline. . . . I thought that those instances where citizens were the victim of abuse of any kind, I thought were the ones that should have received more severe penalties. . . .

I thought (commanders) should be held more accountable, not only for their own misconduct, but also for their subordinates who reported directly to them. I did not see that accountability being held. . . . I’d say in most cases, where command and staff people were involved, that the discipline was usually light, if any, and in some cases I think the people in the department saw a double standard.

They have grumbled to me personally that there was a double standard, because when a command or staff officer was involved in misconduct, the penalty was usually light or consisted of a paper penalty at the most. Whereas if a subordinate person, rank and file, was guilty of the same misconduct, then they would receive a much greater and more severe penalty.

Gates’ strengths and weaknesses:

The chief, I think he’s a good administrator, he has a keen intellect, he’s very sharp, he knows how to handle the political Establishment well. He does a good job of being out front for the department when it came to interacting with the political Establishment. He’s been innovative and he’s developed some very progressive ideas.

I think the chief needs to pay more attention to the internal operations of the department. I think he can provide a lot more direction, a lot more leadership.

On Assistant Chief Robert Vernon:

I think Robert Vernon is back in the ‘50s. I think Robert Vernon is a very, very conservative person. I think he is devious. I think he has his own agenda. I think he promotes people that he thinks or have similar beliefs. . . . He’s the head of the God Squad, as we refer to it. The way to get ahead, it’s commonly known that the way you get ahead as far as Vernon is concerned is to become aligned either with his church or to profess that you are born again.

On the chief’s public statements:

The staff--the three assistant chiefs--. . . would commiserate some times on some of the things that he would say publicly which we felt were embarrassing and we felt made our job much more difficult in our interaction with the community and also with the political Establishment. . . . I was especially embarrassed about it because some of the statements he made . . . regarding the blacks are not normal with regards, with respect to discussion on the chokehold . . . and so I indicated to the reporter that the chief should apologize for it.

On who runs the department:

I would say that Chief Vernon tries to run the department. He gets into my business, he gets into Chief Dotson’s business and we always have to say, you know, “Mind your own business, Bob. This is my responsibility and you stay out of it.”

. . . As far as his running the department, he tries and he tries to give that impression, I think to his people. . . . I think there is a perception that he is the most powerful because he usually succeeds in getting his members of his God Squad promoted and good assignments.

Leaders’ attitudes toward women in the department:

Chief Vernon said to me in a very informal setting that he thought women should stay in the home. . . . (Former Chief Ed) Davis said: “When the L.A. Rams hire . . . women tackles, then I’ll put women in police cars.”

On whether a code of silence exists:

That may be the right way to term it in that there is a reluctance on the part of police officers to complain about misconduct on the part of their partners when they see it, when they observe it.

On excessive force:

I think more attention needs to be paid to these people that we know are ones who constantly get into trouble. It appears we have a large number . . . of people who have established a reputation for generating complaints and we know that when you get one complaint, there are probably three or four instances where the same thing has occurred, but no complaint has been lodged.

ASSISTANT CHIEF DAVID D. DOTSON--TESTIFIED JUNE 14, 1991

Leadership of the LAPD:

I hold the chief of police in very high esteem personally, he is a very good man, and he has been very nice to me, and I may say things here today that are not necessarily complimentary of his management of the department, and that will be very difficult for me to do, because I hold him in such high esteem, but this is a rare opportunity, I believe, to have some influence on the future of the department and the city, and so I’m gonna suck up my courage and try to, and give you my best estimate of whatever it is that you wish to hear.

Essentially, in the last 13 years in the Los Angeles Police Department, with a couple of very notable exceptions, we have not had, in my opinion, at the top, very effective leadership. . . . The two exceptions are the way that this Police Department addressed the responsibilities in the 1984 Olympics . . . The second exception is . . . the implementation . . . of the DARE program. And the reason I believe they were very successful . . . was because it was very clear what our objectives were to be.

Let me tell you that, in my judgment, we do not have that clarity of mission currently in our general operations in the Los Angeles Police Department. We have a big policy manual full of high-sounding statements of purpose . . . but that stays in the policy manual.

Our leadership, and that includes me, have not recognized a lot of the changes that have occurred in our society.

Need for new leadership:

It’s very difficult for me to say that, but that’s exactly what I believe. . . . I’ve been arguing for tenure limits throughout the department for years and years and years. . . . I believe that the system of evaluations that occurs ought to have some teeth in it. That the chief should not write his own evaluation and the (Police) Commission adopt it. The commission has to be active enough . . . to be qualified . . . to do his evaluations each year, and those evaluations ought to mean something . . . in the City Council when they review those evaluations.

The adequacy of discipline:

I believe that . . . the officers are held accountable and I believe that it is arguable whether the discipline is adequate in excessive force, improper tactics, and discourtesy . . . discrimination and so on. I think it is. . . . When we get to the area of adjudicating excessive force and those kinds of complaints, we’re very understanding of the police officer’s actions in that regard and, therefore, we probably tend to be so understanding that we think the minimum penalty is adequate because that’s what we expect of them, to be very aggressive, to be very firm, to not take any guff, to do all those kinds of things.

On department management:

In my judgment, we do a very poor job of management and supervisory accountability.

The most recent incident in Foothill (the King beating) . . . and a whole lot of others in a lot of other divisions, supervisors have been present who absolutely abandoned all sorts of . . . responsibility in my judgment. . . . Lieutenants and captains who were involved in the planning for these things did an awful job in ensuring that these operations were carried out appropriately . . . Let me tell you that none of those people, with rare exception, have been disciplined. And, in fact, I’m not even sure they’ve been counseled in many of these incidents.

More on Gates:

I told you that Daryl Gates is a very nice man. He is a very nice man. I love him! He and I get along just great. But he doesn’t hold me accountable either. I screw things up, and the worst he can do is get a pained expression on his face. . . . and that’s too bad, because he’s got to do more than that. I’m not gonna talk about anybody’s else’s transgressions, but there are a whole lot of them that I think need to be addressed, and he doesn’t address them.

We really suffered from lack of contact with our boss, or I did anyway.

On the chief’s statements:

These public comments at least have taken two different forms in my mind. . . . The first one I’ll deal with is the chief’s, in my judgment, propensity for name-calling. . . . He has referred to a variety of people with certain characterizations, whether they be drunk Salvadorans or whether they be cowardly low SOBs, or whatever. Now it’s not that I disagree with his characterizations, but what it does is, it sends a message that there are classes of people that you may say things about and that infers, in my mind, that you may treat them a little bit differently than you might other people.

Gates and assistants:

Before (the King beating), there are regularly scheduled staff meetings. They’re very frequently canceled. . . . Assistant chiefs meetings were canceled almost always. . . . The character of the meetings was not conducive in my judgment to the very good exchange between the assistant chiefs and the chief. . . . We’ll be in there in a meeting, in a very intense discussion, and the intercom buzzer will ring, away he goes for five minutes, 10 minutes.

Computer messages:

Well, first of all, we’ve talked about, how could we have let this system deteriorate to the degree that people can use it like that without apparent fear of ever being found out, no matter what they say. . . . The messages are not the problem, I guess. The problem is much deeper that it underlies with the whole organization of the Los Angeles Police Department. The messages reflect attitudes.

ASSISTANT CHIEF ROBERT L. VERNON--TESTIFIED JUNE 14, 1991

Reaction to computer messages showing racist, sexist remarks:

I was shocked, not so much (by) the content of the talk. I think that unfortunately, the Police Department does mirror our culture. I think all of our culture, whether we like to admit it or not, has a lot of this kind of thinking and improper communication, but it’s not done on a (computer). That shocked me, because they know those MDTs--we’ve told ‘em over and over again . . . that information is captured. It’s on printouts. Those can be looked at. And I think somebody’s pretty stupid. . . .

To have someone say that to one another in a locker room or something, that’s not the way I talk, but I know that’s the way that quite often men and women talk, especially in stressful situations, that’s one of the ways of releasing stress.

I talk about things as being wrong or right. I don’t think that’s being religious. I think we can agree on some basic morality. I think it’s wrong to use excessive force and I think we ought to say that.

Racism in the LAPD:

Is there any racism in LAPD? Of course. Is there less racism today than when I joined in ‘54? Absolutely. We’re making progress. Have we got there yet, to the ideal? No. Will we ever get there completely? No. But, we won’t get closer if we don’t reach. That’s what I’m telling my people. When I came on to the department I couldn’t work with a black man. If I asked to, they wouldn’t let me work in the same car with a black man. That was 1954. That was during, you know, my lifetime. That happened in this city. And so has the LAPD changed in the last 37 years I’ve been on? You bet it’s changed. Is it getting better? Well, it was.

I frankly think we took a dip. I think we’ve hired too many people too quickly. When I came on the job, I had training officers who had eight and 10 years on the job. You don’t really learn this job for about 3 or 4 years, you know. You can see that on an officer’s learning curve. . . . We have the blind leading the blind, in some cases.

On police use of force:

When people are running, when you finally catch up with them, they are fighting you. Unfortunately, force has to be used. As you all know, if you’ve read the papers at all, I’m a religious man. I don’t like this use-of-force thing. But I’ll tell you with 37 years of law enforcement, force is always going to be necessary in police work. It’s just a reality. The only question is, is it going to be reasonable? And that’s where we get into trouble because it’s difficult to just say all force is excessive or all force is not excessive. I mean there are so many varying grades of force. And that’s why it’s difficult to look at raw numbers of excessive force complaints and say, well, they’ve been too easy (on disciplining police).

On police who use “street justice”:

I think once again, there are definitely officers in this 8,000-person department that feel they must somehow go around the law. Even though I hear Chief Gates whenever he gets the opportunity to talk about (it) and he always says it with such conviction, that we’ve got to reverence the law. And yet we still find cases, and let me give you a classic example, of an officer stopping a car with probable cause, OK? So far they’re all right. But then they go a step further. They don’t have enough to get in and look under the seat but they do anyhow. And they find a gun. And guess what they find? This gun was used in a drive-by murder. And so what do they say on the arrest report. We can’t let this guy go free, we’ve got a murderer here. And so on the report they say in looking in the car I saw a barrel of a gun sticking out from under the seat when they didn’t really see it. They manufactured probable cause. That occurs. How often it occurs God only knows. But it occurs because officers think the end justifies the means.