Cool, Diplomatic Demeanor Ranked Among Brewer’s Assets : Appointment: Called “The Prince” by former colleagues, the retired assistant chief says he can still get along with Gates.

As he stood before a room packed with reporters, Jesse A. Brewer--once a top Los Angeles Police Department official and now a nominee for the Police Commission--was asked the inevitable: How would he get along with his old boss, Chief Daryl F. Gates, a man he recently criticized before the Christopher Commission?

“The only thing I can say,” Brewer replied, “is that Chief Gates and I have been very close for three years. We work very well together, very cooperatively. We confided in each other and I don’t think that is going to cease because of my testimony, which was given under oath, by the way.”

It was a typically diplomatic response for Brewer, 69, who retired as assistant police chief on March 1, just two days before the now-infamous police beating of Rodney G. King. The highest-ranking black officer in the history of the LAPD, Brewer is known as much for breaking the department’s color barrier as for his even, cool-tempered nature.

“We called him ‘The Prince,’ ” LAPD Lt. Tim Halford said at the time of Brewer’s retirement.

“I was impressed with Brewer,” Roy A. Anderson, a member of the Christopher Commission, said Wednesday. “He’s very calm, very thoughtful in his comments.”

That calm demeanor will come in handy if Brewer is confirmed by the City Council as the newest member of the Los Angeles Police Commission, the five-member civilian panel that oversees the LAPD and is, in effect, Gates’ boss. The commission’s recent history includes contentious relations with Gates, and Brewer has already irked the chief with his candid testimony before the Christopher panel.

Brewer’s remarks, made public last week, included pointed criticism of his former boss.

Gates, Brewer said, “has done, I’d say, overall a good job.” But, he added, “there are some areas where I find flaws. I would not give him a good grade in his handling of discipline.”

“What grade would you give him?” asked John Spiegel, the commission’s lead lawyer.

“I would probably give him a D,” Brewer replied. “I think I would be generous in giving him a D in discipline because I felt the way he handled discipline was not really best for the department, nor for the people of the city.”

Brewer went on to complain that Gates punished officers more severely for violating department policy than for victimizing residents. And while he praised Gates for being “innovative and effective” in creating anti-drug training programs and the SWAT concept, he added: “I think he can provide a lot more direction, a lot more leadership.”

He also offered harsh criticism for Assistant Chief Robert Vernon, depicting him as a meddler who tried to portray himself as more important than Brewer and the department’s third assistant chief, David Dotson.

Brewer complained in particular about Vernon’s views as a fundamentalist Christian, saying that they affected personnel decisions at the department. Vernon, Brewer said, “usually succeeds in getting his members of his God Squad promoted and good assignments.”

Such remarks, along with critical testimony provided by Dotson, helped lay the foundation for the Christopher Commission to issue its bold recommendations, including one that suggested that the 64-year-old Gates retire. In an interview last week, commission Chairman Warren Christopher said the panel gave great weight to statements by Dotson and Brewer.

“The testimony of Brewer and Dotson is very reinforcing,” Christopher said, “especially in its full detail.”

A 38-year veteran of the LAPD, Brewer served as the No. 2 man under Gates for three years, overseeing the department’s Office of Administrative Services before his retirement. He has been praised for several law enforcement innovations, including implementing new ways of deploying officers during the 1980s as a means to combat the worsening gang crisis.

Brewer joined the department in 1952, after five years as a Chicago policeman. He has had a number of assignments, including vice, traffic, homicide, burglary, community relations and training activity. He was promoted to deputy chief in 1981 and remained in that position until 1987, when he was appointed assistant chief.

Brewer’s relationship with Mayor Tom Bradley goes back four decades. In fact, it was Bradley, then an LAPD sergeant, who helped Brewer land his patrolman’s job.

At the time, Brewer had applied and been rejected. Convinced he was being discriminated against because he is black, he turned to his uncle--a local minister who counted then-Sgt. Bradley among his parishioners--for assistance. Bradley helped him reapply, and Brewer was accepted.

Brewer is also a longtime friend of Melanie Lomax, the acting president of the Police Commission.

“I’ve known Jesse Brewer since I was a little girl,” Lomax said Wednesday. “He was friends with my parents. . . . Jesse is a friendly guy. If you had an image of a guy who walked the beat and talked to everyone and knew everybody’s kids and their names, that would be him. He is very non-intimidating. He doesn’t put emphasis on the gun on his hip.”

Lomax lamented that had Brewer been younger, he could have been Los Angeles’ first black chief of police, “but that was not in the cards.” During his tenure at the LAPD, Brewer was considered a likely successor to Gates, but when he stepped down he acknowledged that his age had worked against him.