Long LAPD Career Leads Brewer to Pivotal Position : Police: He had just retired when the King beating turned him into a key player in department reform.

Among the millions of television viewers watching the first broadcasts of the now infamous Rodney G. King video was Jesse Brewer--who had retired from the Los Angeles Police Department only the week before as assistant chief and the highest-ranking black in the department’s history.

That videotape irreversibly changed things for the 69-year-old Brewer, setting him on a course that, only four months later, has made him a pivotal player in efforts to reform the LAPD in the aftermath of King’s beating.

It was Brewer who provided the Christopher Commission with some of its most damaging testimony about brutality, racism and sloppy management. And this week, it was Brewer who Mayor Tom Bradley tapped to join the Police Commission, a move that ostensibly makes Brewer boss over his old chief, Daryl F. Gates, and provides the panel with the insider information it needs to exert its will over a reluctant LAPD.

Brewer says he does not feel like a turncoat--even as he prepares to push for Gates’ departure.

“Right now, everybody’s loyalty is to Gates, and I think their loyalty should be to the department,” said Brewer as he sat in his Baldwin Hills home.

“From everything that has come out and from all the information that has been developed by the Warren Christopher Commission, I think it’s clear that (Gates) has to go. I think it’s just a matter of time,” he said.

Brewer said he has not spoken with Gates since his damaging testimony was made public July 9 and since his subsequent appointment by Bradley to the Police Commission.

“I would like to see the commission work very smoothly and harmoniously,” Brewer said. “I think the time for bloodletting is past. I think we need to show the public that we can work with the chief of police and I hope the chief is willing to cooperate to that extent.

“Right now, the department is polarized, the city is polarized, and I think it’s important that we start to talk about how we straighten this out.”

That Brewer is now one of those who will chart the future of the LAPD is ironic because only a few months ago he thought he would go quietly into retirement after 38 1/2 years in the department.

Now, it is Bradley--one of Gates’ most vocal critics--who has turned to his old friend in a period of crisis.

“When the mayor called me, I was really surprised,” Brewer said. “He asked me not to give him a snap ‘no,’ not to make a snap judgment, but to listen to him for a while and give it serious consideration. I was going to say no, so we talked and he showed me where I could be of assistance.”

According to Brewer, the mayor stressed his friend’s LAPD background and familiarity with the department in nominating him to a Police Commission that has feuded with Gates and, at one point, futilely tried to suspend him.

In naming Brewer to the post vacated by the resignation of Commissioner Sam Williams, the mayor also chose someone whose testimony before the Christopher Commission was among the bluntest and most critical of the LAPD.

Brewer told the panelists that the lack of management attention is “the essence of the excessive-force problem in the department” and said that officer rudeness and disrespect toward citizens has been “out of control” for several years. Asked to assess the job Gates did in disciplining wayward officers, Brewer gave his former boss a “D” grade.

The former assistant chief also provided the commission with a rare look at the inner workings of the Police Department.

He described how Gates’ top aides sometimes found it difficult to see their own boss, how the chief discouraged his subordinates from bringing him bad news, how supervisors knew who the “bad guys” were among police officers but ignored their behavior, and how a “code of silence” discouraged officers from complaining about misconduct on the part of their partners.

When his closed-door testimony to the Christopher Commission was made public last week, Brewer became an instant celebrity--a voice of vindication for police critics who have long accused the department of brutality and as a hero for many in the black community who have been in the forefront of protests against the LAPD.

But to some critics, including a few fellow police officers, his role in the commission’s findings have brought him notoriety instead.

“I know that some people in the department are unhappy. I suppose,” he said with a smile, “some think I broke this code of silence.”

In retrospect, Brewer said he has no regrets about his statements although he said it was a painful exercise. As a key figure in the commission’s investigations, Brewer said he appeared before the panel on three occasions--first to explain the organization of the LAPD and answer technical questions. His subsequent appearances provided more details that helped the commission question other witnesses and, at one point, he provided an internal memorandum about LAPD discipline that reportedly angered the chief.

His final appearance provided the commissioners some of their most damaging remarks about how the department was being run.

Still, Brewer said he was surprised and relieved at how “hard-hitting” the commission findings were. But he voiced no glee over the findings or its harsh criticisms of Gates.

“I would like to talk to the chief because I think it’s important if we’re going to work together,” he said. “I want him to understand that everything I said to the Warren Christopher Commission were things I mentioned to him and (Assistant Chief Robert) Vernon. I think it’s important that he recognize that I was under oath over there. I took that very seriously.”

Brewer denies that his appointment is part of any plan by Bradley to pressure Gates to resign, and he said his only goal is to begin the healing process and reform the department.

To Brewer, the road to reform must include a renewed emphasis on community-oriented policing with officers encouraged to “interact more with the public,” he said. He also wants more money to beef up the department, better supervision and training of police and ridding of overly aggressive officers from the department.

The most difficult task, Brewer said, will be overcoming a police “culture” that he said encourages violence and administers a form of “street justice.”

“That’s the culture we need to turn around,” he said.

As an assistant chief, Brewer said, he was aware of problems of excessive force and racism in the department, but thought they were under control.

“I was feeling very comfortable,” he said. “I guess I was naive. I thought we had everything in place to prevent that. I thought we were doing what was necessary to prevent something like that from happening.”

What shattered that belief for Brewer was the King incident.

Brewer recalled sitting in his living room watching television when he saw the videotape of four LAPD officers beating the Altadena motorist after a high-speed pursuit. What he saw horrified him.

“I was shocked, surprised and angered because I knew it was going to reverberate throughout the community,” Brewer said. “I knew it was going to be a major problem for this department when I saw that happening because people have been accusing the department of doing that for years and now it was being shown.”

Days later, after Gates told reporters that he would not apologize for the incident and referred to King as an ex-convict, Brewer said he contacted his former boss.

“I picked up the phone and called him and said ‘Chief, I think we need to talk. Perhaps I can give you some advice on how we can approach this thing.’ I said ‘The things you are saying are not very helpful at all.’ I was being very tactful when I talked to him.”

Gates agreed to a meeting with not only Brewer but also with then-Commissioner Sam Williams, who also wanted to speak with the chief. During that session, Williams suggested that Gates resign.

“It was a shock to me and I could tell it was a shock to the chief,” Brewer recalled. “I tried to talk Sam out of it. I said, ‘Sam, I think it’s premature. We ought to wait and see what happens on this . . .’ (but) the chief was taken aback. I could tell. I think he was really shocked.”

As Williams’ probable successor on the commission, Brewer said he hopes Gates steps down from office in a reasonable time, most likely by the end of the year. In the interim, he said, he is confident that Gates will begin implementing the Christopher Commission’s recommendations.

“He’s a professional. He wants to leave with his reputation intact. He wants to leave in a graceful time, and I think we can work together towards that goal.”

Although Brewer has been almost universally praised by City Council members, law enforcement officials and community leaders, a few critics suggest that his recent outspokenness may be tied to his failure to succeed Gates.

During his career, Brewer was touted as the man who could be Los Angeles’ first black police chief, and it is an ambition that Brewer acknowledges that he had.

“But the timing was not there,” he said, blaming much of that on the difficulties he and other black officers had in obtaining promotions and choice assignments during their earlier years in the department.

When he applied for a job with the LAPD, Brewer was a Chicago policeman who was first accepted by the department and then later rejected because of a medical technicality.

“They said I had a medical condition because my chest didn’t expand enough,” he said, “but it was clear I was rejected because they learned I was black.”

Brewer then wrote his uncle in Los Angeles, a minister whose congregation included an LAPD sergeant named Tom Bradley. At Bradley’s urging, Brewer reapplied and was hired in 1952.

As he climbed through the ranks, Brewer encountered a department in which black officers were not allowed to partner with white officers, and in which black police were routinely assigned to Watts and other black neighborhoods.

His first job was as an undercover vice officer, working in a hotel that catered to black celebrities. When he was first promoted to a supervisorial position, Brewer said he was given a plainclothes assignment in homicide so he would not be in a position of supervising white officers. And he was discouraged from pursuing other assignments, he said.

“Now, I’m in a position to make sure that the things I saw that were inequitable and unfair are changed,” Brewer said. “Not just for blacks but for everyone.”