Unanticipated Contenders for Gates’ Job--Outsiders : Police: For the first time in decades, there is a chance that the next chief will not come from within the LAPD.

For years, some of Los Angeles’ ambitious top cops have been quietly grousing that Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, now in his 14th year as head of the department, has stalled their careers by staying on too long.

Now that Gates has announced his retirement plans, department brass eager for a chance at the top job face the prospect of some unanticipated rivals--outsiders.

For the first time in decades, city officials say, there is a significant possibility that a police official from another city will be brought in to head the 8,300-member Los Angeles Police Department.

A police administrator with no ties to past LAPD practices may be in the best position, some say, to orchestrate the reforms needed to restore public confidence in a department that has been badly tarnished by the police beating of Rodney G. King and by the Christopher Commission report that followed.

“It may very well be time to break with tradition,” said Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, a vocal police critic. “There are people throughout the country who would take it as a rare opportunity and a very attractive challenge to lead the department in this city. I think people welcome the opportunity to get the LAPD in shape.”

Newly appointed Police Commissioner Jesse A. Brewer, who will participate in the selection of the new chief, said he wants a thorough nationwide search. “There are a lot of tremendous police administrators all over the country and I don’t think we should restrict ourselves,” Brewer said.

A recently retired LAPD assistant chief, Brewer has extensive knowledge of the possible inside candidates for the job and is expected to play a key role in the selection process. Under the City Charter, the five-member Police Commission, which is appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley, selects the police chief from a list of candidates compiled by the city’s Personnel Department.

“I think it’s important that we do a nationwide search to ensure that we are looking all over the country to try to find the best person for the job,” Brewer said. “If it happens that that person is from outside the city, I think that’s the person we should go with.”

A Los Angeles Times poll conducted after the release of the Christopher Commission report last month showed that about 29% of Los Angeles residents believe that Gates’ successor should come from outside the LAPD. Thirty-five percent said the chief should be promoted from within the department and 32% said it would make no difference whether the chief was an outsider or not. Four percent said they had no opinion.

The last outsider to be named Los Angeles police chief was William A. Worton, a retired Marine Corps general who stepped in as interim chief in 1949, staying 14 months until William H. Parker was promoted to the position.

Despite a renewed interest in the idea of a chief from outside, officials concede that the chances of an outsider winning the job are severely limited by provisions of the City Charter that give preference to inside candidates.

Local police officers can make life difficult for an outside chief, as was demonstrated in San Francisco a decade ago when Charles Gain, formerly the police chief in Oakland, was brought in with a mandate to reform the San Francisco Police Department.

Gain quickly became unpopular with the troops and lasted in the job for about four years. Among other innovations, he ordered that police cars be painted baby blue to make them appear more friendly to the public, and he encouraged gays and lesbians to join the department.

Eighteen months ago, New York City hired its first outside chief in 25 years, Lee P. Brown, who had been the police chief in Houston and, before that, public safety director in Atlanta. It may be premature to assess his performance in New York, but he left Houston after nearly eight years, never having won the support of the rank-and-file officers.

In Los Angeles, the selection process has favored chiefs who have “the respect of the troops,” usually meaning someone local, said John J. Driscoll, general manager of the city’s Personnel Department.

Reflecting a philosophy intended to encourage long-term employment in city government, the City Charter contains a provision that gives preference to insiders for “every single job in the city,” Driscoll said.

“The intent was to provide for a career service,” Driscoll said, under which city workers could expect to climb through the ranks and reach the top of their departments.

For the job of police chief, LAPD officers are given one-tenth of a point credit for each year of service up to one point maximum. Candidates for the chief’s job are interviewed and assigned a numerical score, and the top six scorers--usually clustered in the mid to high 90s--become finalists.

To make the finalists’ list, an outsider must have a higher score than all the inside candidates, so the difference of a single point can be critical to an outsider’s chances.

“The playing field is not level,” said Councilwoman Joy Picus, who heads the council committee that oversees personnel matters. “You’re bound to have high-scoring LAPD people. They’re bright, and you cannot get around the selection process.”

Picus is among a large group of lawmakers and other officials, including the mayor, who advocate a charter change that would eliminate the insider advantage. The issue is under study by the council as part of a range of reforms suggested by the Christopher Commission.

Anyway, she said, LAPD insiders may have an inherent advantage in competing for the chief’s job.

“The LAPD has been the finest police department in the country for a very long time,” Picus said. “We export police chiefs. It may be that the best candidates are found in the department. . . . Any outsider would have to be better than top of the line.”

Outsiders will be competing against many highly qualified LAPD candidates who will have a natural edge, said City Council President John Ferraro. “They know the city and they know the players,” he said.

Whoever becomes police chief after Gates steps down next April will face daunting problems pointed out by the Christopher Commission, which found racism, sexism, poor management and excessive use of force. An outsider will likely have to confront opposition from the command staff as well as the rank and file.

“There’s probably a culture that would make it very hard on an outsider,” Picus said. “There’s a mind-set within the department--a pride that we’re the best--so it’s really tough to come into this culture and make a mark.”

Even so, officials say the right outsider should be able to handle the chief’s job in Los Angeles.

An outsider might be at a disadvantage, in Brewer’s view, “walking into a department where he’s not familiar with the people, not knowing the elected officials, not knowing the past history, not knowing the past problems.” But an outstanding person could overcome such obstacles, he said.

Insiders, by the same reasoning, will be at a disadvantage “in that they may have been part of the problem,” Brewer said.

It would be “just a matter of time,” Ridley-Thomas said, before an outsider gained the respect of the rank and file. “It’s not as though that’s never happened.”

The city’s Personnel Department is preparing to make an unusually aggressive search for the next chief, who could be chosen and in place by next April, the date Gates has given for his retirement.

Personnel officials plan to spend an extraordinary amount of time developing a profile for a potential chief and outlining goals and objectives, Driscoll said.

“We want to meet with various community groups and segments of the population to say, What do you want in a chief of police?”

Brochures will be sent to prospective candidates and the city will place advertisements in journals and trade magazines, Driscoll said. “We’ll be targeting medium-sized cities with 200,000-plus populations. . . . We’ll network, we’ll talk to people.”

But just about anyone who might be qualified for the job probably already knows it’s open, Driscoll added, given the daily publicity about the LAPD and Gates’ tenure.

The nationwide search also will help to gather a greater pool of minority and female candidates, officials said.

Kathy Spillar, national coordinator of the Fund for the Feminist Majority, said the group plans to call for selection of a woman police chief. “We’re organizing a meeting with the mayor and City Council and the Civil Service Commission,” Spillar said.

Spillar acknowledged that the city may have to go outside the department to find a qualified female candidate. The highest-ranking woman on the LAPD is a captain, she said, “but they could reach down as far as they want” in looking for a chief.

A possible candidate is Houston Police Chief Elizabeth M. Watson, Spillar said. Watson, who won the job 18 months ago, has emphasized community-based policing programs similar to those recommended by the Christopher Commission.

“They’re going to have to just make a very aggressive search,” Spillar said. “They’re just going to have to very affirmatively say we want women and minorities applying for this job.”