Gay Activists Demand Inquiry Into Alleged Beatings by Police : Century City: Demonstrators at commission meeting also accuse Gates of sending officers to spy on strategy sessions for the protest. The chief says he plans no probe.

Shouting, clapping, hissing and snapping their fingers, more than two dozen gay and lesbian activists demanded Tuesday that the Police Commission immediately investigate allegations that police beat and humiliated them during a demonstration last week in Century City.

The angry crowd also sharply criticized Police Chief Daryl F. Gates for allegedly allowing undercover officers to cross into West Hollywood to spy on strategy sessions that were called to plan further protests in the wake of Gov. Pete Wilson’s veto of a gay rights bill.

They also contended that some gay LAPD officers were so incensed by the sight of police striking protesters during the Oct. 23 demonstration that they filed complaints of abuse against their fellow officers.

Gates, however, told the commission that he was satisfied that police officers did not abuse their authority while dispersing the crowd.

“We don’t have plans for an investigation (into the incident),” Gates said. “I talked to the senior commanding officer at the scene, and (Deputy) Chief (Glenn) Levant has given me ample reason for doing what was done.”

At the time of the incident, police contended that the crowd had to be dispersed because protesters were disrupting traffic.

But Marta Collier, who attended the meeting with her 10-year-old daughter, Erin, castigated Gates and the LAPD as she described her child’s horror in seeing demonstrators she characterized as peaceful being shoved, pushed, clubbed and trampled by uniformed officers.

“My daughter was frightened and crying and scared the police were going to kill her,” said Collier, a member of the WHAM, the Women’s Health Action and Mobilization organization. “She got another side of the police than what she sees in the DARE program at school, and now she is frightened of the police.”

The overflow crowd, much of which could not be accommodated in the small commission hearing room and was forced to wait in a hallway outside, repeatedly taunted Gates as he tried to justify the Police Department’s actions. At several points, commission President Stanley Sheinbaum threatened to eject those in the crowd making angry outbursts.

Under prodding from Sheinbaum, Gates said that when Levant completes a routine report on the demonstration, he will share that document with the commission. Meanwhile, Sheinbaum asked many in the crowd to turn over photographs, videotapes and other evidence they may have of police brutality that night.

When Gates told the commission that none of his officers videotaped the event, he was met with more angry cries from the audience, some of whom shouted, “Liar!”

After the meeting, several of the gay and lesbian speakers declined to expand on their contentions that LAPD officers were spying on their meetings. But John Heilman, an attorney and former mayor of West Hollywood, said his city has formally complained to Los Angeles city officials about the alleged spying. “What we are seeing is shocking,” he said.

Gates said after the unusually long, three-hour meeting that “I have no idea what they’re talking about” in raising allegations that his undercover officers are spying on gay community meetings.

He also declined to address contentions that some of his gay officers filed brutality complaints against their colleagues. “I wouldn’t tell you that even if there were” such complaints, the chief said. “That’s a personnel matter.”

The incident occurred about 7 p.m. outside the Century Plaza Hotel, where Wilson was attending a fund-raising dinner. About 100 officers, 20 of them on horses, were involved in handling the protest, which drew about 500 gay and lesbian activists. The crowd was angry with Wilson for vetoing a bill to protect homosexuals and lesbians from job discrimination.

Several in the crowd described injuries such as bruised ribs and a broken arm. Many said they were pushed and shoved by Los Angeles police officers who seemed to be smiling and laughing.

The loudest outburst came from George Dillon, a Santa Barbara resident who gestured angrily at Gates and shouted, “You have gay blood on your hands, and we will not tolerate it . . . America will wake up. You don’t want it to, but America will wake up.”

Pete Jimenez, who described himself as a “queer with AIDS” and wore a red-plaid kilt plastered with gay and lesbian stickers, said his arm was broken when he sheltered a woman who was about to be clubbed in the face by a police baton.

He said he heard one officer warn him he was about to be beaten and then call him a “faggot.” After he was arrested, Jimenez said, another officer told him: “You people are sick and you should be put in mental hospitals.”

Bruce Mirken compared the police response to scenes of police riots in Chicago and Selma, Ala., during the 1960s.

“I asked one officer why he was hitting me and he continued to hit me,” Mirken said. “I asked for his badge number and he continued to hit me.”