Gates Defends Himself, LAPD Unit at Trial : Police: Chief says instances of excessive force or racism by officers are rare. Civil suit accuses special team of needlessly killing three suspects.

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates defended himself and his department in federal court Thursday, testifying in a civil rights trial that there is no pattern of excessive force or racism in the Police Department.

“I don’t believe we have an excessive force problem in the Los Angeles Police Department and a great amount of management attention has been paid to that,” Gates testified.

Gates was on the stand for two hours but was asked few questions about his department’s Special Investigations Section. The surveillance unit is the subject of a federal lawsuit filed after a holdup last year at a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland resulted in the deaths of three robbery suspects and the wounding of a fourth. Police said they opened fire after the suspects pointed weapons at them.

Stephen Yagman, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, peppered Gates with questions about the chief’s past statements on police practices and policies and the conclusions of the Christopher Commission, which investigated the department after the beating of Rodney G. King.

It appeared to be a rematch of sorts between Gates and Yagman, who specializes in lawsuits against police departments and has grilled Gates in other brutality cases. “This is better than ‘L.A. Law,’ ” someone whispered in the packed courtroom as Gates’ testimony began. But the exchanges were courteous and covered matters Gates has often discussed in public.

Yagman said outside of court that he hoped to show jurors that Gates sets a tone of lax discipline and control that fosters and condones excessive force. The lawsuit contends that the SIS, whose officers have been involved in 45 shootings since 1965, was created in this environment and has operated unchecked by department managers.

But Gates said excessive force is not a widespread problem.

“I believe that kind of extreme violence is an aberration,” Gates said of the King beating. “We make over 300,000 arrests per year, give out hundreds of thousands of citations and make hundreds of thousands of stops. A very, very small percentage of those--about 1%--have any use of force. And then only a small percentage of those result in complaints.”

Gates said that while there may be a small number of racists in the department, racist behavior by officers is not a problem.

“There is no pattern of racism in the Los Angeles Police Department,” Gates said. “There are individuals, as in our society, who have racist tendencies. From time to time we see that. . . . It is an individual problem, not a pattern.”

When asked about the SIS, Gates said that the philosophy of the squad was “to reduce violence in the city and protect human life.”

Outside of court and after his testimony was over, Gates defended the special unit’s officers against Yagman’s description of them as “assassins with badges.”

“That I think is a terrible characterization,” he said. “They work some of the most dangerous assignments and must make split-second decisions. They get scrutinized by everyone. They must be thinking ‘Why us? Why are we typed as assassins?’ ”

Court documents revealed this week that the shooting is being investigated by the FBI, and that the U.S. Justice Department has apparently taken the case before a federal grand jury.

The department asked Judge J. Spencer Letts to excuse an FBI agent from testifying during this trial, arguing that it would compromise its investigation. Letts has made no ruling on the request.

Mayor Tom Bradley, who is a defendant with Gates, the Police Commission and the SIS unit, is scheduled to testify today.