Possible Fraud in Chief Test Probed : Police: But Gates, who said some candidates may have gotten help on the essay portion, calls the inquiry asinine and says he won’t cooperate.

City officials have launched a probe of possible fraud by candidates for Los Angeles police chief, but the man whose allegations touched off the investigation--current Chief Daryl F. Gates--on Wednesday called the inquiry “asinine” and said he would not cooperate.

“No, I’m not going to tell them anything,” Gates said in a telephone interview from Vancouver, Canada, where he was attending a conference. “I don’t know anything. I mean, I have no verified proof.”

Gates said he overstated himself when he told the Civil Service Commission on Tuesday that some candidates for the job had used outside experts to prepare for them take-home essays required in the selection process.

“Quite frankly, I know of a couple of people who went out and had that essay done for them,” Gates told the commission Tuesday.

On Wednesday, he said: “ Know was probably too strong a term. I’ll retract that. . . . I do believe some people were assisted in the writing of that.”

The Civil Service Commission, saying Gates’ allegations could point to possible fraud, ordered the investigation immediately after the chief appeared at a hearing to unleash his latest attack on the system being used to choose his successor.

City personnel chief John J. Driscoll said the allegations raised by Gates may even constitute criminal misdemeanors if true.

But Gates said Wednesday that he saw nothing wrong with applicants seeking outside advice on their essay questions and insisted that the Civil Service commissioners misconstrued his remarks as an allegation of fraud.

“I intended it only to show them how silly it was to disqualify (some candidates for chief) on the basis of an open-book examination. It’s just that simple.”

Gates said he would not provide unverified information to city Personnel Department investigators, who were ordered to follow up on his comments to see if any applicants fraudulently misrepresented their applications.

“I think their inquiry is asinine,” the chief said.

But pressure was building for Gates to come forward with exactly what he knows or has heard. The president of the Police Commission and two high-ranking officers called on the chief to remove the cloud of suspicion by quickly providing any information he has to investigators.

Stanley K. Sheinbaum, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, criticized Gates’ unwillingness to cooperate with the Civil Service investigation as an example of a “code of silence” at the Police Department.

“On one hand he (Gates) says he knows two people who have had their reports ghostwritten,” Sheinbaum said. “On the other hand, he won’t reveal their names. That strikes me as setting an example about the code of silence. And it comes from the very top.”

Asked whether the Police Commission would require Gates to reveal what he knows, he said, “No comment.”

Gates, who has repeatedly been at odds with the commission in the wake of the police beating of Rodney G. King, brushed off any effort to force him to talk. “They might try and fire me,” he said, laughing. “I have no specific evidence, and I’m not going to go on the basis of rumor.”

In the controversy after the King beating last year, Gates said he would step down this April. Later he said he would not leave until June so he could campaign against proposed police reform measures on the ballot.

Assistant Chief David Dotson, one of 13 semifinalists for the chief’s job, said Wednesday: “There’s a cloud over my head, unfortunately, because of the rather random and unspecified charges that were made. . . . I think all the candidates are owed a full investigation.”

Another candidate for the chief’s job, Deputy Chief Matthew Hunt, added: “Making pronouncements without supporting them--all it does is throw a pall over the whole operation.”

Dotson pointed out that the police manual requires officers to speak out if they become aware of misconduct on the part of a fellow officer.

But Gates said he felt no responsibility to report what he had heard since he contends that he was merely pointing out flaws in the process, not reporting misconduct. “And I don’t have a duty to any one of them,” he snapped, when told that some of his subordinates said he should speak out.

The flap started Tuesday when Gates, joined by a senior LAPD commander who was challenging his disqualification in the first round of the selection process, told the Civil Service Commission that some candidates had not authored their own crucial essays on the future of the department.

Frank Piersol, the disqualified LAPD commander, said Wednesday he would cooperate in the probe. But, he said, he could not remember exactly what he heard, when he heard it, where he heard it or whom he heard it from. At the commission meeting, he had said, “I know for a fact that one or two candidates didn’t even write the things.”

The essays were to outline the major issues facing a large urban police department and to describe how each candidate would deal with such challenges as affirmative action and policing Los Angeles’ culturally diverse population.

They were used by a seven-member panel of civic leaders to winnow the pool of applicants to 13 semifinalists.

Personnel officials have begun polling the semifinalists to ask how they prepared their essays, Driscoll said. He said that all leads will be pursued and that personnel officials will attempt to track down the origins of any specific rumors provided by Gates or others.

Driscoll said he has requested a meeting with Gates to discuss the allegations.

Nine of the 13 semifinalists have told The Times that they wrote their own essays. Two others have not been publicly identified; the remaining two could not be reached. But a spokesman for one of them--Boston’s new police chief, William Bratton--said Bratton announced weeks ago that he was withdrawing from the Los Angeles competition and staying in Boston.