12 Semifinalists for LAPD Chief Include 7 Minorities : Police: List with 4 blacks and 3 Latinos underscores emphasis on candidates reflecting minority population.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Willie L. Williams and former Inglewood Police Chief Ray Johnson, now head of the state Office of Criminal Justice Planning, are among the semifinalists to replace Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, it was learned Monday.

The disclosure fills out the list of those still in the running to head the image-battered, 8,300-officer Los Angeles Police Department, and underscores the city’s emphasis on having a pool of candidates reflective of the city’s growing minority population.

Williams and Johnson are black, meaning seven of the 12 semifinalists are minorities; four are black and three are Latino.

The names, provided by sources familiar with the selection process, came to light as a seven-member panel of business, law enforcement and community representatives began three days of interviews central to choosing the chief. Gates’ successor will be charged with guiding the Police Department beyond the controversy created by the videotaped beating of motorist Rodney G. King.

Panelists gathered downtown early Monday in private hotel conference rooms amid security precautions designed to shield the candidates and interview process from publicity. Reporters were ordered away by hotel officials.

“We can’t have any interruptions, disturbances or contacts (with the media),” said one city Personnel Department official overseeing the selection. “This thing is just too important to blow.”

Arriving with thick binders of background materials on the candidates, the interview panel was briefed by Personnel Department officials before beginning the two-hour sessions with three contenders: Ruben Ortega, former Phoenix police chief; Johnson, and Los Angeles Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker, who oversees San Fernando Valley operations.

Panelists and candidates declined to discuss the face-to-face sessions or their preliminary evaluations that took place around two long conference tables in adjoining suites. But sources familiar with the questioning said the panel is focusing, in part, on how the department can rebuild public confidence, particularly in the city’s growing minority communities, after the King incident.

These priorities appear to be reflected in the selection of several of the semifinalists. Williams, 48, and a 29-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department, is known for encouraging community-based policing, for his easygoing approach and for promoting minorities and women. He is a Philadelphia native who rose through the ranks of that department to become the city’s first black police commissioner in 1988, heading a 6,300-officer force.

Johnson, 55, is known for developing innovative community-relations and police-training programs in predominantly minority Inglewood. His management of the 210-officer police force won high praise from Gov. Pete Wilson when he appointed him last year to coordinate state law enforcement planning and research. He was chief of the California Highway Patrol’s Southern California division.

The semifinalist list, drawn up by another citizens panel based on written essays and qualifications, will be reduced to six finalists this week. The list of six will be forwarded to the Police Commission, which will choose the new chief as early as April, after additional background checks and interviews.

The other semifinalists are Los Angeles Assistant Police Chiefs David Dotson and Robert Vernon, Deputy Chiefs Glenn Levant, Matthew Hunt, Bernard Parks and Commanders Robert Gil and Ron Banks. From outside the department are Lee Baca, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department division chief.

The current round of interviews is crucial because for the first time the finalists for police chief will be ranked entirely on the basis of the candidates’ oral presentations and responses to panelist questions.

The interviewers, carefully balanced by ethnicity and gender, include former State Atty. Gen. John Van De Kamp, Police Foundation President Hubert Williams, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund President Antonia Hernandez and banking executive Betty Tom Chu.

UCLA criminologist James Wilson, a nationally respected police expert who served on the oral interview panel when Gates was selected in 1978, said such sessions are designed to “try to assess the total person” rather than define specifically how the candidates would police the city.

With limited time and the panelists’ mix of professional backgrounds, interviewers generally try to elicit “how (the candidate’s) mind works, how they present themselves, how persuasive they are and whether they are intelligent and articulate.”

The panelists will tentatively score each semifinalist after their interviews in a variety of predetermined--and secret--categories, said Phil Henning, assistant general manager of the Personnel Department. When all of the interviews are completed, the panel will review the tentative scores, discuss the candidates and produce a final ranking.

In addition to Williams and Johnson, Bank and Parks are black; in addition to Ortega and Baca, Gil is a Latino.

In other developments concerning the chief selection process:

* The president of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Command Officers Assn. raised new questions about the oral panel, noting that the majority of the members are not residents of the city and that organized labor is not represented.

“I would have hoped to see someone from the Valley, from the Westside, and representing organized labor,” said the group’s president, Capt. Charles Labrow. “It seems like they went out of their way to select people close to (Mayor Tom Bradley).”

Personnel officials who recruited the oral panel said geographic considerations were secondary to achieving a strong ethnic and gender mix. City personnel chief John Driscoll added: “I have absolutely no idea of these peoples’ relationship to the mayor.”

* An attorney for Vernon said his client will demand that Police Commission members Stanley Sheinbaum and Jesse A. Brewer disqualify themselves from choosing the new chief, should Vernon make the finalist list. The attorney cited public comments by Sheinbaum and Brewer that were critical of Vernon and that suggested the assistant chief should leave the department. Sheinbaum said his comments have been taken out of context and he “absolutely” intends to participate in the chief selection. Brewer declined to comment.

* Another contender for Gates’ job, Banks, confirmed he is a finalist for police chief of Inglewood. A knowledgeable Inglewood City Hall source said Banks, one of the highest ranking black officers in the Los Angeles Police Department, is “one of the leading contenders” for that post. A decision is expected in the next two weeks, raising the possibility that Banks may drop out of the Los Angeles competition.