Contender for LAPD Chief Loses Press Aide : Police: Gates orders officer returned to traffic division. Semifinalist has been criticized for courting media.

Deputy Los Angeles Police Chief Mark A. Kroeker, a semifinalist for police chief who has been criticized by some officers for courting the media too avidly, has been instructed by Chief Daryl F. Gates to stop using a traffic sergeant as a press liaison, officials said Wednesday.

Kroeker, the Los Angeles Police Department’s top official in the San Fernando Valley, said that Gates’ reasons for the change were not immediately clear and that he had not discussed the matter directly with the chief yet. But he acknowledged that the department’s chief spokesman, Cmdr. Robert S. Gil, told him about two weeks ago to return Sgt. Dennis P. Zine to full-time duty in the Valley’s traffic division and freeze his position as press liaison, at least temporarily.

“It’s not completely firm and I want to discuss it with the chief,” Kroeker said. “We might have some kind of moderated approach to it.”

None of the department’s five other deputy chiefs employ their own spokesmen. The appointment of Zine, along with Kroeker’s numerous news conferences over the last year, have stirred controversy since he announced his candidacy for police chief in October. It has prompted some competitors and other detractors to privately accuse him of self-promotion and misuse of police resources.

Gil said Wednesday that Kroeker was told to reassign Zine because the Valley press operation was starting to compete with the department’s central press relations office downtown, interfering with his control over interviews and ride-alongs.

“We had too many reporters doing articles that we don’t know about and haven’t cleared and when they’re not coming off well, I’m unable to call up the reporter later and say, ‘Gee, those weren’t the parameters we agreed on,’ ” Gil said.

Gil said Gates gave Kroeker permission to have his own media representative after the Rodney G. King beating--”the chief thought it was vitally important for the community to know what the police were doing”--and he complimented Kroeker for doing “an incredibly good job” of rebuilding the public’s trust.

But he said a separate press liaison for the Valley had outlived its usefulness.

Gil, a semifinalist for chief who had his oral interview Wednesday, denied that he asked for Zine’s reassignment to further his own career.

Kroeker, who took command of the LAPD’s 1,500 Valley officers less than two weeks after the King beating, said his office was inundated with requests for interviews. Zine, a 24-year LAPD veteran who often dealt with reporters as a member of the traffic division staff, helped respond to the media quickly, Kroeker said.

“I try to be accessible. We do our best to be helpful and open and honest and that’s what I had asked him to carry out throughout the year,” Kroeker said. He added that the need for a press representative has waned since the King case’s focal point has shifted from the Valley to police headquarters downtown and to the Ventura County trial of four officers indicted in the beating.

“At that time my desk was stacked with messages from news media 10 and 12 deep and his help was absolutely invaluable,” Kroeker said. “If that’s an accusation--that is to say, being accessible, being open, returning phone calls, being helpful and calling up a news conference when there’s a double murder or a major breakthrough, or when officers have performed admirably in a year of great controversy . . . then I’ll plead guilty happily.”

Zine also defended his role in the period after the King beating.

“I can’t refute the fact that Kroeker received a lot of media attention, but it’s because he wanted to be open with the community and let them know what we’re all about,” Zine said.

He said he could not document the number of news conferences Kroeker held in the last year but recalled such occasions to discuss murders, robberies, rewards for information leading to murder convictions, added police patrols at shopping malls and a new bike patrol.

“It was all focused on bridging the gap between the police and the community,” Zine said.

One candidate for chief who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Kroeker’s motives for holding so many news conferences “have certainly been questioned” and added that “the timing is suspect.”

Three of the remaining five deputy chiefs reached Wednesday said they had never used a press liaison. But they also refused to publicly criticize Kroeker, and some even said they thought the assignment of Zine was reasonable given the press attention after the King beating.

“I don’t have one, never had one and never intend to have one,” said Deputy Chief Matthew Hunt, who declined to comment on Kroeker.

“I don’t need one,” Hunt said. “Besides, it’s a poor use of resources.”