Gates Blames High Judgments on Report : Police: The Christopher Commission document has ‘become the plaintiff’s bible’ in suits against the city and the LAPD, the chief says.

In one of his sharpest attacks on the independent Christopher Commission report on the Los Angeles Police Department, Chief Daryl F. Gates on Wednesday blamed the commission’s findings for the spiraling cost of court judgments against the department and the city.

“There’s no balance to it,” Gates said of the report. “That report will haunt the taxpayers of the city in lawsuits against the city for years to come. It’s already become the plaintiff’s bible.

“For a group of lawyers to create such a monster for taxpayers is inexcusable.”

Gates was speaking to about 100 members of the San Fernando Valley Business and Professional Assn. at a dinner in Studio City. He did not elaborate on what specific items in the report make it easier to sue the department or the city.

In 1990, before the beating of motorist Rodney G. King, which prompted the commission’s report, the city paid a record $11.3 million to resolve lawsuits alleging police misconduct such as use of excessive force and false arrest.

Voters will be asked in June to approve police reforms recommended by the Christopher Commission. Speaking last month at a kick-off rally for the ballot measure, Christopher said the commission concluded that at the heart of the problem in the Police Department “is the fact that the top LAPD management is not accountable to the citizens it is sworn to protect.”

Gates referred to the ballot measure that would give City Hall greater authority over the Police Department as “F for fools.”

He called the measure a throwback to the 1920s and ‘30s when the department answered to City Hall, saying it was a time when Civil Service examinations were for sale along with promotions and jobs.

Gates went on to say that passage of the ballot measure would allow politicians to determine how police officers are deployed.

Asked why former Chiefs Tom Reddin and Ed Davis support the reform measure, Gates said that Reddin and Warren Christopher “have been a close pair.”

He said he is more disturbed and confused about why Davis has offered support.