Williams, in Tour of L.A., Promises Reforms, Healing : Police: New chief is introduced to officials, officers and leaders of the black community. He stresses the need to mend the department’s morale and image.

On a whirlwind tour that took him from the inner sanctums of government in the Civic Center to a South Los Angeles church and a San Fernando Valley police station, Police Chief-designate Willie L. Williams reached out Thursday to his new city, giving clear signals of his plans to reform its troubled police force.

Introduced by Mayor Tom Bradley at a morning news conference--crowded over the legal limit with officials and reporters--the city’s first black police chief said he supports a City Charter amendment designed to limit the chief’s powers and backs reforms that would make the department more accountable to the public.

At the same time, Williams stressed his intention to heal the shattered morale of a Police Department still reeling from the political and racial fallout after the March, 1991, beating of Rodney G. King.

“I fully understand and realize the concerns, the worries, the needs and, most importantly, the love and affection that each and every one of you has for this city and this outstanding Police Department,” Williams said.

Williams’ first full day as designated police chief was carefully crafted not only to introduce him to the city but to reinforce the philosophy that won him the job: that he is a reformer who believes that police must understand and embrace the city’s diversity. It is a style of policing he practiced for his 3 1/2 years as Philadelphia’s top police official, where he restored trust in a department long accused of brutality and racism.

Williams, 48, was offered the top Los Angeles post Tuesday night and accepted immediately. He flew to Los Angeles on Wednesday, avoiding public comment even though city officials in Los Angeles and Philadelphia confirmed that he had been selected to replace retiring Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

On Thursday, Williams spent the day ricocheting to a succession of meetings--with city officials, the news media, minority residents, rank-and-file police officers and his five high-ranking LAPD rivals for the chief’s post.

One after another, Williams and other city officials stressed the importance of “healing” in the coming weeks--a clear effort to not only repair political and racial rifts, but also to mend the damage to the city’s image and the Police Department’s reputation.

“Today is a turning point in the city’s history,” Bradley said. “For the past 13 months, the city has been ripped apart by divisions and anger over the beating of Rodney King.” The mayor told those assembled that with the selection of Williams, “the healing process now begins in earnest.”

Williams’ hectic day provided a dizzying example of the kind of high-profile, high-stress role that will be demanded of him as the first outsider to head the Police Department since 1949. “My job,” Williams said, “is to get out and let them meet Willie Williams.”

His first stop--after a wearying morning of separate private meetings with Bradley, Gates, City Council members and editors and reporters at The Times--was the Hollenbeck Youth Center in Boyle Heights. Williams arrived half an hour late to a festive crowd of about 100 community leaders, neighborhood youths and police officers from the LAPD’s Hollenbeck station.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Cmdr. Art Lopez, a top official in the department’s Training and Personnel Division who once commanded the Hollenbeck station. “I think it’s great that he came down with a hand out to the Hispanic community, that he bridged that gap.”

While camera crews and reporters swarmed around him, Williams casually took a seat on some wooden bleachers in the gym, where several dozen children sipped free sodas handed out for the occasion.

After fielding questions about gangs and graffiti, he turned to several girls sitting in the last row of the bleachers. “So, who’s gonna be the first female police chief in this city?” Williams hollered. When no one answered, he said: “Oh, they’re shy now--probably the first time in their life.”

Williams then turned to the media, his expression more serious.

“Our whole existence is to make sure these kids don’t get shot and killed like the young child that was buried yesterday,” said Williams, referring to 3-year-old Denise Silva, slain by gang bullets last week in Boyle Heights. “That’s a terrible way to be introduced to your city--to see the cardinal talking at a 3-year-old’s funeral.”

Already behind schedule, Williams was escorted to a car waiting outside. Slumping back in the front passenger seat, he was whisked to First African Methodist Episcopal Church in southwest Los Angeles for an emotional communion with the city’s black leadership.

He was led to the private chambers of the Rev. Cecil L. (Chip) Murray. There, he sat in a leather chair, surrounded by black community leaders--the Urban League’s John Mack, Council members Mark Ridley-Thomas and Rita Walters and state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles).

They all laid hands on Williams’ shoulders while he sat with his head bowed, listening to the baritone-voiced Murray offer a prayer for the city’s new black police chief designate.

“Thank you for this, your servant and son,” the pastor said. “May he enjoy this tour for its great challenges. We are yours and you are ours. Together we can make a difference.”

Then, Williams descended to a basement meeting room where he was met by a standing ovation from a crowd of more than 200, many of whom referred to him as a “brother” who was ushering in a new era for the city.

Asked whether he will investigate allegations that LAPD officers routinely force black suspects to lie prone on the ground, Williams said: “One word answer. Yes. Absolutely.”

As Williams was escorted back to his car, Ridley-Thomas egged on the cheering crowd. “You all know what this means! Is that all right? Somebody got some work done!” he said, amid shouts of “Hallelujah!” from the audience.

The councilman complimented Williams’ demeanor, describing him as “confidant, calm, articulate . . . didn’t feel it necessary to flash a military presence, but he said what he had to say, meant it and you know he’s gonna do precisely what he said he’s gonna do.”

“We can do some different business in Los Angeles now!” Ridley-Thomas said.

From there, Williams was driven to the LAPD’s San Fernando Valley Bureau in Van Nuys, where he met with the five high-ranking department insiders who were his rivals for the chief’s job--Assistant Chief David D. Dotson and Deputy Chiefs Bernard C. Parks, Matthew V. Hunt, Mark A. Kroeker and Glenn A. Levant.

Sandwiches and sodas were delivered to the meeting room where the six men met while camera crews were kept away in an elevator lobby. For nearly half an hour, Williams worked hard to gain the trust of former competitors whose support is considered crucial to his attempts to heal the department’s wounds.

Williams said little about the brief meeting, but he and the other participants said the session did not touch upon any of the enormous problems confronting the Police Department, including a possible reshuffling of top management. Afterward, escorted by Kroeker, who commands the Valley bureau, Williams stopped briefly to shake hands and chat with patrol officers.

Although several of the other candidates declined to comment, Kroeker described Williams as “balanced and reasonable and seems to have a good sense of humor, and he doesn’t seem arrogant. He seems to be human. I feel even better every moment that passes.”

Earlier in the day, four of Williams’ rivals appeared grim-faced as they joined the chief designate, Bradley, council and Police Commission members and a City Hall meeting room overflowing with reporters.

Williams appeared composed, but slightly nervous as he entered the mayor’s conference room slightly after 10:15 a.m., flanked by Bradley and Police Commission President Stanley K. Sheinbaum. Williams stood in the background, clutching a manila folder and several sheets of yellow legal paper.

Sheinbaum said the decision to pick Williams was difficult. “There was nothing clear cut about the choice,” Sheinbaum said, adding that one of Williams’ winning qualities was that he can “deal with the divisiveness within the community and within the department.”

After an introduction by Bradley, Williams stressed three urgent responsibilities that face him--suppressing and reducing the violent crime “that is ever-growing” in Los Angeles, giving the public a “more integral part” in police management and in law enforcement policy, and addressing “each of the recommendations in the Christopher Commission report.”

Aware that he needs support from rank-and-file patrol officers, Williams pointedly tried to reassure them that although he is bent on reforms, he agrees with Gates’ long-argued contention that the city’s police brutality problem was caused by a small cadre of officers.

“It seems that too many members of the Police Department have been painted with the broad brush of accusations because of the actions of a very, very few,” Williams said. “Our collective goal must be to take an already great Police Department and strive to shine even brighter.”

Williams also tried to mute worries by many officers that because he is an outsider, he lacks understanding and empathy with their problems.

“There are far more diverse communities here than in Philadelphia, but the needs of the folks in those communities, the needs of the men and women of the Police Department, the needs of the police union, they’re the same,” he said, adding: “The day I step in for all of us, it will be a clean slate from Day 1. It will be a fresh start for everyone.”

At the end of his long day, Williams made a point of appearing at the Police Academy, dropping in on a meeting of the department’s Command Officers Assn. He took the podium, introduced himself to the 60 high-level officers and asked for their support.

“He said he welcomed their suggestions,” said Jesse A. Brewer, vice president of the Police Commission. “He said that they would be a part of the decision-making, that all of them would be starting out with a clean slate and that he wasn’t interested in anything that happened before.”

Williams also said that he will recruit officers from all segments of society, regardless of race or sexual orientation. When a reporter for a gay publication asked about whether he planned to hire homosexual officers--a lingering controversy during Gates’ tenure--Williams was quick to say that there will be no barriers to any job candidates.

“I have no reservations about recruiting gays or anyone else,” he said. “When we recruit, we will recruit from every area of the community.”

Several gay activists said that they felt excluded from Williams’ whistle-stop drive through the city. Torie Osborn, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center, said she was pleased by Williams’ comments, but “we want to see his rhetoric backed up by immediate action.”

Gay and lesbian activists in Philadelphia were highly critical of Williams after a demonstration by homosexual activists Sept. 12 in which several demonstrators were clubbed and kicked by crowd control officers. Although Williams quickly convened a panel to investigate the incident, he exonerated the officers involved.

Later, during an hourlong interview with reporters and editors at The Times, Williams said: “I’ve got to learn a lot of things and I will make some mistakes.” But despite the major issues looming before him, he said, “I’ve dealt with these things before, so I don’t consider them major obstacles to hitting the ground running.”

Williams said he expected to shuttle between Philadelphia and Los Angeles before beginning full-time work at the Los Angeles Police Department in late May or early June. Gates, who has given several different dates for his official retirement, said Tuesday that he planned to leave his post by July 1.