Gates Finds Limousine Offer Is Stretching the Retirement Point

To drive home its point that Police Chief Daryl F. Gates should retire this month as he once said he would, an anti-Gates coalition Friday parked a stretch limousine outside police headquarters and offered to have him chauffeured home.

The offer was made by members of the Coalition for Police Accountability, who called into question Gates’ motives for remaining in office now that the Police Commission has chosen his successor. Gates most recently said he intends to leave in June.

“What has he got to do between now and June that is so important his chief deputies can’t carry it out?” asked Joe Duff, president of the Los Angeles branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

Cmdr. Robert Gil, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman, eventually emerged from Parker Center, saying that Gates would not comment on the group’s demand that he immediately retire and would not accept the limousine ride.

Then, a traffic officer pulled up and plastered a $30 ticket on the two-tone gray Lincoln limousine, saying it was parked in a red zone and crosswalk.

“I asked the driver to move it and he refused,” said Officer Carl Antonucci, as cameras whirred and snapped around him. Meir J. Weistrich, coalition chairman, said he expected the ticket and will pay it. Weistrich also was footing the $50-an-hour tab for the car.