Gates Says Edict Against Promotions Is Meddling : LAPD: Chief accuses the mayor of ordering the Police Commission to issue ban. Sheinbaum denies the allegation.

Six days after a formal request from the mayor, the president of the Los Angeles Police Commission told Chief Daryl F. Gates to stop making command-level reassignments--a sequence of events that led Gates on Monday to charge improper political meddling.

The wording of the commission president’s April 8 memo to Gates is strikingly similar--almost word for word in some areas--to Mayor Tom Bradley’s April 2 letter to the panel.

Nevertheless, Police Commission President Stanley K. Sheinbaum and other panel members, as well as Bradley’s spokesman, deny that the commission’s effort to halt Gates’ management reshuffling was initiated by the mayor. Commissioners said they became independently concerned that Gates was undermining the ability of the new police chief, Willie L. Williams, to assemble his own management team.

But Gates claims that the memo from Bradley, his longtime rival, shows “the beginning of the politicizing” of the department. The specter of politicians meddling in police appointments and law enforcement policy has been at the heart of Gates’ attacks on his critics, the selection of his successor and a series of police reforms on the June 2 ballot.

On Monday, Gates seized on Bradley’s letter as he tried to bolster his argument. “What happened obviously is (the commission) got orders from headquarters; they got orders from the mayor,” Gates told reporters at an impromptu news conference after unveiling an anti-gang billboard campaign. “And, in a knee-jerk reaction, they ordered me not to do certain things.”

Gates also contended that Sheinbaum’s memo ordering him to halt reassignments was not based on a vote by the full commission, as required.

After Gates refused to comply with Sheinbaum’s request, commissioners met in a special session Friday and ordered him to rescind all recent transfers and obtain their approval for any other such actions during his remaining weeks on the job. Gates, insisting that the transfers are essential to the safety of the city, again refused to comply, despite a city attorney’s opinion that the Police Commission was acting within its authority.

Sheinbaum strongly denies that Bradley ordered the commission’s action. He said he became aware at some point--although he said he does not recall precisely how--that the mayor supported the effort to halt Gates’ transfers.

But he said he did not see Bradley’s letter until weeks after he had written Gates. “Nobody wrote my memo but me,” he said.

Bill Chandler, Bradley’s spokesman, also maintained that the mayor did not instigate the commission action. “It was clear the commission had serious questions about the management practices” of an outgoing chief making “deathbed appointments,” he said.

Chandler said Gates was merely trying to divert attention from his own questionable actions in refusing the commission’s order.

Bradley’s letter to the commission and Sheinbaum’s subsequent letter to Gates are similarly organized and begin with sentences that, in identical terms, note that Gates “requested an exemption from the hiring freeze to fill two commander positions, one for the Valley Bureau and the other for Personnel and Training Bureau.”

Sheinbaum also used language similar to Bradley’s when he instructed Gates not to make any more reassignments “for captains and above until further notice.” And both communications say “filling high-level vacancies should be the responsibility of the next chief, who must be given the freedom” to make such decisions.

Sheinbaum, acknowledging that the similarities were “remarkable,” suggested that “maybe words were put in my head, I don’t know.”

Meanwhile, the commission will meet today to weigh its next move against Gates.

Commissioners said they are determined to undo Gates’ reassignments but are not eager for a major legal or political showdown with the chief. That, they fear, would simply raise Gates’ profile and make the transfer of power more complicated for Williams.

Sheinbaum said Gates is “the one who seems to be heading for confrontation. And we are not going to help him out.”

Commissioners are particularly miffed that Gates did not advise them at Friday’s meeting that he had made several commanding-officer reassignments the day before. Gates on Thursday signed an order elevating managers to higher-level “acting” positions in the North Hollywood, Southeast, West Los Angeles and Metro divisions. City Hall sources familiar with the commission’s thinking say the panel is considering a series of graduated responses to Gates’ defiance, including seeking a show of City Council support for their position and putting all those recently transferred on formal notice that they would have no rights to those posts once Williams arrives.

Some evidence of council support was already materializing, as Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas began circulating a letter Monday asking his colleagues to back the Police Commission’s order to the chief.

Gates on Monday tried to play down the brewing conflict with the commission: “I am hopeful the board of police commissioners will slowly come to realize that this is not a grab for power. This is not an effort to be obnoxious or antagonistic,” he said.

He said he would be willing to consult with the commission on any additional reassignments, but has no intention of rescinding a series of recent commander reassignments to high-level positions.

Chandler, the mayor’s press secretary, said that Bradley’s letter was drafted by the office of City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie and that it reflected the views of a number of city officials, including top police commanders. Chandler said the letter was drafted in part because of Comrie’s concerns about the impact of promotions during a hiring freeze.

Chandler said Comrie also was concerned about the effect of any acting appointments, made by Gates, on the Civil Service system. Under Civil Service procedures, Chandler said, acting appointees could have an unfair advantage over other candidates for promotion. Because of those concerns, he said, Comrie asked the mayor to send the letter to the Police Commission.

“Gates is apparently the only one not concerned about a lame duck executive filling jobs on his way out the door,” Chandler said.

Speaking for the campaign favoring the police reform ballot measure, Lisa Foster, executive director of California Common Cause, called Gates’ comments “absurd.”

“It is really ironic for Gates to make the charge that others are attempting to politicize the department,” she said. “It is Gates who has politicized the department in unprecedented ways.”

Times staff writer Frank Clifford contributed to this story.