A CITY IN CRISIS: HOPE AND PRAYER AMID THE ASHES : Gates’ Absence Early in Riot to Be Examined

The Los Angeles Police Commission will examine Chief Daryl F. Gates’ departure from police headquarters for at least an hour and a half to attend a political fund-raiser as last week’s riots were breaking out, the president of the panel said Sunday.

Commission President Stanley K. Sheinbaum said the review of Gates’ actions will be part of a larger probe of the much-criticized and slow-moving Police Department response in the early stages of the uprising, particularly the period when the nation watched televised scenes of motorists being yanked from vehicles and beaten in South Los Angeles.

Gates left Parker Center at about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday--three hours after the Rodney G. King verdicts were announced--to attend a previously scheduled Brentwood reception sponsored by the group opposing a June 2 ballot measure that proposes sweeping changes in the Los Angeles Police Department.

As Gates drove across town to the private event high in Mandeville Canyon, a protest in front of police headquarters was growing large and unruly and the scene at the epicenter of the riot, Florence and Normandie avenues, had turned ugly with looting and stone-throwing and the motorist beatings.

“To be gone from his command post in those critical hours bears examination,” Sheinbaum said.

Gates has downplayed his absence, saying he stayed only a short time and was in radio contact with his subordinates while on the road.

Speaking Sunday on the nationally televised “Face the Nation” show, Gates said there was not “a full-scale riot” when he headed for the fund-raiser and “I simply went over, excused myself, and left. I was there only five minutes or so.”

However, The Times reported Friday that Gates spoke with opponents of the ballot measure, Proposition F, for about 20 minutes. That was borne out by a tape of Gates’ remarks to the 40 or 50 supporters obtained by the The Times on Sunday.

Gates, who arrived at the Brentwood home between 7:15 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., stayed to give sometimes rambling answers to a series of questions, ranging from the ballot measure, to his view of his successor, Willie L. Williams, to the incident at hand.

One woman in attendance asked about the people who were being pulled from cars “and just literally beaten to death.”

The chief gave a long answer, recalling lessons learned about police deployment in the 1965 Watts riot. Officers were being pulled back to be regrouped in squads, Gates said, adding that such an action “takes a little bit of time” and that “there are going to be situations where people are without assistance. That’s just the facts of life.”

Generally, Gates reassured the group that the police “know a lot more about controlling riots (now) than we did in those days. So I think we can cool this very, very quickly.”

Gates reminded the gathering that there are “many good people in South-Central Los Angeles.” But he also said the department was worried “about far more guns then ever before” in the community and people more willing to use them.

Gates chatted with supporters as he left the reception about 30 minutes after arriving and was back at the city’s Emergency Operations Center between 8:30 and 9 p.m.

On “Face the Nation,” Gates conceded that he should have skipped the fund-raiser and returned to police headquarters. “There’s no question about it. . . . I wish I had’ve, because of the criticism that’s come from it.”

In another interview Sunday broadcast on CBS’ “60 Minutes” show, Gates was sharply critical of the announcement by President Bush that a federal civil rights inquiry of the four officers’ conduct in the King beating was being resumed. Not guilty verdicts against the officers touched off the city’s worst riot ever.