What Could Be More Political Than Gates? : Reform: Under Charter Amendment F, the police chief couldn’t act as a lone wolf.

The violence and disorder of past weeks showed more clearly than ever that we need to improve the way we fight crime in this city. Business as usual will not suffice.

The most important thing we can do is to pass Charter Amendment F, the Christopher Commission’s police reform package. The key steps that we need to take are all among the amendment’s provisions:

-- Remove the lifetime job guarantee for the chief of police. Daryl F. Gates has been in office too long. His failure to respond to the riots was tangible proof that he has lost whatever effectiveness he once had when it comes to protecting the public safety. It’s time for him to step aside, yet the current system allows Chief Gates to stay on and on, like the dinner guest who has overstayed his welcome and doesn’t know when to leave.

Charter Amendment F won’t let a chief grow stale in the job or use the Police Department as his or her own fiefdom. It would put a two-term, 10-year limit on the police chief and the citizen’s panel overseeing the police, ensuring that we have responsive, fresh leadership at the helm.

-- Give officials the power to remove a police chief who can’t do the job. At present, outdated civil-service job protections and the political meddling of the City Council can prevent us from removing a chief who is clearly not up to handling the job.

Under Charter Amendment F, the citizens’ panel overseeing the police would have the authority to make changes essential to public safety. If Charter Amendment F had been in place, we could have had new leadership at the helm of the Los Angeles Police Department a year ago.

Is there really any question that the people of this city would have been better protected and served if a new chief had been in place when the rioting broke out? Gates wasn’t speaking to Mayor Tom Bradley; he wasn’t speaking to many of his top commanders; he was caught unprepared for the violence; he wasn’t even at his post as the rioting exploded. Public safety would have been better served if Gates had stepped aside when called upon to do so more than a year ago.

-- Hold the LAPD’s top brass accountable to the public. Right now the Police Department’s leadership isn’t really accountable to anyone. Incredible as it may seem, there was no civilian authority in this city in a position to demand that Gates prepare and defend a plan for responding to a violent reaction to the verdicts in the King case. Public safety in this city should not be a one-man show. Charter Amendment F would make sure that the leadership of the LAPD is accountable to the public, via the citizens’ oversight panel, and public safety would be better served.

-- Discipline renegade officers. The vast majority of police officers are hard-working, decent, brave and honest public servants. Thousands of officers performed heroically during the riots, and do so every day on the dangerous streets of this city. But the effectiveness of the Police Department is threatened by what the Christopher Commission identified as a small group of officers who are repeatedly involved in excessive use of force, often racially motivated. A strong police force doesn’t have to tolerate racism or brutality.

The city spends tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money every year to pay court settlements to victims of those officers who use excessive force. We desperately need that money to provide decent officers the support they need. With the money we spend on liability settlements, we could also hire scores of new officers to better protect our streets.

The opponents of Charter Amendment F argue that it will politicize the Police Department. That is nonsense. It’s hard to imagine a chief of police more political than Daryl Gates. Gates won’t talk to Bradley because they’ve had a political fight. He plays political games inside his department, inciting rivalries, playing favorites and pitting officers against one another. He refused to speak to many of the officers in his top command even when they were pleading with him to develop a plan for protecting the public against an outbreak of violence. He campaigns for candidates in close political races; he smirks and drops hints about having secrets on politicians.

Worst of all, the man who says he doesn’t want politics in the Police Department was attending a political fund-raiser in Brentwood while this city exploded around him. Let’s face it: You don’t get much more political than Chief Gates. Charter Amendment F will put professionalism, not politics, back in the LAPD.