Hailing the Chief : Gates Saluted as Hero at Final Police Academy Graduation

Is Daryl F. Gates ready to pass the police chief’s baton to Willie L. Williams?

On Friday, Gates was not even in a hurry to pass the bandleader’s baton to Don Holcomb, conductor of the Police Concert Band.

During an emotion-filled morning, Gates presided over his final Police Academy graduation by handing out diplomas to 59 new officers. The outdoor ceremony attracted hundreds, and many seemed to have come more to say goodby to their chief than to welcome the rookies.

Gates was given a hero’s welcome when a squad of motorcycle officers escorted his car through the Academy’s arched entryway and led it to a reserved parking spot marked by four huge stars. When he walked onto the parade grounds to start the ceremony, he passed through a saluting honor guard as the band serenaded him with a composition written for him.

The crowd cheered when Gates stepped forward and conducted the musicians. They cheered again when the name of the tune was announced: “Swinging Gates.”

And they applauded Gates’ freewheeling commencement address as he offered advice to the rookies, to the news media, to Korean-American grocers and even to President Bush.

The President left him “so shocked and so hurt” when he addressed the nation after the not guilty verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating trial and wondered aloud how the jury had reached its conclusion, Gates said.

“He said: ‘I saw that tape and I don’t know what to tell Barbara. I don’t know what to tell my grandkids,’ ” Gates said. “Well, Mr. President, tell Barbara and tell your grandkids that we have a high standard of justice in this nation. . . . You go in innocent until proven guilty.”

Repeated replays of the videotape showing police officers striking King “built the expectations of the people of the United States that those individuals were guilty,” Gates said. “They went into the trial guilty. Guilty in the mind of the American public.”

Gates acknowledged that “no one is proud” about the King beating, however. “You went through the training here and you know you don’t do that kind of thing on the street,” he told the graduates.

Gates said he is not proud of things that have occurred since the King verdicts prompted looting and rioting in Los Angeles either.

He told the crowd that he was angered to see photos of Korean-American grocers holding “conciliatory” talks this week with a masked gang member. He labeled the gang members “little terrorists.”

“That’s the old protection racket. That’s how the Mafia got started,” Gates said. “That’s what it is: ‘We’re going to give you a job, little gang member, and you protect me.’ That’s a protection racket.”

The news media, meantime, is glamorizing and legitimizing gang members as “community leaders” with post-riot stories, even to the point of giving them limousine rides to television interviews, he said.

“It is a good thing I’m leaving because I do not understand, and I’m so disappointed in what I see,” he said.

Pointing to a line of television cameras focused at him--”They don’t want to miss a word of what I’m going to say”--Gates urged the rookies to assist the news media.

“You see the people behind the cameras and the sound people? They’re heroes. Take good care of them. Always help them--let them get their pictures. They’re top-notch people,” Gates said.

But as for reporters, some of them “have gone overboard” in criticizing Los Angeles police and other police agencies in the past year, he quickly added.

That has “truly injured law enforcement in this country. And when they injure law enforcement in this country, they injure the people of this nation,” he said.

Gates drew laughter when he told of a contentious interview with Ted Koppel on Thursday night’s ABC “Nightline” show.

The pair clashed over the fairness of an earlier Koppel prime-time special that put forth the idea that civil unrest got out of control so quickly in Los Angeles in part because the Police Department had not developed a contingency plan for the occasion and in part because Gates and Mayor Tom Bradley were not working together and, in fact, had not spoken for more than a year.

“I think your prime-time special stinks,” Gates told Koppel on “Nightline.” “I think it was a hit piece on me and him (the mayor) but more on me.”

Gates added: “This city has a fine disaster plan . . . that allows us to move into any kind of emergency. . . . As much as I dislike the mayor, the mayor’s been a part of that planning. He knows what his role is. I know what my role is. Both of us conducted ourselves appropriately. We worked together over this entire thing.”

“You ought to get a tape,” Gates told the crowd. “It was wonderful. We almost got into a boxing match there. I’d have won too,” he said.

The ceremony ended as four police helicopters flew overhead, their aerial sirens wailing.

Afterward, Gates was surrounded by reporters with questions about police response to the rioting. Behind them were police officers with copies of Gates’ new book, “Chief: My Life in the LAPD.” They were after autographs, not answers.

The first in line was Officer Shannon Paulson.

“Thank you, sir,” Paulson told the chief. “It’s been an honor.”