Police Commissioners Rip Gates’ Proposal to Restructure LAPD : Law enforcement: Chief wants to eliminate some top positions. Critics say successor should plan any reorganization.

A newly minted proposal by Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to restructure the Police Department’s bureaucracy and eliminate several top command positions ran into heavy criticism Saturday from members of the city’s Police Commission.

Commissioner Jesse A. Brewer, a former Police Department assistant chief, and several other commission members said they prefer to let Police Chief-designate Willie L. Williams come up with his own plan to reorganize the department. Commissioner Anne Reiss Lane said any decision to revamp the department is “Chief Williams’ call when he comes.”

“I think we will all say that the outgoing chief should not be reorganizing the department,” Brewer said. “The incoming chief will want to submit his own plan.”

Gates on Saturday defended his plan, which requires commission approval, and accused commissioners of failing to give it proper consideration. Gates said his proposal was prompted by longstanding departmental management failings and not by the riots. He added that the restructuring would have meant “no difference” had it gone into effect before the riots.

Gates said his proposal, which would eliminate two assistant chief positions, was partly motivated by the political squabbles that have consumed the Police Department’s upper echelons in recent years.

“I had three assistant chiefs and, frankly, all they did was complain and jockey among themselves for position,” Gates said. “(Assistant Chief David) Dotson and Brewer complained about things before the Christopher Commission and they had full authority to correct those things.”

Lane said she considered Gates’ plan, which circulated last week in a seven-page letter, nothing more than “an interoffice memo.” Lane said the proposal would not be placed on the commission’s agenda until Williams replaces Gates, who has said he plans to retire in late June.

Williams, who was attending a Chicago meeting of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, was unavailable for comment.

Gates said his plan, devised in consultation with William G. Ouchi, a UCLA management expert, was created to “flatten” the department by paring away extraneous command positions.

“The time has come for modern police management,” Gates said. “It eliminates some of the layers of hierarchy that have stifled the chief of police in the past.”

Under the reorganization, the department’s four geographic bureaus--now headed by assistant chiefs--would be eliminated and its 18 divisions--headed by captains--would report directly to the chief. The plan would eliminate two assistant chief positions (two high-ranking positions are now vacant) and create a unit of eight “inspectors” to review the performance of the police captains and their divisions.

A training bureau would be established and headed by a new deputy chief. In a recommendation that mirrors a proposal listed by the Christopher Commission, another deputy chief position would be created to oversee discipline.

Gates responded angrily Saturday to criticism from Brewer and other commissioners, insisting that they were reacting without giving his proposal serious thought.

“This guy should retire,” Gates said after hearing of Brewer’s comments. “He’s an absolute impediment to everything. He’s a frustrated chief of police and everyone else on the commission defers to him.”

In his memo, Gates said his plan was motivated by the desire “to determine if a more decentralized structure would provide increased service to citizens and promote innovation within the ranks.”

Decentralization is a concept embraced recently by many big-city police chiefs. But as practiced by Williams during his tenure as Philadelphia’s top police official, decentralization did not require the elimination of top geographic command posts--a move called for in Gates’ plan.

Gates said his proposal to do away with the department’s geographic bureaus--configured into West, South, Central and San Fernando Valley--would result in a department that would more easily adopt community policing and deal with complaints of brutality.

In their testimony before the Christopher Commission more than a year ago, Dotson and Brewer told investigators that they were unable to prod Gates into solving excessive force problems within some divisions and rooting out racism within the department.

Dotson was unavailable to comment on Gates’ criticism that neither he nor Brewer had come forth with those complaints. But Brewer responded vehemently.

“That’s a lie,” Brewer said. “We talked about these problems in many staff meetings. . . . The chief never had time for us. He was busy doing speeches and left the running of the department to us. . . . He canceled staff meeting after staff meeting. It was almost impossible to discuss important issues with him.”

Brewer also said that Gates’ plan would require an “activist” police chief who would be deluged with internal matters and that Gates shunned such a daily workload.

“It would make the chief spend almost all his time on internal operations,” Brewer said. “It would have been a major problem in the riots. The captains would have been going to him directly for all kinds of decisions and, if he wasn’t present, what kind of access would there have been to him?”

In the riots’ early hours, Gates spent 20 minutes delivering a speech at a Brentwood fund-raiser.

Gates said that his proposed restructuring would have made no difference in the police response to the riots. “Whether we had a new organization or the old organization, there is no excuse for the kinds of glitches that occurred,” Gates said.

Gates said that seven police captains who participated this year in a pilot project that placed them directly under his command “are enthralled” by his plan to streamline the line of authority between them and the chief’s office.

“They say: ‘We’ve died and gone to heaven, Chief,’ ” Gates said.

But several other high-ranking police officials who were contacted Saturday expressed alarm about Gates’ proposal.

“Everybody I know thinks it’s a joke,” said one captain, who declined to be identified. “It’s paying back top officers for their lack of support for the chief. It’s petty political vindictiveness.”