Panel Seeks Way to Dismiss Gates : Police: Angry commissioners vote to request special counsel. But chief sets news conference today and may back down from threat to delay his retirement.

An angry Los Angeles Police Commission voted unanimously Sunday to seek an independent attorney to advise them on how to remove Chief Daryl F. Gates, even as indications arose that the embattled chief will announce today that he is backing down from his threat to hold up the appointment of his successor.

The vote, taken in an extraordinary Parker Center meeting, asks the City Council to provide the Police Commission with a private lawyer to review the commission’s options on discharging or disciplining Gates if he refuses to retire by the end of this month.

The timing is crucial because if Gates stays into July--as he hinted late last week in yet another waffling over his departure date--it could jeopardize the appointment of Chief-designate Willie L. Williams.

“We’ve had enough,” Commission President Stanley K. Sheinbaum said of Gates, sharply blaming the chief for holding up the transition of power at Parker Center and restoring stability to the long-beleaguered Police Department.

“The chief has gone too far,” he said after the meeting.

Gates, although he could not be reached for comment, has scheduled a news conference for this morning at police headquarters, reportedly to announce that the transition process will not be endangered because he once again plans to leave by the end of the month.

“I think he’ll reaffirm his original decision to retire June 28 or 29,” said City Council President John Ferraro, who spoke with Gates on Sunday.

He added that Gates’ threat to stay into July was an example of how the chief “just likes to tweak people.”

But Sheinbaum, noting that Gates has not made good on a series of retirement dates, said the Police Commission will push ahead with obtaining an outside lawyer to make sure the chief is gone by the end of June.

“I’ve learned not to rely on what he says,” Sheinbaum said.

Gates was absent from the commission’s meeting Sunday. However, Sheinbaum said Gates was “duly notified” of the session, yet failed to even send a department representative, which he normally does when he cannot make a commission meeting.

The commission’s action was also aimed at protecting the appointment of Williams, who has resigned from his post as Philadelphia police commissioner and is in the process of moving his family to Los Angeles.

Should Gates stay on into July, Williams’ appointment would be invalidated because the rules for selecting a new chief will change under Charter Amendment F, the police reform measure approved last week by 70% of city voters.

Williams also could not be contacted Sunday. But Sheinbaum, who said he spoke with the chief-designate on Sunday, said Williams is closely watching the developments.

“He’s cool. He’s cool. He understands,” Sheinbaum said. “But he doesn’t like it. And there’s nothing he can do about it and he knows it.”

Gates told the council Friday that he may not leave as planned because he was angry that a department promotions list for high-ranking officers would not be immediately approved in what he called an example of City Hall interference with the police force.

But city leaders and police commissioners on Sunday bluntly characterized Gates’ reversal as an attempt to sabotage the transition process. They said Gates is hurting the city and the Police Department’s recovery from the Rodney G. King beating, as well as the aftermath of the riots.

“You’re dealing with someone here who seems to have lost his grip in a lot of ways and it’s hard to predict how he will react,” said Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani.

Police Commission Vice President Jesse A. Brewer said: “We are so embarrassed by his conduct. He’s embarrassed law enforcement across the nation.”

Citing an incident early Sunday in which 35 police officers were injured in a confrontation with reputed gang members at the Jordan Downs housing project, Brewer cautioned:

“The anger that has resulted from Chief Gates’ conduct is being directed at officers in the field, and that’s what we’re concerned about.”

Commissioner Michael K. Yamaki said that having to deal with Gates’ retirement date at this juncture was “a stupid waste of time,” and that commissioners should be concentrating on rebuilding police-community relations after the Rodney G. King beating and the riots.

“We are not moving forward,” he said. “We are moving backward.”

All five commissioners agreed that if they did not move quickly before the Charter Amendment F election results are certified, the city could find itself forced with the expensive and time-consuming task of re-selecting a new chief.

After taking their vote, the commissioners met for another hour behind closed doors.

“We talked about possible options and the kind of attorney we might want,” Sheinbaum said as the private meeting adjourned. “We talked about the need to get on with the business of the city, to make sure this city has a good Police Department.”

Under the City Charter, the commission cannot terminate or discipline Gates without filing specific charges against him, such as insubordination or malfeasance, and he has Civil Service protection that allows him to appeal any job action by the commission.

Also appearing at Parker Center were officials from several community groups, some of whom want the Police Commission to outright fire Gates. They included the American Civil Liberties Union, the Ministers’ Coalition for Peace of South-Central Los Angeles, and Gloria Romero, chairwoman of the Hispanic Advisory Council to the Police Commission.

“Fire the chief,” Romero told the commission. “He is long overdue.”

The City Council is scheduled to meet Tuesday morning to consider the commission’s request for an outside attorney. Later that day, the commission will hold its weekly meeting, which could provide the panel’s first opportunity to quiz Gates on his retirement plans.

How the council will decide the commission’s request is unclear.

Councilman Michael Woo, a longtime Gates critic, predicted that the council will honor the request.

“I believe there are now enough votes on the City Council who have heard the will of the people,” he said. “I believe there are now enough votes on the City Council to back you up and break up Chief Gates’ stranglehold on this process.”

But Councilman Richard Alatorre agreed with Ferraro that Gates was only having fun with his political foes and that he fully expects Gates to be gone by the end of the month.

“I think he will retire within that date,” Alatorre said. “Some people are tweaking him, so he turns around and tweaks them.”

Sheinbaum, noting that Gates has repeatedly changed his retirement date, said the commission took him at his word on his June retirement date. Sheinbaum even referred to Page 356 of Gates’ just-published autobiography, “Chief: My Life in the LAPD.”

On that page--the last page--Gates wrote:

“There was nothing more to do. Voting on the ballot measure calling for changes in the selection of a chief would be held June 2, and I decided to leave the end of the month.

“Soon I would walk out of Parker Center as a sworn officer of the Los Angeles Police Department for the very last time.

“I had stayed as long as I cared to. No one had run me out.”