Noisy to the Bitter End : Sadly, Chief Gates’ latest outburst threatens to strip away all dignity

It was probably too much to expect Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to go quietly. That has never been his style. But if only he could leave the important office he has held for the last 14 years with some dignity.

Like a petulant child who threatens to take his ball and go home when the other kids won’t play by his rules, Gates threw a tantrum, and lots of taunts, over the weekend.

The tantrum took the form of still another threat to delay his retirement, perhaps until after mid-July. That would have forced a reopening of the costly and complex process of selecting a new chief. The taunts were aimed at Gates’ opponents, both his real critics and the enemies (in the media, City Hall, etc.) he has conjured up to try to explain and justify the shambles he is leaving his successor.

His was a sad performance, displaying how oblivious Gates is to the fact that the process of police reform is well under way--without him. It began when Philadelphia Police Commissioner Willie L. Williams was picked to be the city’s new chief; Williams promises to bring a fresh perspective to a once-proud but now troubled Los Angeles Police Department. Change gained unalterable momentum last week when voters approved Charter Amendment F--the police reform measure written as a result of the Christopher Commission’s report on the LAPD’s problems.

The overwhelming support that voters expressed for reform should have been enough to persuade Gates, who campaigned heavily against the charter amendment, to keep his anger to himself. This is still a democracy, after all, not a banana republic where armed men in uniform do whatever they want no matter what the civilian electorate thinks.

But Gates’ outburst, perhaps his last as chief, slipped from angry polemics to sad farce at Monday’s oddly disjointed press conference, in which he told a national TV audience that his threats to delay his retirement were only a sham. “I will admit that that was a threat, a bluff, but it’s the only thing a lame duck has these days,” he said.

After this, can anyone really doubt that the time has come for Chief Gates to step aside?