Redeploy Police, Riot Response Study Urges : LAPD: Panel headed by ex-FBI Director Webster offers sweeping recommendations. It spreads the blame but puts brunt of criticism on former Chief Gates.

In a series of sweeping recommendations, the special panel investigating the police response to the spring riots will call today for the LAPD to undertake a fundamental redeployment of officers back to basic patrol duties, move quickly to prepare for future emergencies and modernize inadequate communications systems.

The committee’s long-awaited report, which was reviewed by The Times on Tuesday, will spread blame for the riot response around city government, but the brunt of the criticism is leveled at former Police Chief Daryl F. Gates. According to the panel, Gates “failed to provide a real plan and meaningful training to control the disorder” but misled other city officials into believing he had such a plan.

The report was prepared at the request of the Police Commission by a volunteer staff of more than 100 people headed by former FBI and CIA Director William H. Webster. Hubert Williams, president of the Washington-based Police Foundation, served as deputy special adviser. Many of the committee’s broad conclusions were disclosed by The Times last week, but the final report also includes a step-by-step action plan to respond to the findings.

The report, in fact, could be read as a virtual blueprint to remake the department under new Chief Willie L. Williams. It embraces many of the changes sought by Williams--notably redeployment and community policing. And the report also implicitly rejects the paramilitary policing style fashioned by Gates.

Failure to follow--and fund--some of the recommendations could lead to “needless loss of life and injury” in any future emergencies, the committee states.

The committee states bluntly that the initial response by police and city officials to violence that followed the not guilty verdicts against four police officers in the Rodney G. King beating trial “was marked by uncertainty, some confusion and an almost total lack of coordination.”

“City government and police leaders do not appear to have worked well together as a team,” the panel found. “There is much deep-seated hostility, mistrust and suspicion in this relationship, and it cries out for change in the old ways of doing business.”

Mayor Tom Bradley, for instance, “anticipated the possibility of an adverse reaction (to the verdicts)” but then “failed to exercise responsibility . . . to make certain that the city and its departments had a plan and were prepared” to deal with the potential civil unrest.

The report also notes with disapproval that Bradley and Gates--at loggerheads over the mayor’s request that Gates resign--had not spoken to one another for an entire year before the riots.

City government sources said Bradley will react swiftly to the Webster findings when they are officially released today. They said he will send letters to City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie and to all city department heads advising them that he is determined to see the city respond quickly and decisively to the recommendations.

The letters will say that the mayor is “committed to providing whatever help and resources are necessary to get the job done,” sources said.

Also targeted for criticism in the report is Comrie, who as chief administrative officer serves as coordinator of the Emergency Operations Organization. The report says he “failed to take active part in citywide planning and training” in emergency preparedness.

The panel was appointed in response to outcry over the slow police response to the first signs of unrest on April 29. The violence continued for three days and was among the most deadly rioting in the nation in this century.

The committee interviewed more than 400 people, conducted surveys, held seven neighborhood meetings and met with high-level police officials across the country.

Although top government officials in Los Angeles are singled out for criticism, the report, titled “The City in Crisis,” states it should not be interpreted as reflecting badly on the “dedication and ability of the brave men and women” who serve as rank-and-file officers throughout the city.

The report’s account of the unfolding events of the riots, the chaos that engulfed the LAPD’s command apparatus and the divisions within city government largely repeats earlier news reports. But the panel’s report includes new details and resolves some lingering questions, such as Gates’ assertion--disputed by some of his top aides--that he had a plan to combat a riot. According to the report, that was a reference to a standard LAPD disaster preparedness manual, not a specific riot plan.

Most important, the committee reached conclusions on how to prevent a recurrence. The panel acknowledges that “some of our recommendations may result in additional costs. . . . (But) failure to fund emergency preparation . . . and essential emergency equipment will cause needless loss of life and injury . . . in any future emergency.”

In its key recommendations, the panel:

* Urges Gates’ successor, Chief Williams, to reassign police officers from specialized units such as the DARE anti-drug program and the CRASH gang suppression unit to patrol duties “to the greatest extent possible,” and that field command experience become a primary criteria for advancement to higher ranks in the LAPD.

The committee found that only slightly more than 4% of the sworn officers are on patrol duty at any given time, and that too much of the department’s strength is tied down to desk jobs, support services or other less urgent tasks.

The panel noted that in his organization of the department, Gates placed special emphasis and pride in elite units such as CRASH, SWAT and the Metro squad, which investigates high-profile crimes. These units became paths to promotion and coveted assignments. But the cost, according to the panel, was in a weakening and downgrading of the street patrols that had been the backbone of the department’s crime-fighting and citizen-response efforts.

“It is our first recommendation,” the report says, that the LAPD “adopt new priorities that place renewed emphasis upon basic patrol duties.”

* Calls for city and police leaders to pay closer attention to emergency response planning and training, particularly in sharing mutual assistance with surrounding local law enforcement agencies.

“We especially recommend,” the report says, that leaders throughout the city and the LAPD receive training “designed to enhance their crisis management experience and skills.”

The panel concluded that the response to the riots could have been more effective had the LAPD immediately sought help from the Sheriff’s Department and other local police agencies. The department’s reluctance to seek assistance permitted the violence to spread and perhaps prolonged the riots.

* Supports passage of Proposition M on the November ballot, which would authorize $235 million in revenue bonds to upgrade the 911 emergency communications system.

“Modernization of the communications system,” the report says, “is essential to permit the city to conduct both normal and emergency operations.”

The report concludes that the emergency communication system was “overwhelmed” and there was near total breakdown of information exchange between top officials and officers in the field.

The breakdown also affected residents. “The sheer load of calls during the (riots) was more than the system could handle. Citizens could not get 911 and other calls for service through to dispatchers,” the report says.

There are dozens of lesser recommendations, ranging from an endorsement of community-based policing to the purchase of additional computers and an inventory of emergency equipment such as gas masks.

Although the recommended reforms focus on systemic problems, the report also strikes hard at individual decision-makers.

Much of the criticism of Gates centers on his failure to adequately prepare for the potential of civil unrest, even though the King beating and other events had polarized the city along racial lines. Rather than devise a plan to put down a riot, Gates relied on the LAPD’s longstanding manual for responding to natural disasters, such as an earthquake, according to the report. He stuck to that position despite being urged by some top police officials that the department do more planning.

The report recounts the well-known, much criticized decision by Gates as the rioting broke out to take a “leisurely car ride” to Brentwood to attend an event raising funds in opposition to a police reform ballot measure. It also criticizes him for an extended, two-hour helicopter ride over the city.

When Gates arrived at a field command post almost eight hours after the verdicts were announced, he criticized Deputy Chief Matthew Hunt for not implementing a riot containment strategy. However Gates, the report says, “remained only at the command post for only 30 to 60 minutes, and then departed.”

Other top police officers also come under fire. The department’s command staff, the report says, was demoralized, paralyzed and in disarray.

Gates’ top aide, Assistant Chief Robert Vernon, who oversaw the department’s field operations, had retired just five days before the riots. In addition, strains within the department resulting from the King beating scandal had left some officials not on speaking terms with one another. Many were “caught by surprise” by the riots, according to the report, citing the fact that LAPD officials trained in emergency response were allowed to go off duty less than an hour after the verdicts were read.

So pervasive was the police inaction, the report says, that none of the commanders in the South Bureau--the heart of the riot zone--took charge the first evening of the riots. Hundreds of officers stood around a field command post with no orders to move out to the hot spots on the streets.

Despite such problems, Los Angeles police officials were reluctant to seek help from other agencies.

“LAPD has, for years, held itself aloof from mutual aid entanglements, believing it was more likely that the department would be called on to help others than the LAPD to receive help itself,” the report says.

Like Gates and his commanders, Bradley is chastised for not making sure the city was fully prepared. He was taken to task for not calling in help from other local authorities before asking for troops from the National Guard, which take longer to arrive.

And the mayor “failed to clearly spell out the terms of the curfew” during the riots, resulting in some news media misinterpreting whether the curfew was mandatory.

The City Council and the Police Commission, appointed by the mayor, also were lax in their responsibilities to make sure the city was prepared, the report says.

The Police Commission, for instance, “did not seriously anticipate” the possibility that there would be acquittals in the trial and likewise made no “adequate effort to determine if there really was a plan.”

In summary, the report criticized all of the civilian oversight--the Police Commission, the mayor and the City Council--for not making adequate efforts to determine if there was a specific riot plan.

“All appear to have simply accepted the chief’s representation that his department was ready, without further verification. In retrospect, all plainly had a duty to do more than this.”

Times staff writer Rich Connell also contributed to this report.