Gates Defends Police Record of Force in Ex-GM Workers’ Suit

Testifying in a civil suit, former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates on Tuesday defended his department’s record on using force.

Gates appeared in Van Nuys Superior Court in a suit brought by 15 former General Motors workers who said they were beaten by police seven years ago outside the now-closed assembly plant.

The plaintiffs, who are seeking unspecified damages from the city, contend that police clubbed them without provocation while dispersing a crowd of several hundred workers who were on their dinner break. Police said they went to the Van Nuys plant in force Oct. 3, 1985, in response to complaints from businesses along Van Nuys Boulevard who complained that some workers were rowdy and drunk during their breaks.

Gates, who retired in June, was called to the stand by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Hermez Moreno, who tried to get the former chief to acknowledge that officers regularly boasted in electronic messages of using violence against suspects.

But Gates insisted that such messages were “a few comments out of millions” sent by officers using the department’s internal communications system.

Although Gates was not directly involved in supervising police outside the plant during the incident, Moreno said he is seeking to prove to jurors that his administration tolerated excessive force.

Moreno said his clients suffered broken bones, bruises and scrapes when police attacked them without provocation. Moreno acknowledged that some members of the crowd, which he estimated at 600, threw beer cans at police, but insisted that his clients were off to the side and had no role in attacks on police.