In the Eye of the Storm : Politics: Compton Councilwoman Patricia Moore can either infuriate or inspire. She says she is fighting for justice. Detractors say she is grandstanding.

The topic on the afternoon radio program was the killing of two Compton police officers.

The conversation between the host, former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, and his guest, Compton City Councilwoman Patricia Moore, was going smoothly enough considering that Moore has been an outspoken critic of the police. A day earlier, Moore, who is a Compton mayoral candidate, had angered many people at an officer’s funeral with her remarks about the governor, the district attorney and the Los Angeles Police Department. But now, on the air, Gates and Moore were solemn and polite.

Then “Al from Burbank” called. He accused her of politicizing the funeral and said her rhetoric may have indirectly led to the deaths of the two officers.

What followed was vintage Moore--sharp and fiery, traits that can either infuriate or inspire and that have made her one of Southern California’s most controversial politicians.

Al, Moore said scathingly, was “sick.” “Do me a favor,” she said, when he interrupted. “Act like a man, not a punk.”

“I do not politic,” Moore said fiercely. “I am the same person . . . who warned you all that if you don’t deal right with the people in South-Central L.A and the urban community. . . . They are angry. I tried to warn you and tell you, but you act like the Als of the world, like you live in a doggone sand dune and don’t know what is going on here in the real world.” Injustice , racism and revolution are words that flow easily from Moore and, as her critics are apt to say, the more microphones there are, the easier they come.

“There is no justice for African-Americans in this country,” she said to the media after an Anglo judge sentenced a Korean-born grocer to probation for killing Latasha Harlins, a young African-American teen-ager. “This is for Latasha and Rodney King. It’s pay back,” she said to a newspaper reporter on the second day of the Los Angeles riots or, as Moore called it, “the civil revolution.”

In the last two years, she has probably been on every Los Angeles television station and made “Nightline” last week and the “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.” Beautiful and eloquent, Moore has an uncanny ability to find her way into the limelight. Those who have seen her, captured in the glare of camera lights, voice raised, usually react strongly. Most either want to give her a standing ovation or throw something at her.

“She’s a true and courageous leader who loves her people,” longtime Compton resident Ethel Miree said.

“The woman is crazy, she’s sick and she’s a master manipulator,” said Lorraine Cervantes, a community activist and longtime Moore critic.

Moore knows exactly how she affects people. She said her father taught her that “when you stand determined on an issue, people will either revere you or they will hate you.”

At her best, Moore is seen as a courageous, principled woman ready to fight for the underserved and underrepresented whenever she has an opportunity, no matter what the cost.

She once cornered former state schools Supt. Bill Honig at a Democratic political rally and demanded to know how he was going to help the troubled Compton Unified School District.

“Patricia is a person who loves people, not only black people, but all people in distress,” said Earsolene Smith, Moore’s friend. “She is for justice and if she sees something wrong, she’ll say it’s wrong. She speaks the truth and a lot of people are afraid of that.”

But the time, place and manner in which Moore chooses to make a stand often are criticized. Rep. Walter R. Tucker III (D-Compton) a former Compton mayor, said Moore just does not know when to stop. Tucker once supported Moore for mayor, but has withdrawn his support to endorse his younger brother.

“I question her judgment,” Tucker said. “She only operates on one gear and that’s full throttle. She never downshifts. She never compromises.”

Critics say that Kevin Michael Burrell’s funeral called for solemnity and dignity and that Moore turned it into something between a revival meeting and a campaign stop. In front of hundreds of police officers, Moore praised the slain officers and the Compton Police Department, which she said is “not like the L.A. four (police) officers who would beat somebody senselessly.”

In the rest of her speech, which was met with hisses and shouts of approval, Moore told Gov. Pete Wilson and Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti that police officers needed greater protection because they “are not like you, men who have protection 24 hours a day.”

Since the funeral, the Burrell family and several police officer associations across the state have demanded apologies, though her remarks are sometimes exaggerated. One Southern California police officers association accused her in a letter of “suggesting that citizens would become police officers in order to injure people.”

Moore has refused to apologize and said that she and her children have been threatened because of the “out and out lies” that have been spread about her remarks.

“Why are people so angry about my comments at the funeral?” Moore asks. “Is it really what I said, or the timing, or is it really that a black woman should not be up there telling it to the white Establishment? (Rep.) Tucker and others have said I made (Gov.) Pete Wilson uncomfortable. . . . Do you know how many seniors I have eating dog food out of cans because of Pete Wilson’s cuts? How uncomfortable do you think they are? . . . But a black woman is not supposed to be so strong and that’s what it is really all about. Believe me, if I was a man getting up there saying what I said, they would have been right in my corner.”

In the clannish world of Compton politics, where leaders are often judged by how long they have lived in the city and whether they attended local schools, the 44-year-old Moore is an outsider. The daughter of migrant workers who was born in Louisiana and raised near Fresno, Moore moved to Compton around 1965 when her then-husband became a Compton police officer. Many in the Compton Establishment were shocked by Moore’s 1989 election victory over a lifelong Compton resident and 12-year incumbent.

Since then, feelings about her have been sharply divided. She has been a vocal critic of the city’s Police Department and once joined a march against City Hall to protest the killing of two men by a Compton police officer. Sentiments against Moore run so strong that a recent police news conference to discuss the slayings of the two officers was turned over to Moore’s political enemies, each of whom took turns lambasting the councilwoman for her remarks at the funeral.

Her involvement in issues outside Compton also are frowned upon by many. Moore is a Compton city councilwoman, the thinking goes, so she should spend more time in Compton and less traipsing around kingdom come trying to get herself on camera.

In some circles she is condemned as little more than a publicity hound, ready to exploit any tragedy, particularly those involving African-Americans, for her own personal glory.

“I have always questioned Ms. Moore’s judgment and commitment to the advancement of African-Americans,” said a longtime Moore critic, Danny Bakewell, president of the Los Angeles-based Brotherhood Crusade.

Critics note that Moore won her seat on the City Council in part because she organized demonstrations calling for gun control after a 2-year-old boy was killed in a drive-by shooting.

She launched the recall drive against Superior Court Judge Joyce A. Karlin and befriended the family of Rodney G. King while she was running unsuccessfully for state Assembly last year. During that campaign, the riots erupted and she was interviewed on numerous television stations warning that African-Americans could take no more injustice.

She is now involved with the so-called “L.A. 4,” the men who have been charged in the assault on truck driver Reginald O. Denny.

In every case, it was not uncommon to see Moore surrounded by television cameras and reporters.

Moore says that she cannot help it if the media choose to broadcast or print what she says. She has no ulterior motives, she said.

“I am a council member but I am also an African-American and a mother,” Moore said. “How do you separate that? Latasha Harlins could have been my daughter. Rodney King could have been my brother. The L.A. 4 could have been my sons. Am I supposed to turn my head? What kind of madness is that? There are other mothers who can’t do what I do. Who can’t scream out and be heard. I am a leader in my community, and I have a responsibility.”

But in some cases Moore has left bitter feelings behind. Gina Rae, a spokeswoman for the Latasha Harlins Justice Committee, said the family felt betrayed because Moore started the recall drive and then, at the eleventh hour, did not file the recall petitions with the county registrar and refused to give them to the family.

“We were sold out by her,” Rae said. “She used the death of an innocent child to further her political aspirations.”

But Moore said that she did not turn in the petitions because there were not enough valid signatures, and she said she has offered many times to give them the petitions.

Moore’s supporters argue that there are many people whom the councilwoman helps when the news cameras are not around. They describe her as someone who will get out of bed in the middle of the night to comfort a constituent who has been victimized. Her supporters call her gentle and motherly, and in private conversations, Moore is quietly charming. She gives people all her attention, often calling them “precious” and “sweetie,” reaching out to give a comforting pat on the shoulder.

This private Moore starts each morning with a half-hour conference call of prayer among friends. She worries about her three children, all in their 20s, and her two grandchildren. She sends people away from council meetings saying: “I love you and Compton loves you.”

But the day after the funeral, on the afternoon radio talk show, that Moore is nowhere to be found. After battling it out with Al from Burbank, Moore wants to know how many African-American commentators there are on KFI. Gates, with a chuckle, tells her the head of the station is black, his screener is black, the head of the news center is black.

“I said commentators, Mr. Gates, commentators,” Moore sharply interrupts. “You are not answering my question.”

“Look, I am not going to get into that,” Gates said. “What I want to know is what is the anger about?”

“That’s the problem Mr. Gates,” Moore said. “African-Americans are seldom heard. The true feeling of African-Americans are seldom heard and it is about time they speak up. Now if that offends someone, too bad, but this African-American is gonna tell the truth and speak the truth.”