Arguments on Evidence Delay Gates’ Testimony

An attorney defending former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates against Rodney G. King’s lawsuit for punitive damages said Wednesday that the Christopher Commission report on the Police Department is biased against his client.

Assistant City Atty. Don Vincent, also representing 14 other current and former officers, argued that the report should not be used to determine whether Gates was personally accountable for the conduct of his officers during King’s 1991 beating.

Vincent argued that many of the witnesses interviewed by the Christopher Commission were critics of Gates whose accusations were accepted without challenge.

“They weren’t cross-examined, and the Christopher Commission took their comments and put them in there,” Vincent told U.S. District Judge John G. Davies outside the presence of the jury.

Vincent’s remarks came during a tedious, point-by-point review of the commission report to determine what parts of it may be admitted as evidence against Gates.

The legal haggling postponed Gates’ long-awaited testimony in the trial. Gates, who took the stand for only 20 minutes Tuesday, is expected to return to the stand today in Downtown Los Angeles.

Davies made it clear that much, but not all, of the Christopher Commission report would be excluded as hearsay in the trial, now in its second phase. Late last month, the same jury awarded King $3.8 million in compensatory damages from the city because of the injuries he suffered in the beating.

King’s attorneys are attempting to use the report to allege that Gates knew, or should have known, of departmental practices of excessive force and racism that contributed to the attack on King.

Vincent’s criticisms of the commission’s report--which became the basis of reform within the Police Department after Gates’ resignation--later drew a stern counterattack from Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who served on the ad hoc committee to implement the recommendations.

“It’s not his job to try to discredit the Christopher Commission report,” Ridley-Thomas said of the assistant city attorney. “The Christopher Commission report serves as a blueprint for the city of Los Angeles. No city attorney, as far as I’m concerned, is operating within what I consider to be the appropriate bounds of that office by contradicting (such) a broadly embraced set of recommendations and policies.”

The courtroom debate over the report was interrupted only by brief testimony from Jerry Mulford, a former LAPD training officer, who had flown in from Washington state to show jurors how police are taught to handle felony suspects. Testifying on Gates’ behalf, Mulford demonstrated how suspects are placed in a prone position to minimize the danger to officers.

Mulford also attempted to define some of the guidelines governing whether an officer may strike a suspect who is on the ground.