Chief Seeks to Boost Support, Squelch Rumors

Insisting that he has no plans to give up his job, Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams attempted Thursday to rally support and squelch criticism of his performance, first in a meeting with his top officers and later at a news conference designed to get his message out to the public.

“We have to stop the rumor mill,” Williams told the upper echelon of his department during a rare gathering at the Parker Center auditorium.

“We have a chance to pick this department up and move it along,” Williams said. But that won’t happen, he warned, if “rumormongering (and) backbiting” continue. Williams, who vowed to stay on through the end of his five-year term and beyond, blamed much of that activity on his senior staff and demanded that it stop.

Williams, who has been the subject of mounting criticism and a storm of rumors in recent weeks, used the 40-minute meeting with his top officers to deny accusations of improprieties that have been lodged with the Police Commission and to assert a firmer hand over his top staff. But some senior staff members said they left the session mystified by the chief’s comments.

“Some people left there asking: ‘What the hell was that all about?’ ” one high-ranking official said after the meeting. “I don’t think many people were convinced one way or another.”

Williams did win support Thursday from some City Council members, however. All three members of the council’s Public Safety Committee expressed their support for the chief, key demonstrations of political support that could help put to rest reports of his imminent departure.

According to sources, the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners received a letter last month that accused Williams of taking free meals and rooms from a Las Vegas casino as well as soliciting and receiving tickets from Universal Studios. It also accused his family of misusing a cellular phone billed to his department, the sources said.

Although Williams has described the accusations as anonymous, sources say the letter was written and signed by retired Deputy Chief Steve Downing. Downing could not be reached for comment Thursday. His son, Mike Downing, works for the LAPD, but sources said the younger Downing was not involved in preparing the letter.

Williams grew most emotional when he discussed allegations made against members of his family, although he never stated specifically what they were.

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“The allegations publicized . . . over the last 24 hours are outrageous fabrications and lies. Period,” Williams said during the news conference at Parker Center.

“To bring my wife into these allegations and attack her reputation,” Williams said, “I think is beneath the actions of the lowest and most scurrilous individual I have ever known and I will do everything possible to learn the source.”

To dispel the allegations, Williams has hired lawyer Melanie Lomax, herself a controversial choice because she is a former police commissioner and is not well-liked by many LAPD officers. During the news conference Thursday, Williams said he is confident that the Police Commission “will quickly and expeditiously put to rest this unparalleled assault and attack upon myself, my family and my Los Angeles Police Department.”

Williams, who was hired in 1992 after the riots, said he believes he still has enough support to do his job. Williams was the first Los Angeles police chief to be hired under a term of office: He was brought in to serve for five years, but the Police Commission can reappoint him for five more.

Williams acknowledged that the recent attacks on him have been difficult, but he said he remains confident that he can continue.

“There’s a line that clearly has been crossed here,” Williams said. “But I think I have the overwhelming support of the men and women of this organization.”

Police Commissioner Deirdre Hill confirmed that the commission had received allegations of impropriety against Williams, but said that so far none of them have been substantiated. Hill also said there is no link between the chief’s recent performance evaluation by the Police Commission and the allegations of misconduct.

“The chief has denied each and every allegation and has pledged his support and cooperation to conclude this investigation,” Hill said.

Rumors of a departure by Williams have been plaguing him for weeks, and they appear to have been fueled in part by a critical performance evaluation by the Police Commission. According to sources, that evaluation found fault with the chief’s management style, work habits and failure to take better command of the LAPD. Although Williams would not discuss the evaluation in detail, he told his top officers that he expects to serve two five-year terms.

“I didn’t come here to be a short-term chief,” Williams said.

Saying that he believes that the rumors are being circulated by his own managers, Williams told his staff that the people being hurt most by the accusations are the department’s rank-and-file officers.

“We’re killing our own employees,” Williams said. “That has got to stop.”

Williams urged his staff to throw their support behind his programs and to better relay his messages to patrol officers back at the stations. He cited, for example, wavering support by the department’s command staff for a pilot program in which patrol officers were switched to three 12-hour work days, something patrol officers had requested.

Rank-and-file officers, Williams repeatedly told his command staff, also need to be made aware of improvements within the department, such as more cash overtime for officers and the department’s progress in putting more officers out on the street.

At his news conference, Williams said that by July 30 the department will have met or exceeded its goals for hiring new officers and hiring civilian employees to free sworn officers to return to patrol duty. He also noted that the department added 400 patrol cars last year and that an additional 200 cars have been ordered.

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Despite the chief’s two appearances Thursday, several command officers said he did not adequately explain his defense against the new allegations against him. Other members of the chief’s command staff said support for him has already eroded badly among the LAPD’s leadership.

In part, that is because of a growing sense that Williams is not aggressively pushing forward with new policing programs and that he has fallen behind on a key mission, expanding the department ranks. But some of the concerns are more personal: Williams has supported a move to strip his highest-ranking officers of their Civil Service protection, a move that has alienated him from many members of his top staff.

Williams also demoted then-Assistant Chief Bernard C. Parks last year. Many top level managers were upset by that because they were loyal to Parks; some saw it as a harbinger of insecurity in the department’s upper ranks.

But while Williams is grappling with uncertainty in the upper ranks, sources insist that the chief’s job is not in jeopardy and there is no move to fire him.

Whether Williams would be kept for a second term is another matter, but one that the commission has yet to formally address, according to sources, who vehemently denied a television report suggesting that the chief’s departure from the LAPD could be imminent.

City Councilman Marvin Braude, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, vigorously defended the chief as “a man of outstanding integrity and character” who in all likelihood has been wrongly accused of improprieties.

Braude also downplayed reports that Williams’ recent evaluation by the Police Commission included some criticism of the chief’s performance. Braude said he had been told by commissioners that “all the report stated was that there were more goals they want the chief to achieve. They want him to do better. Well, of course they want him to do better.”

Braude’s colleague on the committee, Councilwoman Laura Chick, declined to be interviewed, but issued a one-sentence statement: “I have full faith and confidence in Chief Williams to lead the Los Angeles Police Department.”

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, the committee’s third member, said he believes the chief is being smeared.

“All of the elements add up to a smear campaign designed to tarnish the chief’s image, thereby causing him not to be the most popular public official in this city,” Ridley-Thomas said.

Times staff writer Ted Rohrlich contributed to this report