THE TIMES POLL : Many See Williams as Political Smear Victim

Although allegations of impropriety and poor leadership by Police Chief Willie L. Williams have cut into the chief’s strong popularity, he still is widely liked by Los Angeles residents, a majority of whom feel he is the victim of a political smear campaign, the Times Poll has found.

Sixty-five percent of those surveyed think reports that Williams lied about accepting free hotel rooms in Las Vegas and received poor evaluations of his management of the department are part of a systematic campaign to discredit the chief, while only 11% think the complaints are legitimate. Half feel the criticisms are hurting the city, according to the poll, conducted this week.

Citywide, 64% of the residents surveyed said they approved of the job Williams is doing--a drop from the 73% favorable rating the chief registered in a Times poll conducted a year ago but still a showing that would spark envy in many a politician.

“He’s been nicked by this,” Times Poll Director John Brennan said of the one-year slip in Williams’ approval ratings, “but the bottom line is that support for Williams is holding.”

By contrast, the approval rating of Williams’ predecessor, Daryl F. Gates, once slumped to 16%, shortly after the riots in 1992.

Further, Williams’ support extends across ethnic, ideological and geographic lines: He is liked by conservatives (who gave him a 55% approval rating) Republicans (55%), blacks (59%), whites (67%), Latinos (69%) and by residents in all parts of the city, ranging from 60% in South Los Angeles to 70% in the San Fernando Valley. (The Valley is a stronghold of Mayor Richard Riordan, whom many of Williams’ supporters perceive as a political foe. The chief has privately told those close to him that he believes the mayor is behind an effort to discredit him.)

“There doesn’t seem to be much polarization,” Brennan said. The poll, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday, consisted of telephone interviews of 831 residents. It has a margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points.

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Williams, the city’s first black police chief, arrived from Philadelphia in the wake of the riots. His top assignment was to reform the Los Angeles Police Department and restore its battered image. Although instantly popular with residents, he is widely disliked within the department. The Riordan-appointed Police Commission has been critical of Williams’ leadership and, according to sources, recently reprimanded the chief for allegedly lying about whether he accepted free hotel accommodations in Las Vegas.

Williams, blaming a misunderstanding, insists that he has been truthful and has threatened to sue.

Riordan, under a City Charter amendment designed to reform the LAPD, must review the commission’s reprimand, putting him squarely in the middle of the politically sensitive matter. The mayor has declined to criticize the chief publicly, saying it is up to the commission to rule on his performance. But several of those close to the mayor say he is frustrated with the slow pace of reforms and the difficulties in vastly enlarging the force--Riordan’s central campaign promise.

Williams’ supporters, including many of the city’s most influential black leaders, have charged that the criticisms of the chief’s leadership and the Las Vegas allegations are flimsy attempts to discredit the man chosen to lead the LAPD out of the disgrace of the Rodney G. King beating and its aftermath. According to the Times poll, substantial numbers of city residents share that assessment.

Of those who feel the criticisms are part of a campaign to discredit the chief, 16% blamed the commission while 11% said Riordan or his appointees were responsible; 10% blamed former Chief Gates and an equal number blamed it on Williams’ enemies within the department. Forty-nine percent, however, said they did not know who was behind the perceived campaign.

By margins of roughly 2 to 1, residents sided with Williams when asked whose version of the Las Vegas events they believed, the chief’s or the commission’s, but many also said Williams used poor judgment in the Las Vegas matter. A plurality--48%--said they believe Williams told the truth about the free accommodations. Twenty-one percent said they do not believe the chief told the truth. Whites and blacks believed him in somewhat larger numbers (53% in each group) than did Latinos, 46% of whom said the chief had been truthful about the incident.

Sid Zimmerman, 65, of Pacific Palisades, put it this way: “I don’t think anyone in his position would jeopardize his career for such a minute infraction. If you’re going to steal, don’t steal little, steal big, because the penalty’s the same.”

One of the chief’s most outspoken defenders was Frederick Dahl, 76, of Highland Park. “I hate to see a good guy get railroaded. And I think this is a railroad job,” Dahl said. “The reason is they don’t like him because he’s from out of state, which takes away from the rank and file.”

But Berneva Gatson, 75, of Watts, was suspicious of the chief.

“I just think that he’s lying, because why would they [commissioners] get on him like that?” said Gatson, who believes the chief should be suspended without pay but not fired.

Another poll respondent who sided with the Police Commission said the chief’s credibility has been damaged and he should be suspended. “It cannot be that [all five commissioners] are organized to damage the chief,” said Quang Tran, 24, a Cal State L.A. nursing student. “So they have found something that the chief did wrong.”

Margurita Ocampo, 51, who lives near Downtown, said the chief showed bad judgment. “For someone in his position, a government position, he has to think about what people would say about his actions. If an opportunity is there, he can’t just grab it without thinking about what the public will think.

“If he really did it, there should be some kind of punishment.”

Clearly, word of the Williams controversy has reached a wide audience: Four out of five people surveyed said they were aware of the issue--although most said they were fuzzy on the particulars.

Few of those surveyed thought the Las Vegas allegations were a serious matter: Only 32% said they were serious, while 59% said they were not.

A more legitimate arena, according to residents in the survey, is the chief’s leadership: 56% said charges of poor leadership are a serious matter, while 32% said they are not. Sixty-four percent said revelations about the controversy had no effect on their opinions of Williams, while 19% have a less favorable opinion now. And strong majorities said they believe Williams has the honesty and integrity to be chief (73%) and is a strong leader (62%). A small majority, 52%, said the revelations have not damaged the chief’s ability to lead the department. Thirty-seven percent said that they had.

“If Williams has an Achilles’ heel, it would be in his leadership. But the rating of his leadership, the kind of thing people think is important, is good,” Brennan said.

Furthermore, only 35% said the commission’s reprimand and criticism of the chief merit a formal investigation of Williams. Only 4% said the chief should be removed immediately from office; 87% said he should not. A majority, 54%, said to do so would have a negative effect on how the Police Department does its job, and half of those surveyed said the controversy over Williams is having a negative effect on the city as a whole (39% said it is having no negative effect). Also, 63% said they believed racism is a factor in the chief’s troubles, but those respondents were evenly split as to whether racism was playing a major or minor role in the controversy.

“They just don’t want a black man as police chief. They want to get rid of him by any means possible,” said one poll respondent, who lives in South-Central Los Angeles and who declined to provide his full name.

Poll Director Brennan said the survey shows that, overall, “people don’t like what’s being done to him, and they don’t like what it’s doing to the city.”

The Williams controversy has surfaced as the city is struggling to come back from the ravages of fires, flooding, a major earthquake and, especially, the racially divisive rioting that ripped through the city after the verdicts in the first trial of police officers involved in the King beating. In the fallout, Gates left office, Williams was hired and voters approved a sweeping package of police reforms.

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The poll showed that the LAPD has been improving its credibility with residents under Williams’ tenure. Seventy-one percent of those surveyed said they approve of the way the department is doing its job, the highest rating since 1988. From the dismal 34% approval rating of the department shortly after the King beating in 1991, the public’s opinion of the force has been rising steadily. The department also got favorable overall ratings for holding down crime (70%) and reaching out to the community (61%). One of the goals of the reform package is to implement “community-based policing,” a cooperative, neighborhood-oriented approach to crime-fighting.

Residents also feel things are slowly getting better for Los Angeles in general, the poll found, although a small majority--52%--still thinks things are going badly, while 43% said things are going well. A year ago, 59% had a gloomy view of the city, while 38% said things were OK.

It is part of a slow but steady improvement in outlook since May 1992, in the first weeks after the riots, when the split was a somber 13% to 85%.

Assistant Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus and Times staff writer Jack Cheevers contributed to this story.

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Rating the Chief

A Times poll has found that people in Los Angeles think Willie L. Williams is the victim of a campaign to discredit him, but are unsure of who might be behind that effort. Williams’ job rating is down from last year’s high of 73%, but remains a healthy 64%.

Are the recent Police Commission revelations about Williams:

A systematic political campaign to discredit the chief: 65%

Legitimate and proper commission findings: 11%

Neither/Other: 4%

Too early to tell/Don’t know: 20%

Who do you feel might be behind such a campaign to discredit Williams? (Asked of those who think there is a campaign to discredit him)

The Police Commission: 16%

Mayor Riordan or his appointees: 11%

Forces within the LAPD who don’t like him: 10%

Ex-Police Chief Daryl F. Gates: 10%

Don’t know: 49%

Note: Top responses displayed.

In the matter of the alleged lies about the free Las Vegas hotel accommodations, do you think Williams is guilty of actual wrongdoing, just bad judgment, or is he guilty of nothing?

Wrongdoing: 5%

Bad judgment: 42%

Nothing: 36%

Too early to tell/Don’t know: 17%

Whose version of events about the free Las Vegas hotel accommodations do you tend to believe?

Williams: 47%

The Police Commission: 24%

Neither/Other: 7%

Too early to tell/Don’t know: 22%

Do you think the Police Commission’s reprimands and criticisms of Williams merit a formal investigation of the chief?

Yes: 35%

No: 50%

Too early to tell/Don’t know: 15%

Should the Police Commission remove Williams from office immediately?

Yes: 4%

No: 87%

Remove him temporarily: 1%

Too early to tell/Don’t know: 8%

Opinions of Chief Williams:

Approve of the job he’s doing: 645

Think he’s honest: 73%

Think he’s a strong leader: 62%

How the Poll Was Conducted

The Times Poll interviewed 831 adult residents of Los Angeles by telephone Tuesday and Wednesday. Numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the city. Random-digit dialing techniques were used so that both listed and unlisted numbers could be contacted. Interviewing was done in English and Spanish. The sample was weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age, education and region. The margin of sampling error for the total sample is plus or minus 4 percentage points; for certain subgroups the error margin may be somewhat higher. Poll results can also be affected by factors such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented.