Chief Vows to Remain at LAPD’s Helm : Police: Williams refuses to reveal details about closed-door meeting with commissioners. Mayor also meets with panel to review reprimand.

A grim Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams emerged from a closed-door meeting with the Police Commission on Tuesday, saying that he plans to remain at the helm of the department.

Williams waded through a throng of reporters, one of whom intended to ask if the chief had spoken to the mayor. Instead, in a slip of the tongue, the reporter asked: “Have you checked with the chief?”

“I am the chief, and I expect to be so for the next six or seven years,” Williams shot back.

He turned aside other questions with an apparent reference to earlier leaks from the commission’s politically sensitive probe of his alleged improprieties.

“Somebody is asking me something?” he asked. “I thought everybody knew everything.”

According to sources, the commission has voted unanimously to reprimand Williams for allegedly lying about accepting free accommodations at a Las Vegas hotel-casino. Williams has denied any wrongdoing, blaming the controversy on a misunderstanding, and he has threatened to sue.

The commission has also been critical of Williams’ leadership of the department.

After the embattled chief met with his civilian bosses for nearly an hour, Mayor Richard Riordan spent more than two hours with the five-member panel in Parker Center--only the third time in two years he has met with the commission.

Riordan said the meeting was fulfilling his obligation under the City Charter to review the commission’s investigation.

“I will go thoroughly into the action by the commission, but anything I learn or have learned is confidential,” the mayor said.

Riordan said he had reviewed the panel’s investigation and would ask commissioners “to answer questions that I have, based on my study and review.”

He said he will meet with Williams, study the investigation files over the weekend and “make a decision of some sort by Monday.”

Riordan could let the commission’s discipline stand, overturn it or modify it.

A reprimand does not punish Williams financially as a suspension would, nor does it force his removal from office. But according to one ranking police official, a reprimand sends a clear signal that the chief has lost the commission’s confidence.

Williams could appeal any discipline to the City Council if Riordan does not overturn it. It would take a two-thirds vote of the 15-member council to overrule the commission. Council President John Ferraro has said he doubts whether the chief could muster the 10 votes needed.

Williams’ supporters say allegations of wrongdoing by the chief are thinly disguised efforts to oust the first African American to head the Police Department. Williams was hired in the wake of the 1992 riots, and a Times Poll last week showed that public confidence in the LAPD has continued to rise under his tenure.