Police Panel Reacts to Attacks’ on Its Members : Politics: Board says allegations involving their activities in Las Vegas are an effort to deflect attention from complaints about chief. Williams formally asks council to overturn his reprimand.

As Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams formally appealed to the City Council to overturn his reprimand Friday, the city’s Police Commission released an unusual statement apparently seeking to deflect inquiries about the commissioners’ own activities in Las Vegas.

“Personal attacks aimed at undermining commissioners is a sad strategy to divert attention from the chief taking responsibility for his own conduct,” said the statement, read Friday afternoon by Elena Stern, the commission’s spokeswoman. “We feel no compulsion to buy into such a tactic and certainly have nothing to lie about or cover up. What we find particularly disheartening is the fact that comments volunteered freely to the chief in recognition of the practices in Las Vegas would be relayed back in such a fashion.”

The investigation that culminated in the chief’s reprimand began with allegations that Williams had received free accommodations from a Las Vegas hotel-casino. He was reprimanded not for accepting such accommodations, sources said, but for allegedly lying to the commission about whether he had done so.

One of the chief’s backers at City Hall, Councilman Nate Holden, said Friday that he intends to question police commissioners about whether any of them had accepted free accommodations in Las Vegas. “It’s been reported that commissioners have gone to Las Vegas and been ‘comped,’ and that troubles me,” Holden said, refusing to elaborate.

Police Commission President Enrique Hernandez Jr. said he had not accepted any gratuities in Las Vegas. As for his fellow commissioners, Hernandez said: “I am not familiar with the private recreational activities of my colleagues.”

Another commissioner, Bert Boeckmann, refused to answer the question, which he said is irrelevant to the investigation of the chief.

“The issue is not whether anyone, including the chief, went to Las Vegas . . . but of truthfulness,” Boeckmann said. The commission’s three other members, Art Mattox, Deirdre Hill and Gary Greenebaum, could not be reached for comment.

Neither could Williams, who earlier in the day formally asked the City Council to overturn his reprimand and clear his name.

“I am entitled to have my record regarding this reprimand cleared and corrected,” Williams said in a four-page statement he issued as he filed his two-paragraph appeal with the city clerk’s office.

Williams’ attorney, Melanie Lomax, said the chief also intends to challenge the city attorney’s ruling that it will take 10 council votes, not a simple majority of eight, to reverse the Police Commission’s reprimand, which, according to sources, was unanimously approved by the five-member commission after it determined the chief allegedly had lied about receiving free accommodations in Las Vegas.

The chief has heatedly denied the allegation. But Mayor Richard Riordan, after reviewing the commission’s decision and meeting privately with the chief, announced Monday that he stood by the findings of the advisory panel.

The mayor’s announcement and the chief’s decision to continue his fight has put the city’s two most visible and popular officials on a collision course and has cast a reluctant City Council in role of judge in the politically sensitive clash.

Council President John Ferraro said the council will meet Tuesday to begin sorting out some procedural questions before it can get down to reviewing the merits of the case, including whether it must hire an outside attorney and how to maintain the confidentiality of the Police Commission report, which is part of Williams’ personnel file. Sources said the copies of the report have not yet been turned over to council members.

The chief has threatened to sue the city because some of the information from that report, including the nature of the investigation and the discipline meted out, had been leaked to reporters. Angrily refusing to allow the release of his records, which are private under state law, the chief has refused to discuss the details and did not even confirm the existence of the reprimand until he noted it in his press statement Friday.

Lomax said she is asking for a confidential review. That will keep pressure on council members to not divulge the report but also will keep the public in the dark about the specifics of the case.

It will probably take the council, sharply divided even before seeing the records, several weeks to reach its decision. Several have lamented being distracted from other issues and many clearly do not want the racially tinged issue to escalate further. Supporters of Williams, the city’s first black police chief, view the reprimand as part of a campaign to oust Williams, who is popular with the public but widely disliked within the LAPD and whose leadership has been criticized by the Administration.

In his press statement, Williams detailed the LAPD’s accomplishments since he was hired three years ago, citing reduced crime, new patrol cars and other equipment, money for more officers, an additional training center and a new community-based approach to policing.

“This was accomplished through hard work on everyone’s part,” he said. “It was done through strong, focused leadership from the office of the chief of police to our newest employees.”

The chief did not credit either the commission or the mayor, who made many of the improvements part of the key plank in his campaign platform and the highest priority of his two-year tenure. Nor did he cite the City Council, which has joined the mayor in pushing for additional officers and paid for other improvements.

The mayor’s press secretary, Noelia Rodriguez, said in response, “The accomplishments of the LAPD have been the result of a team effort by the mayor, the commission and the chief.” She had little to say about the chief’s appeal to the council, merely that Williams was entitled to exercise his rights.

The commission’s oblique statement, with its references to the chief, seems likely to further complicate the municipal controversy. Lomax, reached Friday evening, said: “I don’t understand the statement. I have no idea what they’re talking about.”