This Side of Chief Is Seldom on Public View

You have to watch carefully to see the viciousness of Police Chief Willie L. Williams’ fastball. But it’s there.

Especially in his many public appearances, he’s an outwardly friendly, commanding man. Pitted against Williams, his foes on the Police Commission look as bloodless as corporate bean counters--the villains in this drama.

I saw the mean side of Williams at last week’s commission meeting when he and the commissioners discussed news reports about the substantial number of top commanders who had been quoted as panning his strategic plan. Someone who understands the plan will talk to them, Williams said. They needed, he implied, a good straightening out and he was the man to give it to them.

Then there’s the way he handled the disciplinary cases of Andrew A. Teague and Charles Markel, two detectives who worked their way through a heavy load of murder cases in the overburdened, glory-short Hollenbeck Division in East L.A. until the day when Chief Williams made them infamous.

Williams suspended the two cops in 1995 after accusing Teague of falsifying evidence in a murder case and Markel of covering up for Teague.

What made it incredibly damaging to Markel and Teague was that Williams announced the discipline during the O.J. Simpson trial, when the world press was focused on the LAPD and Mark Fuhrman. The news became even more sensational with the disclosure that Teague was one of 44 officers whose complaint histories placed them under the scrutiny of the Christopher Commission, which investigated the Police Department after the Rodney King beating.

The way Williams portrayed it, the two Hollenbeck detectives were right up there with Fuhrman in the department’s Hall of Shame.

A police disciplinary board didn’t think so, finding the cops guilty only of minor administrative violations. Neither did the district attorney’s office, which declined to prosecute them for perjury.

But that didn’t matter. When you’re sentenced to the Hall of Shame on national television, you’re in there for life.

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I talked to Teague and Markel last week at the office of their attorney, Matthew Biren. On the surface the meeting was cordial, but when cops and reporters deal with each other, it’s usually a marriage of convenience. I thought Markel and Teague’s friendliness masked the touch of bull and manipulativeness that is part of a detective’s arsenal. I had the feeling they thought I was another anti-cop pinko from The Times. But we needed each other and so we got along fine.

Teague said he got in trouble after using a legal police tactic known as a ruse. Teague contends he had enough evidence to convince him one of three occupants of a car was the triggerman in a gang murder. Still, he lacked enough proof to persuade the district attorney’s office to file charges.

“I concocted a statement from each of the two that implicated the third guy,” he said. He obtained signatures of the two from their school, attached them to the fake statement and photocopied it. But before Teague and Markel had a chance to use the fake document, the suspected murderer confessed. “He sang like a bird,” said Teague.

Even though the statement wasn’t essential to the case, it came up in court under questioning from the defense. Teague, rather than admitting the legal ruse, testified the document was authentic. “I forgot about making the phony document,” he says now. “I made a mistake.”

It was the wrong time to make a mistake like that. The Fuhrman affair had badly hurt the LAPD’s reputation and Williams used his press conference as a way to show he intended to drive out wrongdoers, even though Teague and Markel had not yet had their hearings before a police disciplinary board.

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This is ironic because Williams, in fighting for his job, has insisted on every inch of due process--and more. If not rehired, he apparently wants a financial settlement not envisioned by the voters when they passed the current police reform law.

Markel and Teague, on the other hand, are victims of press conference justice, as administered by the chief. This side of him, usually unseen by the public, may be one of the factors weighing on the police commissioners’ minds as they decide whether to renew Williams’ contract.