Sun Sets on Sheriff Gates’ Stand-Tall Era

He’s been one tough hombre and the most powerful Orange County politician in a generation. Charmer, tyrant, cowboy at heart.

Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates has worn many labels in 24 years as he led the county’s largest police agency from Mayberry to state of the art.

Through triumph and scandal and showdowns with bureaucrats, the county’s top lawman almost always emerged riding high in the saddle.

But as the sun sets on his career with his retirement Monday at age 59, one goal has eluded the leader of California’s second-largest sheriff’s department: handpicking a replacement to continue his legacy.

Instead, he passes his badge over to County Marshal Mike Carona--a successor he has called a glorified bailiff ill-trained to run a 2,700-person department. For his part, Carona, 43, has called Gates a lame-duck official resistant to change.

“I feel like anyone who’s leaving an organization where they’ve worked for 38 years,” said an emotional Gates on Thursday as he fingered a yellow note pad in his office, where the walls have been stripped of his trademark Western art.

He said he was proud of the department, sad about leaving friends, relieved to be stepping off the public stage. He has no job lined up, though he’s been approached, and expects to find a position in an industry that serves law enforcement.

“I honestly don’t know what I will do,” Gates said. “It’s a little scary to walk out of a work environment and not know what comes next.”

Though he led a high-tech department, Gates was perhaps best known to the public as a tall and lanky lawman with folksy Wild West metaphors about his crusades against crime and drugs. He deftly made the everyman’s concern his own.

“There was a sense of time passing Brad Gates by,” observed retiring Orange County Supervisor William G. Steiner, a fan who has known Gates 20 years. “But there is some comfort in having a sheriff who really looks like a sheriff and acts like a sheriff, and pretty much making everybody feel safe. And that’s how I always felt with Brad Gates. He’s a big guy, he’s got a strong personality; there’s a feeling that he’s in control,” Steiner added.

“He’s a guy who likes the limelight, but more importantly, he’s a guy who doesn’t mind doing the work,” said Assistant Sheriff Doug S. Storm, who withdrew early from last year’s race to succeed Gates despite the sheriff’s endorsement. “One of the things he always says is you have to do the work. You can’t leave it up to someone else.”

Santa Ana attorney John Hanna, a county activist who backed Santa Ana Police Chief Paul M. Walters’ failed campaign against Carona last year, sees it in historical terms.

“What we’re seeing,” Hanna said, “is not only the passing of an individual torch but the passing of one age to another.”

Sheriff Took Agency Up ‘From Dark Ages’

Cowboy imagery seems appropriate as Gates rides into retirement.

John Wayne is his hero and the Duke’s portrait hung in the sheriff’s office at Santa Ana headquarters. Wild West motifs seep into his decor and his dialogue. He thrills to cowboy poetry. In his hometown San Juan Capistrano, Gates owns a riding stable. Down the road at the rowdy Swallows Inn, a younger Brad was known to shove back his cowboy hat and tip a few brews.

Like Wayne, he stood head and shoulders above the blur of bureaucrats ruling small communities that dot the county landscape.

“He has taken this law enforcement agency from the dark ages,” said Assistant Sheriff Storm, “to a leader in so many arenas.”

In a sprawling county of 2.7 million people and 31 incorporated cities, Gates has had a higher profile than any other government figure. His department is responsible for policing unincorporated county communities and nine contract cities--about one-fifth of the county populace. In the dual job of coroner he also has a role in all death investigations in the county.

His dynasty-building skills emerged in the growth of his personnel and budget even while the size of his turf shrunk as communities incorporated into new cities.

Over the years he took over airport, harbor patrol and jail operations from other departments and made a play to absorb the marshal’s office. He created a central county morgue that shifted control of autopsies from far-flung mortuaries to a facility under his control. Gates deflected attempts to take the coroner’s operation from the sheriff in the 1980s.

Too often, said Costa Mesa Police Chief David L. Snowden, Gates is viewed exclusively in a political context--understandable given his holding office longer than any sitting Orange County official. But Gates’ contribution rests in his law enforcement legacy, Snowden and other police officials said.

He launched a nationally praised regional anti-drug task force and created an advisory council of influential private donors who contributed millions of dollars for programs and equipment in his DNA crime lab. His pet campaign, the Drug Abuse Is Life Abuse program in many county schools, earned national praise and has been copied elsewhere.

“He created a communications system, a bomb squad that is the envy of anyone anywhere,” said Bob MacLeod, general manager of the Orange County Assn. of Deputy Sheriffs. “He’s built a magnificent department.”

Said Gates: “It’s a department I am proud of and I get much more credit than I deserve--because the people who work here make the department what it is.”

Faced with shrinking budgets in the early 1990s, Gates tapped his statewide political base as president of the California Sheriffs Assn. to push a sales tax measure guaranteeing future funding for law enforcement agencies.

“Brad is the guy people seem to gravitate toward when they’re looking for a leader, and very few people have that,” said Undersheriff Raul Ramos. “The reason he’s been in office so long is because he’s believable. He’s a man of his word.”

Career Began Early With Mounted Posse

It is in his native San Juan Capistrano that his law enforcement career ends and begins. He got his first taste of police work as a member of the Sheriff’s Junior Mounted Posse, a volunteer organization that patrolled by horseback.

He married Diane--better known as Deedee--in 1961. They had a son, Scott, now 33, and a daughter, DeAnn--known as DeeDee Jo, 31. The year he was married he also joined the Sheriff’s Department. Thirteen years later, at 35, he was elected sheriff.

His alma maters: Capistrano Union High School, Orange Coast College and Cal State Long Beach, where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminology. He also did extensive graduate study in public administration at Claremont Graduate School.

As a larger-than-life presence who sometimes has led by sheer force of personality, Gates made some enemies.

Some political opponents sued him on grounds that his department spied on and tried to intimidate them, or denied them gun permits while granting permits to political supporters. Those accusers included a judge, a college professor and a police chief who ran against him. Others, including the American Civil Liberties Union, sued him over inmate deaths and jail crowding.

And the taxpayers paid the price of resolving those court cases. By the end of the 1980s, the county had spent nearly $1.3 million in settlements and jury verdicts as a result of a string of civil rights lawsuits against the sheriff, who never conceded any wrongdoing.

Among more recent legal problems is an unresolved 1997 lawsuit by a now-retired lieutenant and two other female employees that charged former assistant sheriff Dennis LaDucer, a onetime Gates heir apparent, with sexual harassment. Gates fired his longtime friend after an internal investigation of the charges lodged by the department’s highest-ranking female at the time, Lt. Wendy Costello.

But Gates seemed politically bulletproof, many police and government officials say. He was admired--if not always liked--for his formidable leadership. He held his own, too, in the clinking-glass circles where titans of law enforcement, politics and industry mingle and schmooze.

Yet he perplexed allies, his own political consultant and even close friends when he announced his retirement plans in October 1997--and then played no role in the tight race to succeed him once his own favored heir to the throne bowed out.

“I know that a significant number of the higher echelon did support Walters, and were disappointed Brad did not support Walters,” said MacLeod, whose union backed the Santa Ana chief. The union has since met with Carona and given him a standing ovation at a membership meeting.

Gates said Thursday that he endorsed the one candidate he believed in, and after that fizzled, he felt “it was up to the voters of the county to decide, not for me.”

Did Gates bow out because of lessening political support? He had been abandoned by several of the Republican heavyweights who had long contributed to his campaigns, very conservative business owners and rich builders among them.

Such deserters vehemently opposed three sales-tax measures that Gates advocated. They lined up behind Carona, who promised to push the privatization of some sheriff’s operations.

Gates dismissed speculation that a loss of political support spurred his retirement. He decided to hang it up with an undefeated record because his family tired of the public spotlight’s glare, Gates said. And opinion polls at the time revealed Gates to be the best-known, most admired official in the county.

“Deedee and I had made our decision before any of that,” Gates said. “After 38 years and a lot of high visibility . . . you realize you want to enjoy your life a little. You can never get back that time, but it’s time to give back to the family.”

Taking Charge Amid Chaos of Bankruptcy

County Clerk-Recorder Gary L. Granville has known Gates for 20 years, but he best remembers the sheriff for the dark hours of the county’s 1994 financial collapse. After the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, Gates stepped into a power vacuum of political disarray and ran the county’s vast operations.

“I have high, high regard for Brad,” said Granville. The fact that the sheriff’s skills extend beyond law enforcement “was particularly apparent in the early days of the bankruptcy, when darkness fell and everyone ducked under their desk. And Brad stepped forward and did the things that had to be done.”

Indeed, helping steer the county out of bankruptcy may have been his most notable role. Along with two other top officials, he was appointed by the Board of Supervisors to run the county during the crisis.

Working closely with then-Dist. Atty. Mike Capizzi and social services director Tom Uram, Gates moved swiftly and pulled Undersheriff Walt Fath out of retirement as his second mate, together running daily operations of a vast but paralyzed bureaucracy.

Hundreds of workers were laid off and $40 million in costs were cut in just the first round of crisis management. Granville had just become recorder and his two departments were merging, and Gates met his budget appeals with firm no’s.

“I remember those days very well, and it was his shining hour,” Granville said. His strength “doesn’t always endear him to everybody, but he does the honorable thing. . . . When the fifth floor [Board of Supervisors] were diving under desks, [Gates] was standing tall, taking the blows. And I really admired that.”

Gates said he has made no decisions about his future. He plans to relax, play more tennis and travel the Southwest with his spouse.

Gates said he has sought guidance on how to proceed from 20 or more friends in business that he’s met over the years. He will continue working with the Boy Scouts and the nonprofit Drug Abuse Is Life Abuse education program and Sheriff’s Advisory Council.

Maybe a company directorship is in store for him, he said, or work for a company that focuses on innovation and law enforcement. Though once he’d been urged by Gov. Pete Wilson to run for lieutenant governor, Gates expressed no interest in any higher office.

What, he was asked on this last full day of office, did he consider his four greatest achievements?

“No. 1 would be the opportunity to serve the people of this county six terms, 24 years, as their sheriff,” Gates said. “The second would be the professional and personal relationships I’ve made in the department. . . . I just can’t express how good I feel and proud I feel at what they’ve accomplished.

“Beyond that,” he added with a smile, “it would be too hard to pick.”

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The Gates Years

Highlights of Sheriff Brad Gates’ career and tenure as Orange County sheriff:

1961: Joins Sheriff’s Department as a deputy trainee at age 22

1970: Rises rapidly through the ranks and becomes a top assistant to his mentor, Sheriff James A. Musick

1974: Gets Musick’s nod among several department officers running in June to replace the long-serving sheriff; wins the seat in a November runoff

1976: Stirs controversy by creating a team of “special deputies” that includes actors John Wayne and Andy Devine, as well as all five members of the Board of Supervisors

1978: Weathers scrutiny of a federal grand jury probing his personal finances and easily wins reelection; grand jury investigation ends after finding no wrongdoing

1985: Federal judge orders as a result of one of a string of inmate lawsuits that Gates must limit the number of prisoners housed at the men’s central jail; judge appoints a federal special master to report on jail overcrowding

1987: County settles lawsuits brought by political opponents who alleged Gates spied on them; he denies wrongdoing

1988: Dedicates Laser Village, a high-tech police training center attracting officers from around the state

1991: Backs a ballot measure to raise money for a new county jail, selected by supervisors to be built in Gypsum Canyon near Anaheim Hills; measure fails

1993: Spearheads a successful statewide sales tax measure to benefit local law enforcement; Deputy Darryn Robbins is fatally shot by a fellow deputy during an impromptu training session in Lake Forest on Christmas Day

1994: Steps in to run county operations in the months following declaration of the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation’s history; assists in the development of a financial recovery plan

1995: Campaigns on behalf of a half-cent sales tax increase for bankruptcy recovery; voters reject it by a 2-to-1 margin

1996: Gains national attention for opposing a successful state ballot measure legalizing the medical use of marijuana

1997:

* Sexual harassment lawsuits filed by three female employees against Asst. Sheriff Dennis LaDucer; Gates fires LaDucer after an internal investigation

* Announces in October he won’t seek reelection to a seventh term; endorses Asst. Sheriff Douglas S. Storm

1998:

* Storm abruptly drops out of race in January, leaving candidates Marshal Michael S. Carona and Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters; Gates endorses neither

* Carona elected in June to replace Gates

Source: Times reports