Bradley Asks Gates to Quit for Good of City : Police: Mayor says they met privately and the chief refused to step down. L.A. is being split apart and must be healed, he adds.

Mayor Tom Bradley called on Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to resign Tuesday “for the good of the LAPD and the welfare of all of Los Angeles,” bringing to a crescendo the controversy that has surrounded the chief since the videotaped beating of Rodney G. King.

In a televised address, Bradley said he had met privately with Gates on Tuesday and asked him to step down from the post he has held for 13 years. The announcement culminated a monthlong effort by the mayor’s office to oust Gates.

“The Los Angeles Police Department is at a crossroads in its great history,” the mayor said. “When the public begins to lose confidence in the chief, and in the LAPD, the chief has only one choice. He must step aside.”

Bradley said that during their meeting, Gates said, “Mayor, I think you’re wrong and I will not resign.”

Gates emerged from his Parker Center office a half-hour after the mayor’s speech and told reporters that he was not going to resign because he had the full confidence of his officers. He was critical of the mayor’s behind-the-scenes public relations campaign to get rid of him.

“It’s been kind of sneaky and I think that’s bad,” Gates said of the mayor’s efforts. “It’s all unnecessary, it’s totally unnecessary. If we’ve got a problem, let’s do something about it and I am willing to do something about it.”

For the past month, Gates has steadfastly refused to step down. Questioned as he left a closed-door meeting with the Police Commission, Gates declined to comment on Bradley’s speech, saying: ‘If I want to make a response, I’ll let you know.”

In serious tones, Bradley at times personally addressed the chief.

“Chief Gates, now is the time for you to do the right thing--for your officers, for your department, for the public you serve.”

He said the King case, and Gates’ defiance of demands that he leave office, had damaged the department’s reputation and ruined public confidence in the Police Department.

“I simply will not stand by as our city is split apart,” Bradley said. “We must come together. We must heal.”

Bradley also addressed the 8,300 sworn officers under Gates’ command. “As an LAPD veteran, I empathize with the thousands of honorable officers who have watched helplessly as the department’s prestige has been seriously tarnished. . . . The damage to the department’s reputation cannot continue.”

His remarks Tuesday were in sharp contrast to his cautious statements in the past four weeks in which he always stopped short of calling for Gates’ resignation.

Before Tuesday, Bradley had said Gates’ resignation would be “the only way to start the healing process” in a city torn apart by the beating of King, but that the decision to resign was always up to the chief.

But Tuesday, Bradley crossed the line. “Unfortunately, Chief Gates has not recognized the impact he is having on the LAPD,” the mayor told a television audience. “His reactions to the tragic Rodney King beating have made an ugly situation even worse.”

“As mayor,” he added, “I have reluctantly concluded that I can no longer wait for Daryl Gates to do what is best for the LAPD.”

Instead, the mayor continued, Gates has embarked upon a “public relations campaign that has only deepened our wounds and widened our differences.”

The statement carried heavy political implications for both Bradley and Gates. While thousands of people have signed petitions to dump the chief, Gates has rallied thousands of supporters on his behalf.

Some of Gates’ chief critics are Bradley’s recent appointees to the Police Commission.

Commissioner Melanie Lomax, moments after watching the speech on television, said: “I predict that Mayor Bradley’s statements will be given great weight. . . . I think it’s going to be one of those pivotal events in this crisis that, in all likelihood, will increase the pressure that has been brought to bear on the chief of police.”

Lomax is a member of the civilian commission that oversees the Police Department. It has the authority to discipline or, under certain circumstances, to remove a chief.

Captured on a homemade videotape and broadcast worldwide, the March 3 beating has become a symbol of police brutality, prompting seven separate government inquiries of the Police Department and the King incident.

Last month, the Los Angeles County grand jury indicted four LAPD officers in the beating on charges that include assault with a deadly weapon and assault under the color of authority. The officers have pleaded not guilty.

Gates has publicly condemned the actions of the officers, but claimed it was an “aberration” and not a pattern of police abuse of citizens.

In his speech, Bradley pointed out that he does not have the legal authority to dismiss Gates.

Gates was appointed by the Police Commission in 1978. According to the City Charter, the police chief has Civil Service protections and can be fired or disciplined by the commission only if it can show “cause,” usually interpreted to mean misconduct or willful neglect of official duties.

As a result, there have been calls in City Hall to change the Charter. Despite the legal difficulties in ousting Gates, a public groundswell--fueled in part by Bradley’s office and the American Civil Liberties Union--has grown demanding his resignation.

Others who have demanded his removal include several African-American groups, including the Urban League and the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

A variety of local and national political leaders also have called on Gates to step down, including City Councilman Michael Woo, state Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) and U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Delaware).

Woo, the only city councilman to demand Gates’ resignation, said after the mayor’s speech: “Mayor Bradley has taken a very bold step in the best interests of the Police Department and the city. . . . Now it is up to Chief Gates to let the healing begin by stepping down.”

In contrast, Gates has received the support of Gov. Pete Wilson and several City Council members, including Joy Picus, Hal Bernson, Joan Milke Flores and council President John Ferraro. Picus said, “If the chief resigns, it will create a firestorm. It would polarize the city, not heal the city. I believe the only person who can make the changes required within the department is the chief of police himself.”

Bradley’s speech, according to sources at City Hall, culminated weeks of behind-the-scenes efforts orchestrated by his top aide, Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani.

On March 15, Bradley appointed civil libertarian Stanley Sheinbaum to the Police Commission, a move hailed by those seeking the chief’s resignation. On March 26, Bradley replaced one of the five Civil Service commissioners who eventually could decide whether Gates should be fired.

The mayor’s office also worked with community groups that are demanding new LAPD leadership and lobbied council members to publicly denounce the chief.

In public, however, Bradley said his office was not working to unseat Gates. The mayor repeatedly said he would not call for the chief to step down because it was unlikely that Gates would do so voluntarily.

“I think he has been advised by some people already and he’s made it very clear that he has no intention of leaving,” Bradley said on March 21 during a tour of South-Central Los Angeles. “He’s told me that. So I don’t believe in engaging in fruitless activities.”

Six days later, Bradley told a press conference: “There have been a number of people who have called for the chief’s resignation. I have not done so. . . . I think that the chief is the one who is going to have to recognize when his retirement is required in order to bring about that process.”

Under fire from various community groups and political leaders, Gates has responded with his own public relations campaign. He has appeared on a number of television talk shows--including “Prime Time Live” and “Face the Nation”--and addressed a crowd of supporters at a Police Academy rally. Los Angeles police officers and their supporters began wearing blue ribbons to symbolize their solidarity with the chief and his department.

The most comprehensive effort to restore confidence in the LAPD came last week, when Gates announced a 10-point plan to improve community relations and explore the causes of police brutality.

The cornerstone of the plan was the appointment of a committee chaired by retired state Supreme Court Justice John A. Arguelles. The committee is to conduct an exhaustive inquiry into the LAPD’s training practices and policies.

On Monday, Bradley countered by announcing the appointment of his own review panel, headed by former Deputy Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher.

Arguelles and Christopher said Monday they had discussed coordinating the efforts of their two committees.

The Christopher Commission was a key element in the mayor’s campaign to remove Gates from office, and the announcement that the two committees could work together appeared to temporarily frustrate Bradley’s attempts at persuading the chief to resign.

In a prepared statement Tuesday, Bradley spokesman Bill Chandler hinted that accepting members of the Gates-appointed Arguelles Commission into the mayor’s commission would compromise the latter’s independence.

“A review (of the Police Department) that does not look to the city or the LAPD for financing or staffing is the only way to ensure the commission’s independence,” Chandler said. “And a completely independent review is what the city needs.”

By contrast, Gates said that merging the two panels “makes a lot of sense and so I’m all for it.”

In another development Tuesday, ACLU officials said they had gathered petitions with 20,000 signatures demanding Gates’ resignation.

The ACLU also released a report, compiled by staff in New York and Washington, outlining allegations of police brutality throughout the nation. The report said the get-tough rhetoric of the “war on drugs” and the “war on crime” encourages police to become overly forceful “soldiers” in their communities.

Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California, applauded Bradley’s call for the chief’s resignation.

“That is certainly something this community wants,” she said. “It’s a beginning point, but no one should think that all the problems of the department will be solved when Gates goes. Starting with new, fresh leadership is the way to go.”

A recently formed group called Citizens in Support of the Chief of Police presented the Police Commission with 13,000 signatures of people who support Gates and want him to remain as chief.

Group spokeswoman Peggy Rowe Estrada said the pro-Gates group represents “truly the silent majority.”

Times staff writers Leslie Berger, Glenn F. Bunting, John Kendall, James Rainey, Richard A. Serrano and Sheryl Stolberg contributed to this story.