CRISIS IN THE LAPD: THE RODNEY KING BEATING : Jesse Jackson Again Raps Gates : Police: He renews call for him to resign. At a support rally outside City Hall, the chief blasts negative media coverage of the Rodney King incident.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson renewed his call Sunday for Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates to resign and urged the city to change its Charter so that “the civilian arm of government will have control over the military arm.”

“Los Angeles is out of touch with the rest of the country and with democratic principles” by having a Charter provision that makes it impossible for the mayor to fire the police chief, the civil rights leader told the congregation of First African Methodist Episcopal Church, Los Angeles’ oldest black church.

At about the same time, Gates excoriated The Times for printing what he said were excessively negative stories that contribute to the city’s racial tensions rather than articles that could heal ethnic divisions in the wake of the vicious, March 3 beating of motorist Rodney G. King by a group of Los Angeles officers.

“They’re tearing down this city,” Gates told several hundred placard-carrying supporters at an afternoon rally outside City Hall.

Gates was sharply critical of a front-page story in Sunday’s Times which, he said, compared the damaged image of Los Angeles after the King beating to the tarnished reputation of Selma, Ala., after civil rights demonstrators were attacked there in 1965.

“For goodness sakes,” Gates said.

The Times, he said, “should be telling the world what a great city this is and what a great Police Department this is.”

At a meeting of Los Angeles County Young Republicans on Sunday evening, Gates extended his media criticism to Time magazine, saying a recent article on the King incident was full of errors, such as stating that the Altadena motorist was handcuffed while he was beaten.

“I have a hard time understanding how editorial writers can write editorials and not have the facts,” he told the gathering of about 120 at Lawry’s California Center near Dodger Stadium.

Gates defended his Civil Service protection under the City Charter, saying that such protection allows him to speak freely and stand above politics.

“You will not find another chief speak out,” he said. “Me. I’m the only one. People want to know what the chief thinks.”

Gates also took issue with another Times story that pointed out that the city paid more than $11 million last year to settle lawsuits against police.

“Excessive force complaints have been coming down, civil suits have been coming down. The awards are going up,” Gates said. “Those are facts you don’t have.”

Jackson earlier presented an entirely different picture of the department to the hundreds of enthusiastic churchgoers in central Los Angeles. He said the King beating was a symptom of a deeply-rooted problem within law enforcement here and around the country.

“The beating was not the aberration. The videotaping was the aberration,” Jackson said, referring to the videotape of the incident, taken by an amateur, which has been shown around the world.

The clergyman noted that in 1979, the city had paid out $11,000 in settlements to those who had sued the Police Department for mistreatment and that this figure had risen to $11 million last year.

Jackson said that “most police are not guilty” of the kind of brutality inflicted upon King. However, he said that many officers had been “intimidated into silence” and that this was a sign of a lack of moral leadership at the top of the Police Department.

“What about the 17 officers who stood by and did nothing?” he asked. “They didn’t try to stop it. They didn’t report about it. Then they lied about it.”

The onetime Democratic presidential candidate also accused the Los Angeles City Council of turning the issues raised by the King case on their head when they voted earlier this month to restore Gates to his position after the Police Commission placed him on a paid leave of absence.

“They have made Gates the victim, Rodney King the provocateur and (Mayor) Tom Bradley the expedient politician,” Jackson said. “That’s not true.”

As he did at a rally in Los Angeles last weekend, Jackson urged the congregation to keep up the pressure for change in the Police Department, including the ouster of Gates. He recalled remarks made by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. just before he was assassinated in 1968:

“Don’t say ‘peace, peace, when there is no peace.’ ”

Jackson also blasted President Bush for praising Gates just three days after the King beating. He asserted that the praise, in combination with Bush’s recent nomination of a controversial Miami judge to a federal appeals judgeship, showed that he, too, was failing to provide moral leadership.

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected Bush’s nomination of U.S. District Judge Kenneth L. Ryskamp to the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals after it came to light that he had made negative comments about blacks and Latinos. Jackson compared Ryskamp’s remarks to statements Gates has made.

Jackson said that a Los Angeles City Charter amendment giving a mayor the power to remove a police chief was needed because otherwise the police chief has too much power.

“When you have the power to investigate, to spy, to compile dossiers, to arrest, you can rule by intimidation,” he said.

Gates, in his rally remarks, asserted that the Police Department’s reputation has been above reproach for decades.

“Name me another Police Department that has been uncorrupted for 40 years,” he said.

Sporadic calls of “Gates for Mayor” emanated from the estimated 300 people at the rally sponsored by Citizens in Support of the Chief of Police.

Asked afterward if he was considering a mayoral bid, Gates responded: “I’m chief of police and I like being chief.”

Among those speaking in support of Gates were San Fernando Valley City Councilwoman Joy Picus and Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea P. D’Agostino, who said: “Those of us who support Chief Gates are indeed a force to be reckoned with.”

Times staff writer James M. Gomez contributed to this story.