Indicted Officer Says Gates Should Resign : King beating: The chief has ‘prostituted’ the department’s principles to keep his job, Sgt. Koon writes in The Times’ Opinion section.

Stacey C. Koon, the Los Angeles police sergeant indicted in the beating of Rodney G. King, has called for the resignation of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, saying the chief has “prostituted” the department’s principles with his fight to keep his job.

In a guest column published in today’s Opinion section, Koon writes, “Chief Gates has metamorphosed himself from an individual into the organization,” casting himself as indispensable.

“Gates’ actions indicate that he has abused his oath of office and prostituted the foundations upon which LAPD has built its reputation. Therefore,” the article concludes, “it is time for Chief Gates to step down.”

Cmdr. Rick Dinse, an aide to Gates, said the chief would have no immediate comment.

Koon, 40, also declined to be interviewed.

But his attorney, Darryl Mounger, said his client was upset about the firing of rookie patrol Officer Timothy E. Wind, who was still on probation when indicted for the March 3 beating of King.

“He’s (Gates) willing to fire an officer such as Tim Wind, yet when he (Gates) is sent home for a few days without pay, he cries foul. Also, for the chief to say these officers tarnished the image of the department before he had a chance to see what they had done is upsetting,” Mounger said.

He said Koon had pneumonia, adding that “he and I have been working 16 hours a day preparing for trial and it has worn his resistance down.”

The attorney said that Koon was also upset that Gates publicly criticized his officers before reviewing all the evidence. “He’s denied his officers their due process right,” Mounger said.

Gates fired Wind on Tuesday in response to the findings of an internal investigation into King’s arrest and beating. The other three officers charged with assaulting the black motorist--Koon, Officer Laurence M. Powell and Officer Theodore J. Briseno--were relieved of duty without pay pending the outcome of an administrative hearing.

Koon’s letter marks the first public comment by an officer involved in the King incident.

Koon does not address the King beating in his article, and in faulting Gates he cites no specific actions by the chief.

But he writes at length about how the department and its leader should be separate entities, and says the department was designed to endure when individual members fail.

“If Chief Gates were to leave the scene today, contrary to his own belief,” Koon writes, “the LAPD would continue and survive.”

Koon, a 14-year department veteran, also compares Gates to a “dying man” in his effort to preserve his job.

“He will grasp at any straw of hope in his quest for life. He believes he is justified to abuse reverence for the law, to abuse professional conduct, to abuse the public trust and to abuse his oath of office. . . .

“Gates rationalizes this warped logic of means/ends because he believes he is on a crusade to fight for the organization’s survival,” Koon’s article continues. “However, in reality, Gates is not in a fight for the organization’s survival, he is in a fight for his own survival.”

The sergeant is accused of allowing officers under his supervision to strike King more than 50 times with their batons, and then attempting to cover up the violence in his reports. His article offers no defense of his actions.

Father Robert Rankin, Koon’s parish priest, said Koon spends much of time helping his attorney prepare his defense, and that his wife, Mary, a nurse, has been attending daily Mass.

“Both of them are very strong in their faith and (are) using that to get them through,” said Rankin, an associate pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Valencia. He added that the couple’s five children are receiving support from the parish school.

Rankin said the sergeant plans to write a letter to The Times next week on the history of the use of force in Los Angeles.

Rankin said Koon has told him his version of what happened during King’s arrest, but that he has refrained from making a judgment because “as a pastor, I’m not there to figure it out.”

“He saw it, as I understand, he was doing his duty,” Rankin said.

“He’s a stoic kind of fellow,” Rankin said of Koon. “I think he tries to let on that he’s doing better than he is. He does it a lot for his family.”