Christopher, Gates Debate Charter Change

In his first campaign debate with Warren Christopher, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates told a San Fernando Valley audience Tuesday that it is not true--as the commission Christopher headed reported--that his department is racist and brutal.

“Sure we’ve had some abuse, but all of those problems have been taken care of,” Gates said. “The Christopher Commission said the department is racist and brutal. Folks, it’s simply not true.

“I’ve said, ‘Show me the evidence.’ I can’t get any statements, any evidence.”

Christopher responded that the commission obtained all of its evidence about police abuse from statements of officers themselves.

The exchange came in a debate over Charter Amendment F, which would give City Hall more authority over the Police Department, at the El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana. Gates and restaurateur Donald Clinton faced off against Christopher and City Councilman Marvin Braude before a capacity crowd of about 300.

Christopher noted that 5% of the department’s 8,300 officers had responded “yes” to a question asking whether they were entitled to use force on people who were not cooperating with arresting officers, and he noted that two of Gates’ three top assistants “told us there was a serious problem of accountability” in the department.

But in the verbal mano a mano with Gates over whether the amendment reforming the department should be adopted, Christopher found himself in an uphill war of words against the crowd-pleasing chief.

“I want the Police Department to keep its spirit,” Gates said, urging the audience to vote against proposed amendment. “I don’t want it to become the plum of the mayor.”

With his trademark mixture of humor, hyperbole and folksiness, Gates told the audience that the Christopher Commission had overstated problems of excessive force and racism in the department.

Clinton, organizer of a campaign against the amendment, then told the story of a bomb that was placed under his family’s house in the 1930s after his father sought to expose a Police Department then under the sway of crooked politicians.

In his typically low-key style, Christopher argued that charter reform would make the city safer and the Police Department more responsive by making it more accountable to the citizenry.

“I blink and wonder where I am,” Christopher retorted. “We’re not talking about corruption. We’re talking about racism and excessive force. That’s what caused our commission to make the recommendations it did.”

In an effort to show that the campaign is not simply an effort by politicians to take over the department, Braude mentioned that the League of Women Voters and former LAPD Chief Ed Davis support the proposed Police Department reforms on the June 2 ballot.

“And (Cardinal) Roger Mahony, is he political?” Braude asked, naming another supporter.

His question was greeted by a collective “Yes,” along with groans and laughter.

More than anyone else, Gates and Christopher are symbols of the campaign over the proposed reforms.

A former deputy secretary of state under President Jimmy Carter, Christopher headed the independent commission that investigated the Police Department after the police beating of Rodney G. King and came up with recommendations aimed at making the department more accountable.

The ballot measure debated Tuesday night is based on Christopher Commission recommendations to give City Hall greater authority over the police chief, to limit the chief to two five-year terms and to strengthen citizen control of the city’s Board of Police Commissioners.

The dapper, soft-spoken Christopher, 66, stands at the forefront of a committee of civil rights groups, corporate executives, prominent lawyers and religious leaders who are financing and coordinating the campaign to change the charter.

In the twilight of a career that has spanned four decades in the Police Department, Gates, 65, is rallying a different constituency with his almost daily defiance of Mayor Tom Bradley’s Administration and his argument that amending the City Charter would politicize the department and open the door to corruption.