Ex-Police Chief Remains Defiant on King

L O S  A N G E L E S, March 3 -- — A decade after the Rodney King beating,former Police Chief Daryl Gates is as defiant as ever.

King, he says, "got whacked a few extra times" but "broughtit on himself."

Warren Christopher, the former secretary of state who led thecommission that called for reforms in the Los Angeles PoliceDepartment after the beating, "doesn't know what he's talkingabout," Gates says.

And the department's current problems with corruption and lowmorale?

"You can put it right on the backs of the politicians," hesays.

‘Best Police Department in the World’

Gates didn't buy the contention that reforms were needed in theLAPD 10 years ago, and he doesn't buy it now.

"Why would you reform the best police department in theworld?" Gates said in a recent interview. "We had one incident,involving just a few officers, and that provided a vehicle forpoliticians who wanted to be vindictive and were eager to get ridof the chief and take hold of the department. So they began theirincessant meddling, and it hasn't stopped yet."

Gates, now 74 and a law enforcement consultant, led the LAPD for14 years until he was forced to resign in 1992, after the cityerupted in riots over the acquittal of the white officers chargedin the King beating. Gates was accused of resisting reform andresponding too slowly to the riots.

Gates has always scoffed at his critics, but his stance hashardened in recent years.

While King's name has become synonymous with police brutality,Gates says he cannot understand why.

"Here's a guy, a parolee, driving down the freeway between 90and over 100 in a Hyundai which shouldn't go that fast," Gatessays.

"He would not stop for the police or the CHP [California Highway Patrol], challenged thepolice when he finally did stop, under the influence of beer, whichis a violation of his parole, and he got whacked. Los Angeles madehim a hero, gave him $3 million and had a riot that almost tore thecity apart. And for what?"