Daryl Gates | |
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![]() Official portrait | |
Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department | |
In office March 28, 1978 – June 27, 1992 | |
Preceded by | Edward M. Davis |
Succeeded by | Willie L. Williams |
Appointed by | Tom Bradley |
Personal details | |
Born | Darrel Francis Gates (1926-08-30)August 30, 1926 Glendale, California, U.S.[1] |
Died | April 16, 2010(2010-04-16) (aged 83) Dana Point, California, U.S.[2] |
Political party | Republican |
Police career | |
Department | Los Angeles Police Department |
Service years | 1949–1992 |
Rank | Sworn in as an officer (1949) Commander (1965) Chief of Police (1978) |
Awards | Police Meritorious Unit Citation Police Meritorious Service Medal 1984 Summer Olympics Ribbon 1987 Papal Visit Ribbon 1992 Civil Disturbance Ribbon |
Other work | Businessman/entrepreneur, talk-show host, radio commentator |
Daryl Francis Gates (bornDarrel Francis Gates;[3] August 30, 1926 – April 16, 2010) was an American police officer who served aschief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1978 to 1992. His length of tenure in this position was second only to that ofWilliam H. Parker. Gates is credited with the creation ofSWAT teams alongside fellowLos Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officerJohn Nelson, who others claim was the originator of SWAT in 1965. Gates also co-founded theDrug Abuse Resistance Education program.[4]
After the arrest ofRodney King and thesubsequent riots, Gates retired from the LAPD. Much of the blame for the riots was attributed to him.[5][6] According to one study, "scandalous racist violence... marked theLAPD under Gates's tempestuous leadership."[7]
Gates was born in Glendale, California, to aMormon mother and aCatholic father on August 30, 1926;[8] he was raised in his mother's faith. He grew up inGlendale andHighland Park, in the northeastern part ofLos Angeles. TheGreat Depression affected his early life: his father was analcoholic, and frequently ended up in the custody of the Glendale police.[1] (Later in life, Gates often remarked on the taunts and harassment he received from schoolmates because of his father's behavior.) Gates later wrote that he had a low opinion of the police due to their rough treatment of his father, and at age 16 Gates himself was arrested after punching an officer who manhandled his brother during a parking dispute (Gates apologized and the charges were dropped).[1]
Gates graduated fromFranklin High School in Highland Park and joined theU.S. Navy in time to see action in thePacific Theater duringWorld War II. After leaving the U.S. Navy, he attendedPasadena City College and married his first wife, Wanda Hawkins. He went on to take pre-law classes at theUniversity of Southern California. After his wife became pregnant, a friend suggested that he join the LAPD, which was conducting a recruitment drive among former servicemen; Gates initially declined, then decided it was a good opportunity. Gates later finished his degree at USC.[1][2]
Gates joined the LAPD on September 16, 1949. Among his roles as an officer, he was picked to be the chauffeur for ChiefWilliam H. Parker. Gates often remarked that he gained many administrative and professional insights from Parker during the hours they spent together each day.
Gates worked hard to prepare for his promotional exams, scoring first in thesergeant's exam and in every promotional exam thereafter. On his promotion tolieutenant, he rejoined Chief Parker as Parker's executive officer. He was promoted tocaptain, responsible for intelligence. By the time of theWatts riots in 1965 he was aninspector (overseeing the investigations of, among other crimes, theManson Family murders and theHillside Strangler case). By the time of the 1975 special investigation into theassassination of Robert F. Kennedy he was Assistant Chief of the department.[9][10][11] On March 28, 1978, Gates became the 49th chief of the department.
Gates established the specialized unit that became known asSWAT (originally, "Special Weapons Attack Team" but changed to "...And Tactics" for optics) in order to deal with hostage rescue and extreme situations involving armed and dangerous suspects. Ordinary street officers, with light armament, limited weapons training and little instruction on group fighting techniques, had shown to be ineffective in dealing with snipers, bank robberies carried out by heavily armed persons, and other high-intensity situations. In 1965, OfficerJohn Nelson came up with an idea to form a specially trained and equipped unit to respond to and manage critical situations while minimizing police casualties.[12]
As an inspector, Gates approved this idea. He formed a small select group of volunteer officers. His first team was born LAPD SWAT, D-Platoon of the Metro Division. This unit initially comprised fifteen teams of four men each, for a total staff of sixty. These officers were given special status and benefits, but in return they had to attend monthly trainings and serve as security for police facilities during episodes of civil unrest. SWAT was copied almost immediately by many US police departments and is now used by law enforcement agencies throughout the world.
In Gates' autobiography,Chief: My Life in the LAPD (Bantam Books, 1992), he explained that he developed neither SWAT tactics nor its distinctive equipment. He wrote that he supported the concept, tried to empower his people to develop the concept, and lent them moral support.[13]
Gates made substantial use of the LAPD'sPublic Disorder Intelligence Division (PDID) squad, even developing an international spying operation.[14] The lawsuitCAPA v. Gates, with theCoalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA) as one of two dozen or so plaintiffs, later sued the LAPD onFirst Amendment grounds that exposed the unlawful harassment, surveillance, and infiltration of the progressive movement in Los Angeles by LAPD agents. The lawsuit against Gates and the LAPD proved successful. The PDID was ordered to disband and did so in January 1983.[15] In February 1984, an out-of-court settlement awarded $1.8 million to the named plaintiffs, individuals, and organizations who had sued the City of Los Angeles.[citation needed]
In collaboration with theRotary Club of Los Angeles, Gates founded DARE, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, designed to educate students and children about the dangers of drug abuse. DARE has become a worldwide organization, with programs in schools across the globe. However, despite the program's wide use, peer-reviewed government-sponsored scientific research has discredited DARE's claimed effectiveness in reducing alcohol or drug use, and the program has seen a 73% reduction in taxpayer funding as a result.[16]
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Gates's appointment as chief roughly coincided with the intensification of theWar on Drugs. A drug-related issue that had also come to the forefront at the time wasgang violence, which paralyzed many of the neighborhoods (primarily impoverished and black or Hispanic) in which gangs held sway. In response, the LAPD set up specialist gang units which gathered intelligence on and ran operations against gangs. These units were calledCommunity Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH), depicted in the 1988 filmColors. Allegations of false arrest and a general LAPD disdain for youngblack andLatino men were made.
Gates himself became abyword among some for excessive use of force by anti-gang units and became a favorite lyrical target for gang-connected urban blackrappers, notablyIce Cube. Nevertheless, CRASH's approach appeared successful and remained in widespread use until theRampart Division scandal of 1999 drew attention to abuses that threatened to undo hundreds of criminal convictions.
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Gates became LAPD chief a little over two months before the enactment of California'sProposition 13, during a time of tremendous change in California politics. While the LAPD traditionally had been a "lean and mean" department compared with other American police forces (a point of pride for Parker), traffic congestion and continually decreasing officer-to-resident ratios (approximately 7,000 police officers for 3 million residents in 1978) diminished the effectiveness of LAPD's prized mobility. Gates was eager to take more recruits, particularly for CRASH units, when the city made funds available.
Gates later claimed that many officers recruited in the 1980s—a period in which the LAPD was subject to aconsent decree which set minimum quotas for hiring of women and minorities—were substandard, remarking:
... [I]f you don't have all of those quotas, you can't hire all the people you need. So, you've got to make all of those quotas. And when that happens, you get somebody who is on the borderline, you'd say "Yes, he's black, or he's Hispanic, or it's a female, but we want to bring in these additional people when we have the opportunity. So, we'll err on the side of, 'We'll take them and hope it works out.'" And we made some mistakes. No question about it, we have made some mistakes.
In 1979 Gates helped craft and implement Special Order 40, a mandate that prohibits police officers from stopping people for the sole purpose of obtaining immigration status. The mandate was created in an effort to encourage residents to report crimes without the fear of intimidation or deportation.[17]
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Like his mentor Parker, Gates publicly questioned the effectiveness ofcommunity policing, usually electing not to work with community activists and prominent persons in communities in which the LAPD was conducting major anti-gang operations. At the time of theRodney King beating, Gates was at a community policing conference. This tendency, a logical extension of the policies implemented by Parker that discouraged LAPD officers from becoming too enmeshed in the communities in which they served, did not serve him well politically: allegations of arrogance and racism plagued the department throughout his tenure, surfacing most strongly in theChristopher Commission report.
Many commentators criticized Gates forOperation Hammer, a policing operation conducted by the LAPD inSouth Los Angeles. After eight people were murdered at a birthday party in a drive-by shooting in 1987, Gates responded with an extremely aggressive sweep of South Los Angeles that involved 1,000 officers at any given time.[citation needed]
The operation lasted several years, with multiple sweeps, and resulted in over 25,000 arrests. This was not unprecedented: during the run-up to the1984 Olympic Games, MayorTom Bradley empowered Gates to take all of the city's gang members—known and suspected—into custody, where they remained until shortly after the Games' conclusion. In the years after the Olympic games Gates, Mayor Bradley and city council officials found a way to continue the sweeping policies initially meant for the duration of the Olympic games by reviving old, anti-syndicalist laws, to jail predominantly black and Latino youth, even though the overwhelming numbers of people arrested were never charged.[18]
As a vast majority of those arrested were never charged, Operation Hammer was roundly criticized as a harassment operation whose chief goal was to intimidate young black and Hispanic men. In a PBS interview, when asked whether the local people in the minority areas expressed thanks to the police for their actions, Gates responded:
Sure. The good people did all the time. But the community activists? No. Absolutely not. We were out there oppressing whatever the community had to be, whether it was blacks, or Hispanics. We were oppressing them. Nonsense. We're out there trying to save their communities, trying to upgrade the quality of life of people...
A similar operation was conducted in 1988 after a drive-by shooting took the life of a civilian in Westwood Village.[19]
On March 3, 1991,Rodney King was arrested, repeatedly struck with batons and kicked, and taken into custody by LAPD officers after a car chase. A bystander, George Holliday, recorded the event on videotape. Gates and his department faced strong criticism in the aftermath of the arrest; MayorTom Bradley also called for Gates to resign, but he refused, leading to a stand-off between Gates and the mayor.[1] TheChristopher Commission report, issued July 10, 1991, identified a police culture of excessive force and poor supervision, and recommended numerous reforms, as well as Gates's removal. Gates announced his intention to resign on July 13, 1991.[20]
The1992 Los Angeles riots on April 29, 1992, began when a Ventura County jury inSimi Valley acquitted threewhite and oneHispanic Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King following a high-speed pursuit.
Despite the announcement that the jury was preparing to deliver the verdict in the case, the LAPD day shift was sent home. After the riots broke out, Gates told reporters that the situation would soon be under control and leftParker Center to attend a previously scheduled political fundraising dinner. The fundraising event was part of an effort to fight a city charter amendment on the June 2 ballot that would limit the power and term of the police chief.[21] These actions led to charges that Gates was out of touch. General command-and-control failings in the entire LAPD hierarchy during the riots led to criticisms that he was incapable of managing the force. It took the arrival of 10,000California Army National Guard forces, 3,500federal troops, and 1,000federal law enforcement officers to end the unrest over the next six days.
In the aftermath of the riots, local and national media printed and aired dozens of reports deeply critical of the LAPD under Gates, painting it as an army of racist beat cops accountable only to an arrogant leadership. The paramilitary approach that Gates represented resulted in criticism and calls for the LAPD to shift to acommunity policing strategy.[22]
Gates left the LAPD on June 28, 1992, and was replaced byWillie L. Williams,[22] who had been named Gates's successor on April 16, 1992.[23] A second commission, the Webster Commission, headed by former FBI and CIA DirectorWilliam H. Webster, was formed in the wake of the riots. Its report, released on October 21, 1992, was generally considered to be scathingly critical of the department (as well as other government agencies) and was especially critical of Gates' management of it.[1][24]
In 1992, the satiricIg Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Daryl Gates "for his uniquely compelling methods ofbringing people together."[25]
Gates earned notoriety for his controversial rhetoric on many occasions. Some of the most notable examples of this were:
Gates remained professionally active after leaving the LAPD, working withSierra to create the computer gamePolice Quest: Open Season, anadventure game set in Los Angeles where gamers play the role of a Robbery/Homicide detective trying to solve a series of brutal murders. He appears in the game as Chief of Police and can be found on one of the top floors ofParker Center. In addition, Gates had been the principal consultant for Sierra'sSWAT series, appearing in them as well. In 1993, Gates was a talk show host onKFI, replacingTom Leykis. His tenure was short lived, but he remained a frequent guest on talk radio, especially in regard to policing issues.
Gates was President/CEO of Global ePoint, a security and homeland defense company dealing primarily in digital surveillance and security technology. He also served on the Advisory Board ofPropertyRoom.com, a website forpolice auctions.
In 1992 he publishedChief: My Life in the LAPD, an autobiography, written with the assistance of Diane K. Shah (Bantam Books). The book has details about Gates's career and high-profile cases; the book went to press before the L.A. riots.[30]
AfterBernard Parks was denied a second term as Chief of Police by MayorJames K. Hahn in 2002, Gates, aged 75, toldCNN that he intended to apply for his old job as LAPD chief.[31] Hahn ultimately appointedWilliam J. Bratton, a former police commissioner ofBoston andNew York City, to head the department.
On April 16, 2010, Gates died at his home inDana Point, California, at the age of 83[2] due to complications frombladder cancer.[32]
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Gates appeared as himself in season 7, episode 13 ("Fatal Obsession, Part 2") of the television showHunter.
Gates appears in an uncredited role at the end of the 1997 filmL.A. Confidential as a police officer congratulating Ed Exley, the main character.
In the 1998 filmAmerican History X, he is mentioned in relation to the application of police brutality to Rodney King.
Gene Hackman based his portrayal of Sheriff Daggett on Gates in the 1992 filmUnforgiven.Clint Eastwood biographerRichard Schickel, who was on the set, wrote that Hackman referred to Daggett overseeing Ned Logan's torture as "myRodney King scene".
In 2004, he appeared in the second season ofDa Ali G Show in the episode "Respek".
Gates is portrayed by actorJosh Pence in the 2013 filmGangster Squad. In the film, Gates is in his younger years, still a chauffeur for LAPD Police ChiefBill Parker (played byNick Nolte).
Gates was mentioned in a large number of rap and metal songs in the aftermath of the LA riots. Some of the more notable includeIce Cube's "The Wrong Nigga to Fuck With", which includes a verse that imagines that Gates is decapitated and fried like a chicken, andBody Count's "Cop Killer", which caused widespread controversy.[33]
Gates appears as a major character inJames Ellroy's novelThe Enchanters.
Police appointments | ||
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Preceded by | Chief of Los Angeles Police Department 1978–1992 | Succeeded by |