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The Los Angeles Police Department’s most controversial police chief in recent history, Daryl Gates, died last week at the age of 83 from cancer. He started his career as police chief in the late 70s, around the time when many social and political movements for equality were at their peak. Under Gates’ tenure in the 80s, violent crime grew rapidly. In response, Gates instituted indiscriminate sweeps of Black neighborhoods, culminating in the infamous beating of Rodney King, caught on video tape, and sparking the 1992 uprising in South Los Angeles. The LAPD officers union President Paul Weber released a laudatory statement about him, saying “Los Angeles has suffered a great loss with the death of Chief Gates… [He] was a truly devoted public servant who committed his life to improving the lives of others in Los Angeles.” But most Black Los Angelinos are not likely to mourn Gates who famously explained the high numbers of African American deaths in police custody with the following statement: “blacks might be more likely to die from choke-holds because their arteries do not open as fast as they do on ‘normal people.” Gates was also prone to prolific spying on many leaders in Los Angeles for years, compiling large dossiers on them through the use of undercover cops, a fact he admitted in his autobiography, “Chief: My Life in the LAPD.”

GUEST: Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-area journalist. He was a founder and editor of the Los Angeles Vanguard (1976-78), and later was Los Angeles County bureau chief for the L.A. Daily News. His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Read Dave Lindorff’s article about Daryl Gates here: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/?q=node/508