Understanding the Riots--Six Months Later : A New Blue Line / REMAKING THE LAPD : A New Direction, a Long Road

Not far from the riot-ravaged corner of Florence and Normandie, Los Angeles’ new police chief encountered head-on many of the city’s old frustrations. He addressed a group of African-American residents in a church hall and promptly was asked: “When can we expect to see a difference in how the police operate on the street?”

Slowly, cautiously, Willie L. Williams spoke against brutality and racism and sexism in the Los Angeles Police Department.

“You should expect change today; you should expect change tomorrow,” he said. “But change unfortunately comes very slow. For some of our people it involves training. For a few others it involves discipline. For probably a few others it means looking for another occupation.”

If change does not come quickly enough, he told members of a new community-based policing council, residents should “raise Cain about it . . . stand outside my door . . . picket. Don’t let me off the hook. Don’t let anybody off the hook.”

What strange talk from a Los Angeles police chief. What strange words to hear in a city where many residents have come to mistrust or fear police, where gangs and lawlessness often are more visible than black-and-white patrol cars.

But this chief’s calming influence--a black man talking to a black community tired of the kind of empty promises that followed Watts a generation ago--came just six months after four officers were acquitted in the Rodney G. King beating and this same community went up in flames. Just half a year after the understaffed and poorly deployed LAPD failed to protect citizens and property in the riot zone.

Since the upheaval, police manpower and arrests have continued to decline and emergency response times have lengthened--but a new era for the Los Angeles Police Department is slowly taking shape. Though some in the community expected instant miracles, Williams instead is attempting to unite the LAPD in partnership with the community it serves.

To date, Williams has won a hard-fought battle with City Hall to promote more than 300 officers. He has announced broad outlines for implementing community-based policing, a key recommendation of the Christopher Commission. He has helped persuade voters to approve a $235-million bond measure to pay for a new 911 emergency system, although they rejected a measure for the hiring of 1,000 new officers.

He has started mending the department’s relationship with the Police Commission, City Hall and department critics. He has pledged to lift officer morale and end racial polarization within the LAPD. And the LAPD is working on a response plan for any future riots--which officials fear could occur after the trials of four black men in the beating of trucker Reginald O. Denny or four white officers in the King case.

Forty years ago, LAPD Chief William H. Parker declared that police are a “thin blue line” between the community and chaos. Today, the task for Chief Willie L. Williams is to build a new blue line for the 1990s.

CHAPTER 1 / A change in command

Williams assumed command of the city’s police force one minute after midnight on Sunday, June 28--and the first omens did not bode well.

Just five hours into his adminis tration, earthquakes rocked Southern California.

At a swearing-in ceremony two days later, the Police Commission president described the chief’s badge as a symbol of hope and renewal, then accidentally dropped it as he was about to pin it on Williams.

Then, after the new chief voiced his dreams for rebuilding the LAPD, Mayor Tom Bradley warned that the city did not have the money for such lofty plans.

The next day, a white police officer shot and killed a black tow truck driver--an incident that infuriated a South-Central Los Angeles community still simmering over the King beating and the riots.

On July 9--amid new allegations of police spying--Williams ordered the LAPD’s organized crime intelligence network locked and temporarily disbanded.

Such were Williams’ first 10 days in office.

In the weeks that followed, his own officers and city leaders took stock of the new chief--and the initial impressions were not always flattering. To many, the physical contrast between former Chief Daryl F. Gates and Williams was striking: Gates, a fitness buff who looked resplendent in a uniform covered with stripes and medals, epitomized the old paramilitary image of the LAPD. Williams, a hulking, barrel-shaped man, was seen as an outsider from Philadelphia who came to California without even the most basic law enforcement power--permission to carry a gun. A photograph of Williams was tacked onto a bulletin board at the Van Nuys police station, alongside a photo of the Pillsbury Doughboy. “What do these two men have in common?” the caption asked.

But, with Police Commissioner Jesse Brewer as his escort, the new chief slowly made the rounds, to City Hall, community meetings and police station roll calls--and his leadership style began to emerge. “He’s very easygoing. He’s very personal. He’s very outgoing,” Brewer said.

Gates ruled the LAPD with an iron grip and a combative public persona. He loved a fight and seldom flinched at the opportunity to verbally jab people he perceived as enemies of the LAPD, particularly the mayor and some council members. Williams, however, has espoused a more decentralized Police Department, one that avoids collisions and instead builds consensus. Williams so far has appeared conciliatory, diplomatic.

In mid-October, on the day the Webster Committee issued its report blasting Gates and the LAPD for the slow response to the riots, Williams welcomed the findings and announced that the department will try to embrace the Webster recommendations. Gates, meanwhile, went on a public tirade, branding commission leaders “liars” and haughtily suggesting that the police should have “blown a few heads off” during the riots.

After months of refusing to comment negatively about Gates, Williams in a recent interview was clearly bothered by the ex-chief’s behavior. “All this name-calling!” he said. “The men and women of this department are tired of the former chief fighting with the elected officials and the appointed officials because it falls back on them. Their badge says LAPD, the same as Daryl’s did and the same as mine. And we’ve got some serious problems. I need to move forward.”

Gates, however, said that Williams does not yet appear to be making significant changes and needs to speak out more forcefully on issues facing the LAPD. The ex-chief said he will continue to voice his views and may criticize Williams “if I see him do something stupid.”

The critics point to little concrete change in the first months of the Williams administration--and some are growing impatient. His first major progress report on the Christopher Commission recommendations, due last month, has been postponed until at least the end of December. No comprehensive analysis has been prepared on the status of community-based policing--a cornerstone of the effort to rebuild the LAPD. “This guy is having a very difficult time making a decision,” said one City Hall source involved in policy issues.

However, Williams said he will announce a department reorganization plan in the coming days and pledged to put at least 100 more officers on the streets by the end of the year. Police Commission Vice President Michael Yamaki said that the chief, as an outsider, must balance the need to learn a new city and a new job with the pressures for swift action. Still, Yamaki said, “time is his enemy. He (only) has until the next crisis.”

CHAPTER 2 / Reshaping the ranks

Perhaps it is inside the LAPD that Williams’ greatest challenge lies. The chief “has no foundation or past in this department,” said George Aliano, who last year stepped down after years of heading the police union. “He has no history here. So he has to prove himself.” To successfully lead his beleaguered troops, Williams has to rebuild morale and break down lingering racial divisions. He must institute reforms sought by the Christopher Commission and balance the desires of the strong police union with the needs of his own new management team. Above all, to truly restore the lost luster of the LAPD, the chief must improve its service to the public. And that will be difficult because the department is shrinking in this time of high crime.

Staffing reached its high point in 1990, with 8,400 officers. Today--because recruitment is lagging behind attrition--the roster has dwindled to 7,800 officers. Fewer officers are available to perform the most basic service--responding to calls for help from the city’s 3.4 million residents.

Morale has plummeted. In some corners of the LAPD, which for decades has prided itself on “family” spirit, there is deep bitterness, impatience for new marching orders. “He talks a lot,” one supervisor said of Williams. “His favorite saying is, ‘Well, we’re looking at that.”’ Said another: “Morale’s in the toilet. The field troops feel like everybody’s against them--the department, the politicians. . . .You don’t do anything unless you have to do it. Otherwise you’re just going to be second-guessed.”

But Detective Rick Barrera, president of the Latin American Law Enforcement Assn., said morale has started improving. “We see light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

Williams, the city’s first black chief, has vowed to improve affirmative action--for someaa cause for low morale and racial divisiveness. One white lieutenant said that because of affirmative action, “the white male has been made persona non grata on the department and everybody knows it.” Additionally, Williams faces racism. A few days after the chief was selected, one white sergeant hailed him as a reformer who is sure to improve the LAPD, then said in an aside: “But he’s still a nigger.” Williams is the central figure as the LAPD faces the monumental task of implementing about 100 Christopher Commission reforms designed to address brutality, racism, and other internal and community relations problems. Training, including use of force, is being revamped, and the department is experimenting with a cayenne pepper-based spray as an alternative to the baton. The citizen complaints system is being overhauled to include civilians on disciplinary boards and better oversight by the Police Commission.

In Gates’ era, the department seemed to come down heavier on officers for violating internal policies than for excessive force, sources said. Williams seems to be going the other way. For example, disciplinary boards recommended terminations for several on-duty officers who went to Santa Monica to shoot pool shortly after the riots, but Williams reduced the penalties to six-month suspensions. “Most of them had decent records,” he said in an interview, “and if you fire these people, you lose whatever (investment) you have in them. So you tell them they screwed up and screwed up royally, but that you are going to give them an opportunity to learn.

“At an open meeting of the league at the academy . . . one of the officers came up and shook my hand and told me, ank you.’ And the father of another officer came up and said, ‘Thank you.’

“But if you get involved in a major infraction, a bad shooting or a physical abuse or bad verbal abuse and I think you’re wrong, you don’t want to come before Willie Williams.”

The first litmus test for Williams on his handling of disciplinary matters may come soon when he decides the fate of the officer accused of killing the unarmed tow truck driver. He also faces an uproar over the fatal shooting of a Latino man who was swinging a broom handle at officers in Pacoima. Tough action might appease the community but could hurt the chief’s relationship with those officers who believe the shootings were justified.

Williams also has slowly begun to form his management team. As the first step in his reorganization, last week he named Deputy Chief Bernard C. Parks and Cmdr. Frank E. Piersol to the rank of assistant chief, making them his top aides. The chief also promoted commanders Robert S. Gil, Ronald C. Banks, Lawrence E. Fetters and Bayan Lewis to deputy chief, joining Mark A. Kroeker, Ron Frankle and Matthew J. Hunt. On Thursday, he plans to meet with his staff to decide how to streamline the police bureaucracy and put more officers on the streets. For example, he said he plans to eliminate duplication by consolidating police intelligence units.

Top staff members have begun holding open and frank discussions again under Williams, said Banks, his chief of staff, underscoring the contrast with the last months of the Gates regime. At the first meetings, Banks said, the new chief encountered “very little dialogue, very little input, almost a stony silence at times. Now, people are convinced . . . that they have his ear; that he may not adopt what they’re suggesting, but they have the freedom of suggesting.”

Said Williams, “I’m letting them know there’s free access to the chief. And I don’t want yes-men or yes-women.”

But Williams has not yet had to make many decisions, so members of his top staff are not really sure what kind of a leader he will be. “A year from now, (when) he’s had to make a large number of hard calls, he will have defined himself based on the decisions that he made,” Kroeker said. “And they’re not all going to be ones that will please everyone.”

In the field, many officers are resistant to a change of direction after long years of working under Gates’ style of policing. “The level of respect for Willie Williams is not very high among the rank and file,” said a gang suppression officer. “They perceive him as a bureaucrat brought in to calm fears in the city. And in contrast, they put on a gun and a badge each morning and see it as a Superman costume.”

However, some see early signs that Williams’ leadership is having an impact. Capt. Willie Pannell, for instance, said he feels a new freedom to tailor police service to the unique needs of his South-Central patrol area. “What’s happened is our organization is more tolerant of risk-taking,” he said. “There’s a sense of more empowerment for area captains to take risks.”

Williams, in reaching out to rank and file officers, has convened regular meetings with the Police Protective League, which represents most officers. Though the chief may disagree with union leaders on some key issues, including many of the Chistopher reforms, he said, “It’s business. I’m not going to take it personal.”

Bill Violante, league president, said the union is waiting to see what Williams does in the next six months and will pay particular attention to whether the new chief shows more loyalty to rank and file officers than to elected leaders. “We’ll be the first to yell the loudest if we find that he’s being controlled and manipulated by the political forces at City Hall,” said Violante.

CHAPTER 3 / Making peace, new alliances

For the past two months, Officer Andre Wright has been working from a donated office in the Martin Luther King Shopping Center on 103rd Street. He strolls around the center, chatting with children, senior citizens and parents. Occasionally he helps shoppers who lock themselves out of their cars. “A lot of people are surprised to have a policeman just approach them to talk,” he said.

In the Southeast Division, police earlier this year opened a mini-station at a Latino church in Watts and staffed it with a Spanish-speaking officer who works with neighborhood young people and helps parents learn English. “He does a beautiful job with the children,” said Sister Maria Luz Hernandez of San Miguel Catholic Church. “He even comes over on Saturday sometimes. They love him.”

Community-based policing is the cornerstone of proposed LAPD reforms, but its implementation has been uneven and sluggish, with the new chief only recently taking steps to give it a clearer direction. The strongest examples of neighborhood problem-solving and citizen-police cooperation have evolved in the San Fernando Valley, parts of East Los Angeles and the Harbor area.

The largest program is in the Valley, where all five police stations were ordered to initiate programs in June, 1991, three months after the King incident. Today, the reviews are mixed. Crime continues to increase, although at a slower rate. And police emergency response times have slipped slightly as more officers have been shifted to work with citizen groups. On the positive side, citizen participation in advisory councils and neighborhood watch groups has increased as much as 75%, according to officials.

In South-Central Los Angeles, at the behest of Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas’ office, police have embarked on an ambitious, grass-roots approach to citizen involvement. Eighty residents of the 77th Street division have been elected to an advisory panel in a series of neighborhood meetings. Because of the effort’s sheer size, “we haven’t even seen if it’s really going to work,” said Sgt. Ray Foster, a community relations officer.

Some politicians are concerned that these panels could become too exclusive, or springboards for political rivals and causes. But Ridley-Thomas said he fears that police might dominate the groups. “What kind of players do we want the community to be, active or passive?” he asked.

Williams said he wants the councils to be “an extension” of the LAPD but to include “friends and foes, advocates and critics.” In an application for $379,000 in federal funds--already tentatively approved--the chief said he would establish Police Advisory Councils in all 18 LAPD divisions by next fall. The proposal envisions canvassing “community organizations, block clubs, business organizations and the like” for prospective participants and calls for “intimate and frank discussions” between residents and police personnel sitting as “policy equals.” Special training of commanders, community relations officers and about 300 residents is also planned.

Across the nation, cities are turning to community policing as a means to enlist the public in the fight against crime and to make police more responsive to the needs of particular neighborhoods. But the programs do not cure all ills.

In Detroit, for example, Stanley Knox, a black man and the police chief since last year, set up an “unbeatable team” approach of having his department work with the community. He wears his police uniform every day. “I’m out there all the time,” he said. “I don’t hide behind a desk in a dark suit.” Despite his efforts, his department this month was thrust into the national spotlight when an unarmed black man was beaten to death by police, triggering community outrage.

In New York, where police have been criticized for racial insensitivity, Lee P. Brown, the former commissioner of police, continues to push the merits of community policing. “The No. 1 priority has to be public safety,” he said. “When you put more officers on the street, it becomes an immediate deterrent to crime and it also gets more people involved with the police in a partnership to prevent crime. People want to see a police officer on their street and say with pride, ‘That’s my police officer.’ ”

Much of Williams’ success with community policing hinges on his relationship with City Hall, where the program has some of its staunchest allies, including Mayor Bradley and much of the City Council.

Although Bradley had not spoken with Gates in the year leading up to the riots, the mayor said he talks frequently with Williams and that his staff is in daily communication with the chief on matters such as riot readiness and the budget. But Williams makes his own decisions, the mayor said, although he sometimes informs Bradley before acting, even about some personnel changes.

“I would make observations about people that I thought were dependable--who I turned to for advice, for assistance--but I left the selection completely to him,” said Bradley. But, he added, “if I thought he was doing something leading in the wrong direction, I wouldn’t hesitate to say so.”

At the height of the King furor, Bradley appointed Gates’ nemesis Brewer to the Police Commission. Now, as commission president, Brewer is Williams’ boss. But he also serves as his ally and confidante--a man who spent a career in the LAPD and became its highest-ranking black officer, rising to the rank of assistant chief. Nevertheless, Brewer said, Williams “doesn’t come to me for advice. He’s making his own decisions. We give him direction, and he responds. And he’s spending more time than anything else with the public.”

Williams said he has tried to break down the isolationist attitude at Parker Center and has reached out to City Hall and some longtime critics of the department. “The department still hasn’t gotten used to the fact that I’ll go over and talk to the mayor,” he said. “I’ll talk to the police commissioners. I’ll talk to Zev Yaroslavsky, whom a lot of the officers didn’t like. I’ll talk to whomever. I went into the gay centers and had them in, and (to) the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. . . . It’s my job to take the flak.”

The flak can be heavy at City Hall. “He couldn’t have come in at a worse time,” said Councilman Richard Alatorre, citing the budget woes. Still, Williams has managed to walk a fine line in his early dealings with political leaders and is winning laudatory reviews from many. Asked whether he could fault Williams for anything, Councilman Marvin Braude, head of the Public Safety Committee, said, “I think he ought to lose a little weight. . . . That’s about the only criticism I can make.” Said Danny Staggs, City Hall liaison for the Police Protective League, “He’s being very politically astute. We admire the way he’s approaching things--very slow, methodical.”

But Williams has achieved some successes. Last month, he persuaded the City Council to lift a citywide freeze on promotions and allow him to elevate more than 300 officers to new ranks. This month, he helped win passage of a ballot measure to pay for a new police emergency 911 system. In a major setback, however, an ambitious proposal to hire 1,000 new officers for patrol duties narrowly failed to win the required two-thirds majority, forcing Williams to devise new ways if he is to fulfill his promise to put more police on the streets.

Williams, however, found cause for optimism in the fact that 63% of the voters favored paying for more police, a “clear mandate” to elected officials. Increasing the police force, city officials said, is certain to be a hot issue in the spring elections. And several council members, at least three of them candidates for mayor, are offering their own proposals for beefing up the patrol force. “Somebody is going to have to find us more cops or this place is ultimately going to implode,” said Deputy Chief Kroeker. “Implode. It’s coming. . . .”

The new glasnost between City Hall and Parker Center is making it easier to focus on the fundamental problems facing the LAPD, officials say. “We do not want to clash in public,” said Police Commissioner Ann Reiss Lane. “Our goal is to not be controversial. It’s to focus on the problems in the city and not disputes between the Police Commission and the chief.”

Williams has been meeting privately every week with Commissioners Brewer and Yamaki to review pending issues. The sessions in Williams’ office, officials said, have allowed the department to present a unified front at City Hall.

With Bradley retiring next year, Williams has won an additional political dividend: Rather than being directed by a strong incumbent mayor, he instead is being courted by some of the candidates to succeed Bradley. “It’s a great advantage,” said one City Hall executive.

But that rubs both ways, and the new chief could suddenly find himself tossed into the political fray over the mayor’s race. “It’s a dangerous time to go calling on City Council members,” said Yamaki. “The first thing a number of them are going to ask is, ‘Who are you going to support for mayor?’ ”

CHAPTER 4 / Looking ahead

With so much at stake, Williams plans to develop a five-year “strategic business plan” to transform the LAPD into the community- based operation envisioned by the Christopher Commission. The blueprint calls for development of neighborhood councils and bolstering the patrol force, in part by de-emphasizing specialized units that are a hallmark of the LAPD. Working with police, the councils will be apprised of the staffing available in their neighborhoods and will be asked to develop practical goals for combatting crime.

When Williams became commissioner of police in Philadelphia, he developed a strategic plan there. It set specific objectives, such as increasing public satisfaction with the department by 5% to 10%, as measured by public opinion surveys. He said he wants to do the same in Los Angeles.

Jack Greene, who worked on Williams’ plan in Philadelphia, is being tapped by Williams to serve as a consultant here. Greene warns, however, that major improvements will not occur overnight: “Look how long it took the LAPD to get to the point it’s in now. Here’s Chief Williams, who has to come to a whole different territory and get up to speed. It takes a long time to turn these organizations around.”

Roger S. Young, former FBI special agent in charge in San Diego and a senior consultant to the Webster Commission, said: “Williams has got his hands full. . . . People in L.A. are very angry with their police. Unless he turns things around or at least shows real signs that he is trying to make real change, you’re going to find yourself in the midst of the same riots all over again in another six months or a year.”

It could be a long while before real improvements are felt and seen on the streets of Los Angeles. This past summer, the median police response time in the city was at 7 1/2 minutes and slowly rising, up from about seven minutes in 1990 and 1991. (The International Assn. of Chiefs of Police says two to five minutes is a typical goal.)

The department also has tried to keep patrol officers free from chasing radio calls 40% of the time. The idea was that the officers could use this spare time to work with residents to tackle persistent crime problems. By mid-1991, department officials said they were close to their 40% goal. But this year, officials said that officers assigned to patrol cars have had little free time.

“Right now, you go to work and you chase radio calls,” said one patrol supervisor. “You get four or five at a time and inevitably, you know when you get there you’re going to get hammered with, ‘Why did it take you so long?’ ”

Added Pacific Division Capt. Jan Carlson: “I hate to use the word crisis--but I think when you look at the state of law enforcement in Los Angeles and how this department has been allowed to deteriorate, not only in personnel but in equipment, we are reaching a . . . critical time.”

Police say fewer officers simply means that more calls go unanswered and fewer arrests are made. The LAPD screens its calls for service and responds to only one in four. Though reported crime has continued to climb, the number of arrests made by the LAPD has declined for several years. Drug arrests, for instance, have been cut in half, dropping from 55,000 in 1989 to a projected 29,000 this year. Many patrol officers are also shying away from unnecessary confrontations with the public, as evidenced by a dramatic fall in the number of discretionary arrests.

Many citizens are eager for change. William Samilton, who lives in Newton Division, said he called police several times over a two-hour period one weekend night last summer because of a loud neighborhood party. No police officers showed up. “It made me feel kind of bad,” Samilton said, “like they just didn’t care.”

In the Southeast Division, Henry Terrell, a local block captain, described similar frustrations. “They continue to ignore us, and unless somebody’s got a gun to your head, they’re not going to come out to help you,” he said. “And so more and more gang-type people are hanging around because they feel they are free from the police.”

Detectives, meanwhile, are finding themselves buried in cases. Category one crimes--the most solvable cases--are backing up all over town, according to interviews. During the first eight months of this year, LAPD detectives cleared 58% of the homicides assigned them, compared to 69% for the same period last year. In the city’s South Bureau, statistics for the first six months of this year show that murder suspects have a 50-50 chance of getting caught.

“We just don’t have enough people,” said Capt. Bruce Hagerty. He recently asked detectives to look at all their unsolved homicides and assess how many could be solved if they had enough time to do basic investigative work, such as showing witnesses photographs of suspects. They came up with 90 murders.

In September, Lt. Robert P. Ruchhoft’s 40 detectives in Hollywood were assigned 1,600 serious crimes. “Every one of these, in a logical world, should have been investigated, with a good faith attempt made to identify a suspect,” Ruchhoft said. “That is not going on.”

So how does Williams rescue the LAPD and win back the trust of Los Angeles residents? How does he create this new blue line?

The task is monumental. But hopes come from as far away as the East Coast, and as close as Los Angeles itself.

“Everyone who has worn the badge has been tarnished because of what happened out in Los Angeles,” said William Geller, an official with the Police Executive Research Forum in Washington. “And that’s why we have to open our doors and open our books to the public, to assure ourselves that the badge is not tarnished again.”

Said a gang suppression officer in the West Valley: “People used to consider us angels . . . who came in their time of need. Well, we want to be angels again.”

Declining Manpower, Fewer Street Cops . . .

The Los Angeles Police Department is shrinking, largely because retirements are outpacing recruitments. The department is expected to continue to shrink because of the city’s budget crisis. Among the consequences are a declining number of officers on patrol and a longer wait for officers to respond to calls.

LAPD Manpower 1986: 6,900 1987: 7,100 1988: 7,500 1989: 7,800 1990: 8,400 1991: 8,200 1992: 7,800 *

As LAPD’s manpower has dropped so has the number of officers it puts in radio cars. In 1991, when the LAPD had 8,200 officers, it mustered 381 of them on an average shift to handle radio calls.

This fall, with overall manpower down to 7,800 officers, the LAPD managed to put only 279 officers in radio cars on an average shift.

. . . and Increased Response Times

To conserve resources, LAPD screens calls, dispatching officers to only about one in four calls it receives. With fewer officers, response times are on the rise. The department met its modest goal of a seven-minute median emergency response in 1991, but by late summer and early fall of this year was regularly failing to meet its goal. Average response times for urgent and routine calls have also risen this year.

EMERGENCY: A life-threatening situation such as a robbery or other major crime in progress.

1991: 6.9 minutes

1992: 7.6 minutes

URGENT: A non-life-threatening situation that still requires a quick response, such as vandalism in progress or a prowler who has just fled.

1991: 29.5 minutes

1992: 30.9 minutes

ROUTINE: Calls deemed to merit responses, but not quick responses, such as business disputes or minor disturbances.

1991: 47.9 minutes

1992: 49.6 minutes

Sources: LAPD Office of Operations and LAPD Information Resources Division

The LAPD: Turmoil Since the Riots

After last spring’s riots, the Los Angeles Police Department plunged into six tumultuous months that have begun to reshape it. Following are some key developments:

May 7: Deputy Chief Mathew V. Hunt blames Police Chief Daryl F. Gates for LAPD’s failure to react swiftly to the riots, saying he pressed Gates for greater preparations prior to the verdicts but the chief rebuffed him. Also, other key LAPD officials say breakdowns at the command level hampered embattled street officers. Gates defended his actions.

May 11: Webster and Hubert Williams, president of the Washington-based Police Foundation, are appointed to investigate the LAPD’s riot response.

June 2: City Charter Amendment F passes with 70% of the vote, limiting the police chief’s tenure to a maximum of two five-year terms.

June 27: Gates retires after 14 turbulent years and later takes a job as a radio talk show host.

June 28: Willie L. Williams becomes LAPD’s first black chief and says community-based policing will be a hallmark of his administration.

July 1: Tow truck driver John L. Daniel is killed by police officer at gas station after refusing order to stop his truck.

July 9: Williams closes the department’s Organized Crime Intelligence Division offices after release of a book alleging that the elite squad had spied on politicians and celebrities.

Aug. 10: After four years of litigation, a federal court judge gives final approval to a police minority promotion plan that will change testing procedures for candidates.

Aug. 20: Deputy Chief Glenn A. Levant, one of six finalists to succeed Gates, announces plans to retire to become executive director of DARE America.

Sept. 9: City Council approves package of initiatives requiring the LAPD to hire thousands of women and increase the ranks of females on the force to 44% by the year 2000.

Sept. 17: The LAPD unveils plan for using federal Weed and Seed funds to initiate foot beats and bicycle patrols, establish mobile police substations, and improve community relations.

Oct. 4: The Times discloses that 37 of the 44 “problem officers” identified by the Christopher Commission remain on the force, and many have not received extensive psychological training and counseling.

Oct. 13: Los Angeles Police Chief Williams unveils citywide community-policing plan that would create citizen advisory councils, alter police attitudes and retrain key officers.

Oct 21: Webster Commission report blames city officials, including Gates and Mayor Tom Bradley, for poor preparation and response to Los Angeles riots. The panel calls on LAPD to redeploy officers to basic patrol duties, prepare for future emergencies and modernize communications systems.

Oct. 26: Nearly 1,800 people who say they suffered injury or property damage allege in claims against city that LAPD discriminated against poor and minority neighborhoods in its riot response.

Oct. 27: City Council lifts citywide promotional freeze on Police Department, allowing chief to elevate 331 officers into supervisory posts.

Oct. 30: Williams promotes seven lieutenants to the rank of captain.

Nov. 4: Voters reject Proposition N, a measure that would add 1,000 police officers, but approve Proposition M, a $235-million bond measure for improving the 911 system.

Nov. 10: Williams appoints two new assistant chiefs and four new deputy chiefs, a move he said would strengthen the department’s response to emergencies.

--Compiled by Times researcher Cecilia Rasmussen