LOS ANGELES — Daryl F. Gates, the blunt former Los Angeles police chief who waged war on violent gangs and skirmished with city leaders until his handling of the Rodney King police beating and ensuing riots forced him to retire, died Friday of cancer. He was 83.
Gates died at his Dana Point home with his family at his side, according to a police statement. His brother said recently that the former chief had bladder cancer that had spread.
One of the most polarizing figures in modern law enforcement, Gates served as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department for 14 years beginning in 1978, an era of tumultuous change as the nation’s second- largest city faced a surge in well-armed gangs, a burgeoning illegal drug trade and growing racial conflict.
He initially ran a police force that enjoyed a reputation as the embodiment of the professional, just-the-facts “Dragnet” mythology. He left office with city blocks in ashes amid accusations he allowed a pattern of abuse of minorities to flourish among the rank-and-file.
Gates was credited with developing the policing plan, including a terrorism task force, that brought off the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics with not so much as a traffic jam. He also created the department’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E., program for youths.
Gates’ career began to unravel with the March 3, 1991, beating of King. Shortly after a videotape of the incident aired, Gates told reporters that even if the officers were found to be out of line, it was an aberration, a statement he later admitted was a mistake.
An independent review of the department found the LAPD had a significant problem of excessive force aggravated by racism and bias, and under pressure to resign, Gates announced his retirement.
On April 29, 1992, just two months short of Gates’ leaving, a jury acquitted the officers of most charges in the King beating, a verdict that triggered one of the worst outbreaks of civil unrest in Los Angeles history.
