Daryl Gates Legacy

Former LAPD Police Chief died at 83 years old.  During his 14 year tenure as LAPD chief, the city saw the rise of crack cocaine and gang violence., the Rodney King beating and subsequent  1992  and the Rampart Scandal. While we do not like to speak ill of the dead, the truth is Gates was a detached autocrat who ruled with a heavy hand.  He once famously told the U.S. Senate that casual drug users “ought to be taken out and shot.”   He developed an urban assault device called the “Batterram” which was used to “serve search warrants” (destroy) residential buildings in which the  LAPD suspected drug activity was occurring — the fact that often innocent families lived there did not seem to bother Chief Gates.

Over at Cobb blog a lifelong Angeleno recounts life as a child in Gates’ Los Angeles, it is worth a read.  There’s also a fantastic piece written by David Cay Johnston who covered Gates for the LA Times during the 1980s.   Both of these are worth a read.