Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass continued to criticize mayoral candidate Nithya Raman Thursday over a comment the councilwoman made during a televised debate, recognizing the leadership of former Los Angeles Police Department Chief Daryl Gates.
Earlier this week, Bass and Raman faced off during an hourlong televised debate in which they clashed over homelessness and public safety, as well as immigration and challenges involving the Los Angeles Police Department, among other issues impacting the city.
Raman criticized the LAPD for what she called secrecy under Bass’ administration, pointing to the department’s failure to release recent data on officer-involved shootings and allegations the department has worked with federal immigration officers.
Raman noted that she would address those issues if elected mayor, and hoped to get to the department back to the gold standard under Gates, who served as the LAPD chief from 1978 to 1992.
Bass criticized Raman for her comments, citing what she deemed negative impacts that Black and Latino Angelenos had experienced under Gates’ leadership.
The incumbent organized a news conference Thursday morning alongside Black community leaders.
“Daryl Gates inflicted serious harm to African Americans. I realized at that moment that my opponent is not really familiar with that. I know that she has only lived in Los Angeles for 13 years, and almost seven of these years she served on the City Council, and now she wants to be in charge of the entire city that she barely knows,” Bass said.
Bass urged Raman to retract her statement and apologize.
Under Gates’ leadership, the department created the police SWAT teams and co-founded the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program. The LAPD had also created a special unit known as the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums in response to the war on drugs. Officers in this unit were accused of making false arrests and racial profiling Black and Latino men.
Gates was the chief when LAPD officers beat and arrested Rodney King on March 3, 1991. In the aftermath, residents criticized the department and called for Gates to resign. Then-Mayor Tom Bradley urged Gates to resign, which he refused to do.
That same year, the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department — also referred to as the Christopher Commission because it was chaired by attorney Warren Christopher, who would go on to be named U.S. Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton — released a report which found a police culture of excessive force and poor supervision. The commission had recommended several reforms to improve the department, as well as for Gates to resign.
Gates later announced his intention to resign on July 13, 1991, but he wouldn’t step down until nearly a full year later.
In April 29, 1992, some residents of Los Angeles erupted into riot following the acquittal of four LAPD officers — three white, one Lationo — accused of beating King.
The 1992 L.A. Riots ended six days after the arrival of California’s National Guard and federal officers. Gates left the LAPD on June 28, 1992, and was replaced by Willie Williams.
During his tenure, Gates also implemented Special Order 40, in 1979 — the first sanctuary policy in the U.S. The order barred LAPD officers from stopping residents on the basis of immigration status.
In response to Bass’ criticisms, Raman released a minute-long video explaining her comments.
“Over and over, I have challenged Mayor Bass over reports of LAPD cooperation with ICE under her leadership. Now Mayor Bass is deliberately twisting my words to distract from the questions she is refusing to answer. Let me be clear: Daryl Gates was an abhorrent and racist police chief, and I reject his record of racism, police brutality, militarization and resistance to civilian oversight,” Raman said in her video.
“My comments were about one specific policy: Los Angeles’ longstanding prohibition on using local police to enforce federal immigration law that came about nearly 50 years ago under Mayor Tom Bradley. That policy became the foundation for the Sanctuary City Ordinance that I authored,” Raman added.
“So why, with Trump’s immigration forces descending on our city, are we seeing reports of LAPD assisting ICE and sharing fingerprint information that is used to detain immigrants? That is what I asked at the debate. It is the question Mayor Bass still needs to answer.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, LAPD routinely sends fingerprints collected during bookings into national law enforcement databases accessible to ICE.
Separately, CalMatters reported that audit logs showed the LAPD searched automated license-plate-reader data on behalf of ICE, including searches identified with “HSI,” Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE. The LAPD declined to answer CalMatters’ questions about those records.
Raman said she is calling on Bass to answer whether or not the searches and fingerprint-sharing have stopped, what she’s directed the police chief to do, what safeguards prevent city data from being used to target immigrant families, and who’s being held accountable?
Raman also questioned what she called a lack of transparency within the LAPD. The department’s annual officer-involved-shooting analysis, normally released in the spring, has yet to be published, and she said some neighborhood-level crime data is no longer being published.