KTLA News: "Chief Daryl Gates opposes court order to diversify LAPD" (1980)

I'm absolutely totally completely opposed to separate lists. U but I find myself in a terrible dilemma worrying about the community safety. Uh worrying about uh the safety of police officers who need additional help out there. worrying about a police department that continues to lose personnel each and every day. Uh and worried about those that we've already recruited and who are sitting on lists and who have expectations of coming uh on board this police department. >> Is there anything like this? >> Isn't it? They all came down to uh to enjoy this holiday of no police commission. Isn't it lovely? A whole afternoon off. What do you want to talk about? >> Why don't we talk about uh the quota system and the court decision? >> Well, I I think it has to be stressed that this is an interim action by the court that the ninth circuit court will hear this issue and this matter on about March 1st. And uh I think it also has to be stressed that uh I am totally dissatisfied with the court's uh action thus far. Uh I think it is highly detrimental to the city and to the police department. Uh we are, as I mentioned some time ago, capable right now of hiring from 3 to 400 police officers that we are in dire need of uh if we were to follow the court's edict, we could possibly put, and I say possibly because we really don't know. It's a day-to-day kind of situation. We possibly put a little over a hundred police officers in the police academy and then we would be stopped from hiring until we went out and did some more recruiting to make and uh hopefully we'll have some resolution, some decision forthcoming in the latter part of this week. >> What do you think he will do, Chief? >> I really don't know at this time. Uh I I have tremendous pressure to to hire as I've indicated to the court. Uh we're in desperate need of additional police officers. On the other hand, I'm totally opposed to separate lists. U uh it's a it's a tremendous uh decision to be made and uh it's as I said, we're on the horns of a dilemma. >> How desperate is your need? >> The need is desperate. Uh uh let me just tell you, if I could freeze the department right now and hold it intact, uh and just keep the department the size it is right now, I'd tell everybody to go to hell and we'd fight this thing out. But I can't freeze the department. We lose officers every day. We lose an average of 30 officers per month. And uh we are 500 under the postroposition 13 level. uh 400 u beyond 1975 beyond that. So we're we're lower than we were in 1969. >> What areas is this uh what areas are affected? >> Well, it's affected the entire department. Uh fortunately, we've kept it at a minimum in the in the field. We keep pushing people out into the field attempting to minimize the impact on the street and we keep finding ways to uh manage with less. Uh as you know we took some rather drastic measures in dealing with our investigative process and we think that will save additional detectives but it's always a catchup kind of situation. and the crime load continues to go up and the call load continues to go up and the number of personnel continues to go down. >> Chief, why in your opinion is there difficulty in the business? Well, there's the difficulty um is simply attempting to attract enough round. And um