The chief’s promise: The LAPD will never fail the city again
"Several years before his death, Daryl Gates and I were on a fishing trip in the Northern Sierra. He wanted to talk about the 1992 riots, and I was more than willing to listen. I had been troubled by the department’s actions before, during and after those horrific four days, and I was looking for answers. Those answers never came, at least not through that conversation. Former Chief Gates attributed the riots of 1992 to the leadership failures of just two individuals in the department; he did not view it as an organizational issue.
"I very respectfully disagree with my former chief on this issue: I think the Los Angeles Police Department as an organization had everything to do with those awful days in the spring of 1992."
Charlie Beck for the Los Angeles Times (4/27/17)