Cops Cop Laid to Rest...Go Easy my Friend

While we have dedicated ourselves to fighting the GWOT and Stopping the Threats, both known and unknown we are taking the time to dedicate this page to Daryl Gates (LAPD, RET), a True Cops Cop.  Our SWAT father and a truly remarkable individual in the Police Community!  The following is from the City News Service.

Former LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates Remembered

Written by ELIZABETH MARCELLINO, City News Service

Former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates. Gates died at age 83. AP File /Phil McCarten LOS ANGELES (CNS) — With the strains of Frank Sinatra singing "My Way"echoing in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, thousands of law enforcement officers and civic leaders from across the state gathered today to remember former LAPD top cop Daryl Gates, who was eulogized as a one-of-a kind police chief. "Daryl was the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Los Angeles Police Department was Daryl," LAPD Chief Charlie Beck told the crowd gathered at the funeral service for Gates, who died of cancer April 16 at his Dana Point home. Beck said Gates, 83, was held in high esteem by officers because "he respected the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department ... Beck choked up as he recounted promising Gates that he "would care for his beloved department, and I will." The funeral service was preceded by a somber procession through downtown Los Angeles, with Gates' family and dignitaries escorting a hearse that carried Gate's flag-draped casket. The procession began at police headquarters and moved up Bunker Hill to the cathedral. Apair of Los Angeles Fire Department ladders were extended upward from both sides of Temple Street and adorned with a large American flag. Gates was chief from 1978 to 1992. During his administration at LAPD, Gates' universal popularity among rank-and-file officers was not as widespread outside the department's Parker Center headquarters. Some people saw him as a symbol of repression in parts of the city that erupted into rioting in 1992 when four white police officers were acquitted in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King. Some elected officials said Gates' LAPD was caught unprepared as Los Angeles erupted into rioting while the chief attended a political fundraiser on the Westside. About $1 billion in property was lost amidst four days of lawlessness, and Gates resigned four months later. But Gates, personable and outspoken, was credited with professionalizing the department. He started the first police SWAT team and the widely adopted anti-drug program DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education). He was infamous for over-the-top remarks, once saying that casual drug users should be shot. He also was pilloried for suggesting that black people were somehow physiologically more prone to dying in police chokeholds.