ARRESTING ISSUES SWIRL OVER WILLIAMS' BID FOR 2ND TERM : THE REAPPOINTMENT DEBATE OVER A SECOND TERM FOR L.A.'S TOP COP THREATENS TO DEGENERATE - TO THE DETRIMENT OF ALL.

Byline: Earl Ofari Hutchinson

MIDWAY through his first term as LAPD chief, Willie L. Williams sat on a panel on media and racial stereotypes at a conference sponsored by the Black Journalists Association of Southern California. I was also on the panel. Following the question and answer period, Williams leaned over and whispered to me, ``They aren't going to get rid of this poor little black boy from Philadelphia.'' Williams didn't say who the ``they'' was. But judging from the loud applause the mostly black audience gave the chief it was clear that the audience understood the ``they'' to be the city's white political establishment, whom they believed was out to get Williams because he was black.

Not much has changed since then. Even though some surveys show Williams to be popular among many whites, black community leaders, politicians and ministers are the most vocal Williams supporters.

This is troublesome. It threatens to turn what should be an issue of Williams' performance and stability into a racial issue. Perhaps this shouldn't surprise, since many blacks fervently believe that racism lurks behind every attempt by the ``white establishment'' to oust a black leader or official from their job or sully their reputation. Williams has made it clear that he's going to fight harder to preserve both.

The Police Commission has until April 7 to decide whether it wants him to stay. The betting odds are that they don't. The battle lines seemed even more tightly drawn recently when Williams bitterly accused the commission of not being ``fair and objective'' in the criteria it will use to evaluate his performance.

If Williams is not rehired he almost certainly will take his case to the City Council. He needs two-thirds of the council members (10 of the 15) to overturn an adverse Police Commission decision to keep his job. The jury at this point is way out on whether he can get the votes. I can understand why.

I always thought that Williams' appointment as LAPD chief was a riot-related, public relations ploy to buy social peace, calm a fearful public, placate the black community, appease the media, self-assure city officials and the Police Commission and put a cosmetic sheen on the tarnished image of the LAPD following the beating of black motorist Rodney King.

Still, Williams' job performance is enmeshed in rumors, negative media reports, personal and public blunders and his often unsupported claims and boasts of achievements. It's almost impossible to tell whether Williams should be regarded as a hero or goat.

He claims that crime has sharply dropped in Los Angeles under him. He's right. But crime according to the most recent FBI Uniform Crime report has dropped in most major cities. In New York, because of proactive, aggressive police action combined with effective community policing activities, crime has dropped a spectacular 35 percent.

He claims that he has moved to tightly monitor ``problem officers'' with a high number of excessive use-of-force complaints. But he has produced no evidence to support that claim. When he was asked to produce a list of the officers he's monitoring, Williams admitted there was no list. This is a key point. When the Police Commission ripped him for poor work habits and lack of focus, it specifically made mention as an example his lack of a consistent policy or plan of enforcement to deal with officer-involved shootings.

He claims that the number of citizen complaints is way down. He's right. The number of complaints dropped from 717 in 1991 to 496 in 1995. But are complaints down because the police are kinder, gentler and less heavy-handed in their practices than during the Gates era? Maybe. But could the number of complaints be down because as the inspector general noted in a recent report of poor record keeping, incomplete statistics, the exclusion of certain types of complaints and cases summarily dismissed by the chief issuing a ``miscellaneous memo'' (a practice he swore to eliminate)?

He claims that he moved quickly to determine whether Mark Fuhrman's audiotaped boast that surfaced during the O.J. Simpson trial that he lied, beat suspects and planted evidence was true. Williams hasn't. He spent much of the Simpson trial vigorously defending Fuhrman as a good cop. He backed away only when the world found out through Fuhrman's own words that he wasn't. The report he submitted to the Police Commission on Fuhrman was so inadequate and incomplete that it smacked of a whitewash. The commission ordered him to keep digging.

Williams also appears to be afflicted by Hollywooditis. Whenever there's a big case he dashes in front of the TV cameras. The O.J. Simpson and Ennis Cosby cases are glaring examples of his hoof-in-mouth, shoot from the hip malady. He ran to the media to respond to every accusation the Simpson defense team made about the LAPD, forgetting that defense attorneys do and say anything to win cases.

In the Cosby murder case he was all over the networks giving out fuzzy settlements about the ``progress'' of the investigation. It looked like he was conducting the investigation in the media despite running the risk of compromising the evidence. It seemed like media posturing rather than quiet professionalism.

On the other hand, Williams' critics claim that he has done little to hire and promote more women and minorities and almost nothing to end sex discrimination. But Williams has increased the number of minorities and women hired and seems willing to do more including accepting an ACLU settlement that committed the city to specific hiring goals and timetables, long-term monitoring and a special panel to oversee the hiring process. The City Council scrapped part of the plan.

Williams has not totally ignored the serious problem of sex harassment. He created a special unit to handle complaints from women officers.

Williams' critics claim that he has done next to nothing to eliminate testifying or the withholding of evidence by some officers in court cases. But Williams denounced and suspended two officers accused of falsifying evidence in several cases. When they were cleared by a police disciplinary board they promptly slapped him with $20 million defamation law suit. This could make Williams (or any other future chief), even more reluctant to go after cops accused of lying, withholding or falsifying evidence even if there is overwhelming evidence that they did.

The chief has a few other pluses. Williams has repeatedly pleaded for more money to implement the Christopher Commission reforms and hire more officers, taken the first steps toward implementing his version of a community policing plan, made citizen complaint forms available at all stations and shifted LAPD policy from mass arrests to more quality service and community relations.

Williams has also resisted the temptation to take the cheap and dirty way out by shooting racism at his critics and making his color an issue in his job battle. But it's still early in the game and with a potentially big, no-holds-barred battle brewing over his reappointment and with black leaders claiming that Williams must stay at all costs, there's no guarantee that he won't give in and play the race card too.

This would be disastrous in a city still trying to recover from the deep polarization of the King beating and the Simpson trial. It would hopelessly fan the flames of racial division in Los Angeles.

The big question then is can Williams work enough damage control to rescue his image as a badly flawed public servant? At the very least, he must publicly pledge to improve his personal work habits, work harder to complete the Christopher Commission reforms, establish an effective policy to deal with problem officers and citizen complaints, end media posturing and, most importantly, adhere to a rigid personal standard of honesty and integrity in dealings with city officials and the public. This is still the surest way to restore full public trust in the LAPD and make the LAPD the best crime fighting force possible.

This probably won't be enough to satisfy those who want Williams out. And nothing short of a full ringing endorsement for a second term by city officials will be enough to satisfy those who want him to stay. But from the review of Williams' muddy and muddled record and job performance, both sides have enough ammunition to make a case for and against his reappointment. No matter whether Williams stays or goes, if the decision is made fairly and honestly, I can live with it. I hope others can too.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--Color) Black community leaders, politicians and ministers are the most vocal supporters of Chief Willie L. Williams.

(2) The Police Commission has until April 7 to decide whether it wants Chief Willie L. Williams to stay.