Gates Attacked by GOP Unit on Protest Arrests

The California Republican Assembly, a conservative Republican volunteer organization, narrowly adopted a resolution Sunday denouncing Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and the department for using undue force in arresting hundreds of anti-abortion demonstrators last month.

After angry debate, delegates at a convention in Costa Mesa voted 94 to 93 for the resolution, which denounces “brutal acts” against members of Operation Rescue, who blocked the entrance to a Los Angeles women’s health clinic. The resolution also calls on the state Civil Rights Commission and the Police Commission to investigate the allegations.

Speech to Delegates

Gates, who spoke before the CRA on Saturday--his first major speech since publicly saying he may run for governor in 1990--was well received by most delegates. But he was criticized by many anti-abortion sympathizers.

The anti-Gates resolution was vehemently opposed by several delegates, who likened the resolution’s language to the liberal civil rights activists of two decades ago.

Among those supporting the resolution was William Allen of Claremont, a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, who was recently arrested in Arizona when he tried to intervene in a child custody case involving an American Indian child and her adoptive parents.

Allen told delegates how the arresting officers “treated me gently and gingerly . . . I know it can be done that way.”