Daryl Gates Quotes

Daryl Gates — American Public Servant born on August 30, 1926,

Daryl Gates was the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1978 to 1992. His length of tenure was second only to that of William H. Parker. As chief of police, he took a hardline, aggressive, paramilitary approach to law enforcement. Gates is co-credited with the creation of SWAT teams with LAPD's John Nelson, who others claim was the originator of SWAT in 1965. Gates also co-founded D.A.R.E along with the Los Angeles Unified School District. After the Rodney King beating and the riots afterward, Gates retired from the police department... (wikipedia)

No police department should hire more quickly than they can assimilate the people that they bring in, and we did. I take responsibility for it. It was the first opportunity I had to hire, and I wanted to do it, and I take responsibility.

Our people went out every single night trying to stop crime before it happened, trying to take people off the street that they believed were involved in crime. That made us a very aggressive, proactive police department.

No one knew what Rodney King had done beforehand to be stopped. No one realized that he was a parolee and that he was violating his parole. No one knew any of those things. All they saw was this grainy film and police officers hitting him over the head.

They have the ability to take a person's freedom from them. On certain situations, they have the ability to take a person's reputation. And under certain circumstances, they have the authority to take a person's life.

It was a department where you had honesty and integrity stamped right on you when you came into the Los Angeles Police Department. If you violated that, or if you were a dishonest cop, you were terrible. We got rid of you as quickly as possible.

Daryl Gates Quotes

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