Back in the Spotlight, Gates Gets in Some Licks : Reaction: Ex-police chief laments ‘double jeopardy’ for convicted officers, defends LAPD and blasts Rodney G. King. He even gets in a few barbs at the mayor.

The insults, the head butting, the attack and defense--was this fun or what?

It was like old times Saturday for Daryl F. Gates, ex-police chief turned talk show host. Gates was standing, feet apart like a boxer’s, his back to the blaring speakers. Three hours earlier, when the verdicts were read, Gates had had plenty to say about that. He would have plenty more.

But right now, outgoing Mayor Tom Bradley was answering a reporter’s question about Gates and his influence on the city.

“I want you to understand this,” Bradley snapped over the studio speakers, “Daryl Gates is irrelevant to this issue, to this city at this moment. Any other questions?”

Well. You could have wrapped up that one and given it to Daryl Gates for Christmas.

“I don’t know of anyone who’s more irrelevant than the mayor is these days!” he said happily, talking back to the speakers. “He’s on his way out! “

And then . . .

Bradley: “I highly value our system of justice.”

Gates: “ This time.”

Gates was in his element Saturday--lamenting “double jeopardy” for the two convicted officers while accepting the verdict, harsh in his judgment of judicial politicking and, as always, defending the Los Angeles Police Department.

For much of the 10 months since Gates left the chief’s job, second-guessed by--in his words--”crummy little politicians” and the “dummy” who was mayor, the man who used to be front-page news has been a talk show host for KFI radio, covered in papers’ entertainment sections if at all.

On Saturday he was back. Nearly a dozen cameras set up to await his news conference.

It was vintage Gates--the chief does not hold back or worry about being PC, like some he could name. Always good for a sound bite, he held forth on:

* The verdicts: He accepts the verdict and praised the jury, but “I’m sad about the whole system of justice and what has happened with that system of justice,” he said, a system that put officers in “double jeopardy.”

* Riot preparations: His successor as chief, Willie L. Williams, “had the leisure of hindsight, which is 20/20 vision all the time. If I’d had a riot before, believe me, I’d be as prepared as they are today.”

* Stacey C. Koon and Laurence M. Powell: He was “sad from a personal standpoint for the officers” and their fate now.

* Rodney G. King: The beating was wrong, Gates always said, but “I also said he should have gone back to prison for his irresponsible conduct . . . and I think it’s unfortunate the taxpayers are going to have to foot the bill to make him a millionaire.”

* The impact of the verdict on the LAPD: “It’s another pitfall that law enforcement has to face up to. . . . I think it’s going to have a tremendous impact on street police officers. . . . There’s going to be situations where they’re gonna stop and back off. . . . In some situations it will impact the people they’re trying to protect.”

For the four hours Gates was on the air, the phone lines blinked and glittered like the downtown lights on a clear night. . . . Larry from Anaheim, Patricia from Orange County, most of them from beyond the L.A. city limits, mostly deploring the two guilty verdicts and pounding Gates on the back for speaking out.

Sandra from San Diego, you’re on the air:

“I feel now that this verdict will send a really bad message to the criminal population that they have a leg up on the cops now . . .”

“Sandra, I think you’re absolutely correct from the standpoint of it bolstering the arrogance of criminals. And I think you’re also going to find law enforcement is gonna step back and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, there are certain situations I’m going to avoid getting involved in.’ ”

But then Sheila from South-Central called:

“You’re missing the point . . . they stop anybody, old grand-mamas . . . . I’ve had a gun put to my head (by a police officer), I’ve never been in trouble in my life . . . . If you are all gonna sit here and act like there are no bad apples, that ain’t right.”

“Sheila, no one disagrees with anything you said. . . . On the other hand, you have to admit that your community has an awful lot of crime, and you have to admit that police officers are there to try to reduce that crime . . . and sometimes they do make mistakes.”

Finally, he took off his headphones and wrapped the cord neatly.

He remembered to pick up the flat of strawberries that Sheriff Sherman Block gave him--no, not as a payment for any bet--and loaded them in the trunk of his sporty red car.

Some officers still call him chief. And he still uses the pronoun “we” when he speaks of the street cops, and “they” when he means the LAPD brass generally or city power structure in particular.

Now his role as a radio host offers, Gates said, “a catharsis as far as the police officers. ‘By golly, the chief said it, and I feel a lot better,’ so they can go on and do their jobs.

“You’ve relieved that stress, you’ve relieved that feeling, that anger they might have, and that’s what a chief is supposed to do occasionally.”

And apparently an ex-chief too, for an hour every weekday.

Rumor Hot Lines

Officials have set up three hot lines for callers to inquire about rumors surrounding the Rodney G. King civil rights trial and its aftermath.

(800) 2-GOTALK: Open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sponsored by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission.

(310) 548-7637: Staffed from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sponsored by Los Angeles Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores.