Thousands law enforcement officers from across the region gathered in downtown LA to pay final respects Tuesday to former Los Angeles police Chief Daryl Gates.
The funeral will be at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Gates' casket was escorted from police headquarters to the cathedral a few blocks away, and a private funeral was conducted at 9 a.m.
The funeral music included Frank Sinatra's "My Way."
"Daryl was the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Los Angeles Police Department was Daryl," said LAPD Chief Charlie Beck.
He said that Gates was highly esteemed by officers because "he respected the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department. He loved them unconditionally and we loved him back the same way."
Services began after gates' family and dignitaries escorted a hearse, bearing a flag-draped casket, from police headquarters up Bunker Hill to the cathedral. A pair of Los Angeles Fire Department ladders were extended upward from both sides of Temple Street in tribute, outside the modern cathedral.
Following the funeral, an honors ceremony will be in the cathedral plaza. That ceremony will be open to the public.
Gates, who was chief from 1978 to 1992, died April 16 at his Dana Point home at age 83 from cancer.
Gates' Career
Beck referred to Gates as "one in a million."
"He inspired others to succeed and, in doing so, changed the landscape of law enforcement around the world," Beck said.
Gates was popular among rank-and-file officers for most of his 14- year tenure as chief, 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.
Gates, personable and outspoken, was credited with taking the reins of a corrupt department and professionalizing it. He started the first police SWAT team and the widely adopted anti-drug program DARE.
Gates became a lightning rod for racial politics in his latter years as chief.
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.
Gates' career intersected some of the most headline-grabbing events in city history, including the Marilyn Monroe death investigation in 1962, the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in 1968 and the riots of 1965 and 1992.
Under pressure from the mayor and City Council, Gates resigned June 28, 1992. The LA Times article noted that his retirement came after "the hemming and hawing, the sparring with those 'crummy little politicians' and the shadowboxing with reporters."
Gates' Bio
Gates was born Aug. 30, 1926. He grew up in Glendale and Highland Park in Los Angeles. After graduating from high school, he joined the U.S. Navy for a two-year tour and later earned degrees from USC.
He joined the police department on Sept. 16, 1949 and eventually became a driver for then-Chief William Parker -- a relationship that helped him move up through the ranks and eventually land the department's top job in 1978.
Gates had been battling prostate cancer that spread to his bladder, and he spent much of the last few months in and out of a hospital.
"It was a courageous fight on his part and it was a courageous fight by all the family members that stood by him," said his brother, Steven Gates. "Also for those that knew him, knew him to be a very decent and kind man, a caring man."
