LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department has arrested Lowell Gates, the 48-year-old son of former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, on drug charges.
Spokesman Scott Gage said Gates was taken into custody Sunday by sheriff's deputies in Lakewood, and was being held on suspicion of felony possession of a controlled substance and two misdemeanor charges -- suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.
His father, who headed the Los Angeles Police Department at the time of the police beating of Rodney King as well as the riots that followed the initial exoneration of the officers charged, did not return phone calls from the Los Angeles Times late Sunday.
In his book "Chief: My Life in the LAPD," Daryl Gates wrote his son was high on heroin while attending his 1978 swearing-in as chief. That year, Lowell Gates was arrested on suspicion of possessing narcotics and ordered into a drug diversion program. The next year, he was fined $275 and served 48 hours in jail after being arrested for drunk driving and public intoxication.
