Behind the Bastards

Part One: Daryl Gates: The Man Who Invented SWAT Teams and DARE

October 21, 2025

Key Takeaways Copied to clipboard!

  • Daryl Gates is presented as the single most important figure in the militarization of U.S. law enforcement, credited with co-creating SWAT teams and inventing the DARE program. 
  • Gates' early life during the Great Depression was marked by poverty, parental alcoholism (mirroring his later mentor, William Parker), and shame over receiving government assistance, which seemingly informed a reactionary conservative worldview. 
  • Gates' initial view of the police as a 'plague on society' dramatically reversed after joining the LAPD, largely due to his mentorship under Chief William H. Parker, despite witnessing Parker's severe alcoholism and his colleagues' disturbing behavior, such as joking about filing false child rape reports. 
  • In 1965, Daryl Gates was promoted to Inspector overseeing the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, positioning him directly over the area just before the impending civil unrest. 
  • Daryl Gates was the commanding figure responsible for the LAPD's response during both the 1965 Watts riots and the 1992 Rodney King riots. 
  • The discussion in this segment of "Behind the Bastards: Part One: Daryl Gates: The Man Who Invented SWAT Teams and DARE" foreshadows the catastrophic consequences of the LAPD's militarized posture under Chief Parker in the impoverished, majority-Black neighborhood of Watts. 

Segments

Introduction and Guest Plug
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(00:00:05)
  • Key Takeaway: Host Robert Evans is recording the episode from Portland, Oregon, joined by guest Bridget Todd from Washington D.C.
  • Summary: The podcast, Behind the Bastards, opens with the host describing Portland as a ‘burning hellscape.’ Guest Bridget Todd joins from Washington D.C., also describing her location as a ‘bombed-out Hellscape city.’ Todd plugs her own podcasts, ‘There Is No Girls on the Internet’ and ‘It Could Happen Here.’
Introducing Daryl Gates’ Legacy
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(00:03:06)
  • Key Takeaway: Daryl Gates is identified as the single most important figure in the militarization of U.S. law enforcement, responsible for creating SWAT teams and the DARE program.
  • Summary: Daryl Gates was the LAPD chief primarily through the late 1970s and 1980s until 1992. His legacy includes co-creating and naming the first SWAT team. He also invented the DARE program and significantly influenced the militarization of normal city police departments.
DARE Program Criticism
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(00:03:56)
  • Key Takeaway: The DARE program involved police officers singing and telling lies about drug busts, including instructing children to report drug use by their parents to the police.
  • Summary: The guest expresses lasting resentment over the time wasted in K-12 education watching police sing about drugs. A specific memory shared involved a DARE officer telling students to report finding drugs in their parents’ drawers to the cops. This highlights the program’s focus on snitching over genuine education.
Gates’ Early Life and Trauma
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(00:08:32)
  • Key Takeaway: Gates’ childhood was defined by a sudden drop in family fortune during the Great Depression, leading to his father becoming an alcoholic and abusive, and his mother being forced to work.
  • Summary: Daryl Francis Gates was born in 1926 in Glendale, California, and his family experienced significant financial decline around 1930. This trauma included his father’s alcoholism and abandonment, forcing his mother into long hours as a non-union laborer. Gates spent his early years essentially raising himself while stewing in anger.
Shame Over Poverty and Social Programs
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(00:13:52)
  • Key Takeaway: Gates felt intense shame over receiving government aid during the Depression, a common experience among future conservatives who later oppose social programs they once relied upon.
  • Summary: Gates recalled feeling embarrassed collecting government handouts like potatoes and cabbage in a gunnysack weekly. He also felt uncomfortable receiving Christmas baskets from the school. This experience mirrors the ladder-pulling mentality seen in figures like J.D. Vance, where personal shame over needing aid leads to opposing it for others.
Early Negative View of Police
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(00:18:46)
  • Key Takeaway: Gates developed a deep-seated hatred for the police as a child because they repeatedly raided his home to arrest his alcoholic father for moonshining and public intoxication.
  • Summary: Daryl’s father brewed beer in the bathtub, leading to frequent run-ins with the Glendale PD. One searing memory involved police violently entering the home while his father fled out the back door. Gates came to view law enforcement as ‘just a plague on society’ due to these traumatic childhood encounters.
Kidney Illness and Parental Neglect
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(00:21:15)
  • Key Takeaway: Gates suffered a severe, undiagnosed kidney condition that his drunk father dismissed, forcing him to lie alone in bed for three months while recovering, intensifying his feelings of abandonment.
  • Summary: When Gates woke up deathly ill with a swollen face, his drunk father told him to sleep it off, ignoring the severity of the illness. His mother eventually intervened, leading to a diagnosis of acute kidney condition requiring three months of solitary recovery. This period of isolation fueled his anger.
Adolescent Violence and Police Encounters
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(00:31:00)
  • Key Takeaway: Despite his negative childhood experiences with police harassment, Gates became increasingly violent as a teen boxer and was arrested for assaulting an officer, yet the charges were dropped due to his brother’s community work.
  • Summary: Gates regularly fought perceived bullies in high school and was frequently pulled over by police for minor infractions in his car. He punched an officer after the cop shoved his brother during a citation dispute, but the assault charges were dropped after his brother intervened and insisted Gates apologize.
Joining the LAPD for Money
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(00:34:28)
  • Key Takeaway: Gates initially reacted with fury to the suggestion of becoming a police officer, only applying when he learned the LAPD offered a good salary ($290/month) to support his pregnant fiancée, despite lying about his prior arrest.
  • Summary: A friend suggested Gates join the LAPD for the good pay and the ability to continue studying law concurrently. Gates initially refused, calling cops ‘dumb,’ but accepted the job for financial necessity. He scored highly on the civil service exam but was angered that eight others scored better.
Mentorship Under Chief Parker
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(00:39:09)
  • Key Takeaway: Gates became the personal chauffeur and bodyguard for new LAPD Chief William H. Parker, gaining rapid influence and a ’tutorial on how to be chief’ from the hard-drinking leader.
  • Summary: Serving as Parker’s driver gave Gates unparalleled access to the chief’s thinking during a revolutionary period for the LAPD. Gates noted that Parker was a raging alcoholic, similar to his own father, often requiring Gates to help him home while drunk. This close relationship guaranteed Gates’ rapid promotion within the department.
LAPD Militarization Under Parker
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(00:45:32)
  • Key Takeaway: Chief Parker transformed the LAPD into an aggressive, intimidating, and confrontational paramilitary force designed to police through fear, especially targeting new minority arrivals like African Americans and Latinos.
  • Summary: Parker’s tenure professionalized the LAPD but also made it confrontational, moving away from an era where local criminals could easily bribe officers. This shift established the hyper-militarized policing style that Gates would later champion.
Colleagues’ Disturbing Joke
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(00:53:51)
  • Key Takeaway: While on juvenile patrol, Gates’ colleagues played a ‘joke’ by filing a fake rape report against him, which he recounted with alarming casualness after pausing to genuinely try and remember if he had committed the crime.
  • Summary: Detectives presented Gates with a fake crime report stating he was the suspect in a rape case involving a 16-year-old girl he had been advising. Gates’ immediate reaction was to check the time and date to recall his activities, suggesting that such an act was not entirely outside the realm of possibility in his mind.
Promotion and Watts Oversight
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(00:56:03)
  • Key Takeaway: None
  • Summary: Gates achieved the rank of Inspector by 1965, crediting both hard studying and favoritism from Chief Parker. His new role involved overseeing patrol officers in the impoverished, majority-Black neighborhood of Watts. This sets the stage for his involvement when the Watts riots broke out shortly thereafter.
Gates’ Rapid Promotion to Inspector
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(00:56:36)
  • Key Takeaway: By the spring of 1965, Daryl Gates achieved the rank of Inspector, securing a position that guaranteed future promotions.
  • Summary: Daryl Gates quickly advanced through the ranks, achieving the rank of Inspector by the spring of 1965. This rank provided him with oversight responsibilities. This promotion ensured he would not be turned down for future advancement opportunities.
Gates Oversees Watts in 1965
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(00:56:52)
  • Key Takeaway: Daryl Gates was made the inspector overseeing all patrol officers in Watts in 1965, just before the area’s civil unrest.
  • Summary: In 1965, Gates was assigned oversight of all patrol officers in the impoverished, majority-Black neighborhood of Watts. This occurred as residents were becoming increasingly organized and angry over systemic issues. This appointment set the stage for the LAPD’s aggressive posture to result in conflict.
Gates’ Role in Major Riots
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(00:57:34)
  • Key Takeaway: Daryl Gates was in charge of the LAPD during both the Watts riots (as the responding group leader) and the 1992 Rodney King riots.
  • Summary: Parker was in charge of the direct response group during the Watts riots, while Daryl Gates ran the entire LAPD during the 1992 Rodney King riots. The hosts express shock that the same individual was central to both major Los Angeles civil disturbances. This highlights Gates’ long tenure and influence over the LAPD during critical periods of unrest.
Podcast and Book Plugs
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(00:58:13)
  • Key Takeaway: The next episode of “Behind the Bastards: Part One: Daryl Gates: The Man Who Invented SWAT Teams and DARE” will feature material from Mike Davis’s book, City of Quartz.
  • Summary: Bridget Todd plugs her podcast, There Are No Girls on the Internet, and Jay Canrahan’s Sad Oligarch. Listeners are directed to read City of Quartz by Mike Davis for further context on Daryl Gates and Los Angeles, as it will be quoted in the subsequent episode.