Lomax’s Outspoken Style Puts Her at Storm’s Center : Politics: Police commissioner with the blunt manner is the latest protagonist in the King beating drama.

Melanie E. Lomax was a schoolgirl in Los Angeles, barely 7 years old, when she startled her mother with a question about race relations.

“I was taking them to the store one day, and she said, ‘Mother, is it true that we were slaves for them?’ ” Almena Lomax recalled. “And I said, ‘Yes.’ And she said, ‘Well, I certainly don’t think much of that!’ The other children went through the same process of discovery, but . . . they never said anything like that about it.”

More than three decades later, Melanie Lomax--now acting president of the Board of Police Commissioners and a leading critic of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates--is still asking questions about race relations. She also is still startling people with her abrupt and, some say, often impolitic style.

“She doesn’t spend a lot of time dealing with social nuances,” said Danny Bakewell, president of the Brotherhood Crusade.

Lomax emerged as the latest protagonist in the ongoing drama over the videotaped beating of Rodney G. King after it was disclosed earlier this month that she gave city legal memos to a group seeking Gates’ removal. Lomax has criticized the chief since she was appointed to the commission in November, and some allege that she released the memos to facilitate his ouster.

Several City Council members have demanded her resignation, calling her a liar for denying in a television interview that she released the documents. Supporters have rallied to her defense, likening her to Joan of Arc, who defeated her enemy but was burned at the stake. Mayor Tom Bradley, who appointed Lomax to the civilian panel, has continued to back her.

Through it all, the 41-year-old attorney has steadfastly stood her ground, writing in a guest column last week for The Times’ Op-Ed page that she never denied releasing the documents, did nothing wrong, and intends “to see this matter through.” Her firm response has surprised neither friend nor foe.

“I wouldn’t say Melanie is stubborn,” said her mother, “but it is a hell of a thing to try to show her that she is wrong.”

Lomax, who has several school districts as clients, is no stranger to controversy.

Last year, teachers in the financially troubled Compton school district were outraged when it was disclosed that her law firm collected nearly $1 million in fees for legal services from the district over a four-year period. At the same time, Compton teachers were among the lowest paid in the county and the district faced multimillion-dollar budget deficits.

“I don’t think we begrudge anyone making a living,” teacher Patricia Ryan said last week, “but when you look at the makeup of the community and what she gets for what she does, it’s a little obscene.”

Lomax, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has said that her earnings were high because employee unions filed so many “frivolous” lawsuits.

Six years ago, Lomax created a furor within the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People when she accused five prominent black recording artists--Lionel Richie, Prince, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner and Diana Ross--of discriminating against blacks who work behind the scenes in the recording industry.

Lomax, then an official with the NAACP’s Los Angeles branch, accused the five artists of practicing “hypocritical discrimination” against black photographers, makers of videos and other professionals after the artists “crossed over” into white music markets.

The artists denied the assertions, and NAACP officials in Los Angeles and at NAACP headquarters in New York denounced Lomax’s criticism. Lomax left her post with the organization shortly afterward, said Joseph Duff, president of the NAACP’s Los Angeles branch.

“She has had a lot of courage, and she speaks her mind,” Duff said. “Many people don’t like people who are blunt. They are used to people who play a lot of games. Melanie is a blunt person. To me that is to her advantage because it makes her strong in the civil rights area.”

Michael Lomax, chairman of the Fulton County (Ga.) Board of Commissioners, said his younger sister learned along with the rest of the Lomax family that change does not result from accommodation.

“Most white people are not accustomed to dealing with black people who say what they think, don’t compromise and don’t step back,” Michael Lomax said. “Most white people prefer grinning, shuffling and accommodation. We were taught not to be that way. . . . It gets her into ‘trouble,’ but it is the way we are--without apology.”

Some critics say that Melanie Lomax’s style goes beyond assertiveness into the murky zone of arrogance and self-righteousness, making her ill-suited for a seat on the police commission during such volatile times.

As an example, they allege that she has refused to admit that she lied in denying to a KNBC television reporter that she leaked two legal opinions about the commission’s authority to place Gates on leave. The documents were given to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, one of the groups that has been critical of Gates.

The KNBC interview was broadcast in its entirety after Lomax alleged that her comments were taken out of context. A tape of the interview shows that Lomax twice denied leaking the two documents. At one point, she was asked: “Did you give those memos to the intervenors?” She replied: “No. And I think the charge that I have, I’d like to see the evidence of it.”

SCLC lawyer Pete Haviland told a Superior Court judge May 1 that Lomax gave him the documents, prompting several council members to demand Lomax’s resignation.

One of them, Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, said last week: “She is a person who can’t be trusted. That is my view of her.”

Several City Council members also raised questions last summer about remarks attributed to her in a book and in a 1985 interview in the New York Times. Some council members characterized the remarks as anti-Semitic.

In the book, “Broken Alliance--The Turbulent Times Between Blacks and Jews in America,” she was quoted as saying: “Jews see blacks as an underclass. Theirs is a patronizing, condescending attitude.”

In the New York Times article, she was quoted: “There is a strong sentiment in the black community and among black leadership that the Jewish community has too much dominance, influence and control.”

Lomax said during her confirmation hearing for an Airport Commission appointment that the remarks were inaccurate and taken out of context, and she denied she was anti-Semitic. Her appointment was unanimously approved by the council.

Accusations about Lomax’s objectivity and integrity rile her supporters, who say she is beyond reproach. Her supporters say critics have been engaged in “character assassination” in the hope of diverting public attention from problems within the Police Department.

“She is a very fair person,” said Juanita Dudley, a member of the city’s Human Relations Commission. “She makes you look at both sides of an issue. She always wants to see both sides. They are using her as a red herring.”

In her Op-Ed piece last week, Lomax accused her critics of putting her through a “million dollars worth of pressure and abuse.”

Lomax, who is unmarried and has a 2-year-old adopted daughter, comes from a well-connected family with deep roots in Los Angeles. She grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Arlington Heights and graduated from Los Angeles High School, UC Berkeley and Loyola Law School.

She learned about city politics from a neighborhood cop who would become the city’s first black mayor. Almena Lomax refers to her daughter as “one of Tom Bradley’s children” because of the great influence Bradley, a longtime family friend, has had on her life.

“Tom would come over in the summers and take my oldest children to the Y summer camp with his kids, and Melanie would somehow always muscle her way into it even though she was younger,” said Almena Lomax, a former schoolmate of Bradley’s wife, Ethel. “When he would come over, they would all line up to get thrown in the air. She doesn’t know a time in her life when she didn’t know this man.”

Melanie Lomax’s late father, Lucius Lomax III, was a criminal attorney and real estate investor who in the 1950s ran unsuccessfully for the Los Angeles City Council seat that Bradley would later win. Her mother has been a civil rights activist and journalist, publishing the defunct Los Angeles Tribune, a black newspaper, and working as a reporter at several papers, including the San Francisco Examiner.

In 1961, shortly after her parents divorced, young Melanie and her five brothers and sisters piled into her mother’s blue Lincoln for the first of several journeys through the South. There, Almena Lomax joined the civil rights movement and her children learned firsthand about segregation.

It was during those trips, Almena Lomax said, that Melanie began talking about what she wanted to accomplish in life. Above all, she hoped to become a lawyer like her father and earn a lot of money. She also wanted to follow her mother’s tradition of activism and become involved in the civil rights movement.

Today, Melanie Lomax drives a Jaguar, runs her own law firm and, records show, owns five houses with a combined value of about $2 million. Last year, her firm made $294,818 in fees from a public agency that buys insurance for local school districts.

At the same time, friends say, she has been generous with her money. She donates several thousand dollars each year for a variety of scholarships for black high school and college students, and she contributes to political campaigns and other causes.

She has helped raise more than $27,000 for various Bradley campaigns. She has been honored as a community leader by a number of black churches. Last year, she rented a bus so senior citizens in South-Central Los Angeles could attend a rally for South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela.

Almena Lomax describes her daughter as a “sleeper,” her third child who for many years endeavored in the shadow of her brothers and sisters with no one taking much notice. Today, she said, those days are over.

Profile: Melanie E. Lomax Born: April 12, 1950, in Los Angeles. Occupation: Attorney. Specializes in civil litigation, school law, municipal finance, personal injury, business and administrative law. Education: Graduated with a BA in political science from UC Berkeley in 1971, and a JD from Loyola University School of Law in 1974. Career: Served as deputy county counsel for the schools division of the Los Angeles County counsel’s office from 1974 to 1978. Entered private practice in 1978 and founded Lomax & Associates in 1984. Public Service: Served on L.A. City Official Salary Commission in 1985; L.A. County Human Relations Commission from 1987 to 1989; L.A. Board of Airport Commissioners from August to November, 1990; and L.A. Board of Police Commissioners since November, 1990. Awards: Received Black Women Lawyer’s Assn. Community Service Award in 1983, and L.A. NAACP Outstanding Service Award and L.A. Sentinel Outstanding Woman of the Year Award in 1984. Current Issue: An outspoken critic of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, she has come under fire for giving city legal memos to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group working in court for Gates’ removal. Quote: “I intend to see this matter through until it is clear that the use of excessive force and the presence of institutionalized racism in our Police Department will not be tolerated in Los Angeles.”