Part 117: A New Chief for the LAPD – Can There Be Law and Order in Los Angeles?

Published October 6, 2024.

Oct 06, 2024

Jim McDonnell and Mayor Karen Bass arrive at a news conference to introduce McDonnell as the new LAPD chief at City Hall by Ringo Chiu (Los Angeles Times).

Please support my work with your subscription, or for direct support, use Venmo, CashApp, PayPal, or Zelle using zachary.b.ellison@gmail.com

By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

The City of Los Angeles is the second most populous municipality in the United States of America beyond New York City. The County of Los Angeles is the most populous such entity in the country. Now former Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell will lead the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), just over five years after voters tossed him in favor of highly controversial former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who would be ousted by current Sheriff Robert Luna; who currently leads the Sheriff’s Department (LASD) to his predecessors chagrin. McDonnell will take the leadership post from Interim Police Chief Dominic Choi, who since the retirement of former LAPD Chief Michel Moore at the end of last February has led the $1.9 billion dollar department. LASD, although it has countywide authority, primarily police’s so-called “contract” cities in Los Angeles County that don’t have their own department, such as Beverly Hills or Pasadena.

LASD also staffs Superior Courthouses and the county’s jails, so if you’re arrested by LAPD, you’ll be transferred to the custody of the Sheriff’s Department before trial. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced the appointment in a press conference on Friday, October 5. A veteran law enforcement officer with nearly 40 years of experience, including with LAPD and the City of Long Beach, Jim McDonnell is 65 years old and will need to be confirmed by Los Angeles City Council. Since being voted out in 2018, he has worked at the University of Southern California (USC), at the Sol Price School of Public Policy, as the Director of the Safe Communities Institute (SCI). Interestingly, this is the exact think tank that Dr. Erroll Southers, the current President of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, had before being promoted by USC to the role of Associate Vice President of Safety and Risk Assurance. Southers job now includes overseeing the USC Department of Public Safety, which operates under a memorandum of understanding with LAPD.

As part of that role, Southers also led the search to hire a new Chief for the Department of Public Safety, current DPS Chief Lauretta Hill, to replace the outgoing long-term Chief John Thomas, who is now the Chief of Police at the University of California, Los Angeles. Hill previously worked in Texas and Florida and was, in fact, a late choice, with Southers having extended the search after vetting two candidates at a public forum on USC’s campus. The other two finalists for LAPD Chief were Robert Arcos and Emada Tingirides. Currently, Arcos serves as Chief of the Bureau of Investigation for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office of George Gascón, having previously served in LAPD, rising to the rank of Assistant Chief. The less experienced Emada Tingirides presently serves as an LAPD Deputy Chief, tasked with overseeing operations in the Department’s South Bureau.

The Safe Communities Institute offers executive education through certificate programs with an express mission “to advance sustainable ‘whole-of-community’ public safety strategies, policies, and programs.” The generally enthusiastic Michel Moore’s retirement came after controversies over his relationships with both former Police Commission President Rick Caruso, who failed in his attempt to defeat Mayor Bass for the top job in Los Angeles in November 2022, as well as in relation to the Church of Scientology. LAPD’s Board of Police Commissioners would find the claims regarding interference on behalf of Caruso, including in relation to USC via the Cory Palka scandal, which strangely loops back to Scientology, “unfounded” after denying the claims made by two would-be whistleblowers from Internal Affairs. For his part, Interim Chief Choi has somewhat stabilized the troubled department, although a recent agenda for the Board suggests he too has been the subject of two complaints, to be heard in closed session next Tuesday. The normally 5-person board remains short one member; the last nominee flopped under City Council questioning.

McDonnell’s selection was immediately criticized by Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. (BLMLA) in an Instagram post, writing: “Of the list of finalists, McDonnell is by far the most problematic, with a long history of anti-Black and anti-immigrant policies, which led to him being voted out as Los Angeles County Sheriff in 2016.” BLMLA regularly attends the Police Commission meetings and has vocally and regularly criticized LAPD and its police union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL). BLMLA accused Mayor Bass of having “appointed McDonnell as a political play to appeal to conservatives and stave off attacks from” the LAPPL. Mayor Bass herself was criticized by former Councilmember Mike Bonin, who wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “In a 30 minute presser announcing the new police chief, we heard a lot about the Olympics and officer morale, but not a word (or even a question) about LAPD’s corruption scandals, police violence, or alternative public safety strategies.”

The last note is probably not quite fair criticism, as McDonnell at least ostensibly studies such strategies at USC. More critically, it might be said, that the LAPD Board, in preparing their report on the search for an LAPD Chief, glossed over its critics. Sandwiched between sections based on feedback from LAPD officers and that of business interests, the report didn’t quite do justice to the human toll that the African-American community experiences from LAPD experiences. The same is true for the Latino community, and more generally for the fragile Black-Brown alliance that has been increasingly at stake again since the LA Fed Tapes and even before that over displacement and hate crimes based on race between the communities. McDonnell’s selection comes on the heels of a major operation by federal and local authorities against a white supremacist gang centered in the San Fernando Valley. Plus, LAPD has now quietly cleared Officer Toni McBride of all wrongdoing in the controversial shooting of Daniel Hernandez.

The daughter of powerful union figure Jamie McBride, the younger McBride moonlights as a social media influencer infatuated with firearms. This has famously included toting weapons in her well-publicized wedding pictures. The elder, even more controversial, McBride himself has recently been the subject of lawsuits over his private security company, which acts to re-employ officers subject to discipline. The problem is that even if the Chief of the LAPD wanted to rid himself of the McBride’s; he’d literally run into legal problems. The Los Angeles Times has extensively highlighted just how difficult it’s become to fire problem police officers with its editorial board writing last March, “The LAPD currently has about 70 personnel in limbo, pushing papers or doing other jobs that less-expensive civilian employees ought to be doing.” Recent proposed reforms advanced by City Council for approval by the voters were vetoed by Mayor Karen Bass. Leaving observers to only hope that her promised comprehensive reform will come quickly after McDonnell takes the helm; otherwise, it’s simply going to be “business as usual,” as critics of City Hall have exclaimed.

For his part, Jim McDonnell, unlike Robert Arcos, has remained apolitical. Arcos had donated $8,700 to politicians following his departure from the force, including to the likes of Kevin de León, John Lee, Adrin Nazarian, Miguel Santiago, Imelda Padilla, John Lee, Hydee Feldstein-Soto, Traci Park, Tim McOsker, Gil Cedillo, Joe Buscaino, and Monica Rodriguez, among others. All establishment figures: Nazarian faces off in CD2 versus Jillian Burgos, who has the backing of the Democratic Socialists of Los Angeles (DSA-LA), and Kevin de León is locked in against Ysabel Jurado. She has the endorsement of both the DSA-LA and the LA County Democratic Party. Continuing his pattern of literally pouring money on his opponents, “Carusoism,” as I’m calling it, McDonnell has wisely kept his distance from election politics. The LAPPL had spent millions to back the mayoral run of Caruso in November 2022, who seems most likely to again challenge Bass in the 2026 election even as his adoring fans hope for a long-shot run at the governorship.

In a political fashion, the union recently appeared to target two senior LAPD officials, whistleblower Commander Lillian Carranza, who heads Operations-Central Bureau, and herself in the talks for the top position, as well as Marc Reina, who heads the Department’s training bureau, with frivolous lawsuits and a YouTube video. Both Carranza and Reina are graduates of the USC Price SCI’s Public Safety Leadership program, with Carranza having earned a Master’s Degree in Leadership as well. Following the lawsuit’s announcement, Carranza initiated a personnel complaint against LAPPL President Craig Lally. Seemingly confident in its evidence, the LAPPL, a potent political force, may have finally overstepped in filing the lawsuit. A case management conference has been scheduled before Judge Bruce G. Iwasaki for January 31, 2025. The LAPPL had requested an investigation by Attorney General Rob Bonta into the two officers, and Bonta himself waded this week after nearly two years into the mess that is Los Angeles politics. Bonta had controversially cleared Toni McBride in the Hernandez shooting, which saw the young officer discharge two shots into a man dying on the ground.

Now California Attorney General Rob Bonta, after nearly two years since the LA Fed Tapes leak, according to a report from Los Angeles Times journalists David Zahniser and Dakota Smith, has been alleged to be pressuring the City Council to redraw the cities 15 districts because apparently two seats, CD1 held by Eunisses Hernandez and CD14 held by Kevin de León, aren’t Latino enough “to ensure that Latinos have the opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice.” This literally makes no sense and reeks of the sort of rigging that critics have accused the LAPD of having in its Board of Rights Hearings, which routinely fail to select reviewers who might be more prone to disciplining problem officers. Los Angeles Times journalist Libor Jany found in reviewing, “Data from more than 200 board of rights hearings show the same people were routinely picked to serve over and over.” Despite creating an uproar with their reporting, the Times hasn’t released Bonta’s “(Proposed) Stipulated Judgment,” unlike the Tapes themselves, which resulted in months of protest at LA City Hall over racist corruption.

In a press conference later last Friday in Los Angeles, as noted by Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano, the Filipino-American Bonta declined to comment, saying he looked “‘forward to that time’ when he could say more.” In a post with a clip from the conference, Bonta wrote, “I urge Californians to be on guard against election misinformation and to check their sources before inadvertently re-posting or spreading misinformation.” The accused leaker of the Tapes, Santos Leon, in court filings exclusively reported on in this publication has accused Attorney General Bonta’s office of framing him and his wife for the leak, with the presumed cooperation of the Los Angeles Police Department. Leon alleges that there’s been a conspiracy, and Bonta’s ham-fisted investigation suggests that the potential defendant might not be lying. Sadly, we’ve reached the point where there’s little presumption of innocence, up is down, and pigs just might be flying—another Carusosim.

For his part, the billionaire real estate developer and shopping magnate, who spent more than $100 million on his failed campaign against Bass, is now pouring money into the District Attorney's race to back Nathan Hochman against George Gascón to the tune of $1.1 million in independent expenditures. “I’m leaning in to elect Nathan Hochman for DA because this election will define the future of safety in Los Angeles,” Caruso wrote in his post on X. The powerful political figure didn’t comment on the McDonnell appointment, having just celebrated his wedding anniversary. For her part, Emada Tingirides, who’s an African-American female and is married to retired LAPD Deputy Chief Phil Tingirides, wrote on X about the appointment of McDonnell, “I am confident that he is the right person at the right time to lead our Department and serve our communities.” McDonnell will be the 59th person to lead the LAPD. All prior chiefs have all been male, going back to 1876. The felony arrests they make are referred to the DA’s office for prosecution, with misdemeanors going to the City Attorney’s office. The case against accused LA Fed Tapes leakers Santos Leon and Karla Vasquez remains “under review’ for misdemeanor prosecution with City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto.

LAPPL wrote in the press release issued by Mayor Karen Bass: “We pledge our support to Mayor Bass and Chief McDonnell to improve our department, and now it's time to get to work.” The selection was similarly met with acclaim from political, business, and religious leaders. McDonnell had been passed over for the post twice previously and now assuredly has his plate full with reforming the LAPD and tackling crime in the city, which depending on who you ask is either up or down. This is true most especially in the DA’s race, which in pitting Hochman against Gascón has become a melodrama, with the Los Angeles Times endorsement describing the dynamic as follows: “Pushback was immediate and intense, first from prosecutors and police officers who felt threatened by the new approach, and soon after by political opportunists nationwide who used Gascón as a caricature of a criminal-coddling D.A. to stoke fears of crime and disorder.” Hochman appears poised to defeat Gascón according to polling.

Addressing crime in Los Angeles couldn’t be more complicated and fraught as belief in law and order has eroded from the streets to the boardroom. The efficient cooperation of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies is critical to ensuring that money isn’t simply thrown at the problem as the city approaches dire financial straits. McDonnell won’t have much money to play with, and the LAPD is often criticized as the most expensive city department that truly needs to earn the trust of the public as well as its overtime dollars. Can McDonnell turn the ship around at LAPD, unlike LASD? Time will tell, but there’s one voice that was missing: the now maligned Alex Villanueva, perhaps the most hilarious example of Carusoism around town, who in defeating McDonnell for Sheriff successfully hoodwinked even the County Democratic Party.

The technocratic McDonnell, who had actually sought to professionalize the Sheriff’s Department, which has struggled to reform itself into a modern police agency, now casts a fatherly figure over Los Angeles. I for one hope that he can walk the tightrope and avoid what Villanueva comedically warns is “public corruption and media collusion.” If social media and politics have taught us anything in this country since the 2020 protests over George Floyd, it’s that law enforcement doesn’t need to just be modernized or professionalized; it needs to be more cost-efficient.

To the chagrin of opponents, Mayor Karen Bass and City Council haven’t reduced the size of what many contend is already a lean department, even as Controller Kenneth Mejia audits their helicopter usage. In short, the more LAPD screws up, the more expensive it gets, as lawsuits create enormous liability. To limit the liability, McDonnell needs to get to work reforming LAPD and the herculean task of repairing community relations that have frayed underneath his predecessors, if they were ever that great to begin with in the behemoth that is divided Los Angeles.

Link: L.A. mayor selects longtime lawman Jim McDonnell as city’s next police chief

Link: USC Price Safe Communities Institute

Link: Detectives claim LAPD chief sought investigation of Mayor Bass over USC scholarship

Link: Scientology tried to ‘derail’ star’s rape trial by harassing prosecutor, suit says; church calls claim ‘false’

Link: Board of Police Commissioners Agenda, October 8, 2024

Link: Black Lives Matter Los Angeles Instagram Post RE: Jim McDonnell

Link: Mike Bonin Post on Twitter RE: Jim McDonnell

Link: Chief of Police: Community Engagement Report

Link: Sixty-Eight Defendants Charged in Indictment of Dozens of Members and Associates of California White Supremacist Gang

Link: Reversal clears LAPD officer faulted for firing two extra bullets in fatal 2020 shooting

Link: Lexis-Olivier Ray Twitter Posts RE: Toni McBride Wedding

Link: LAPD union leader faces complaints that his security company hires and underpays problem cops