Part 145: The Deputy Mayor and Deception – A Bomb Threat Rocks Los Angeles

Published December 20, 2024.

Dec 21, 2024

A man walks through the historic Arcade Building on Broadway Street in downtown Los Angeles at night with holiday decorations by author (GoPro Hero 11 Black).

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

The allegations were explosive. Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Brian Williams, a longtime public servant, had his Pasadena home raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on suspicion of making a false report, and not just any, a bomb threat. I’ll be the first to admit that the call supposedly made against Los Angeles City Hall sounded kind of funny and that it drew such a reaction online. Having recently attended the public comment portion of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, which ironically meets on the 10th floor of a white-painted 1928 building, it’s kind of like being in another world. As noted by the highly capable Los Angeles Times journalist Libor Jany in his December 20 report, "LAPD investigates scores of bomb threats a year. Was one sent by the deputy mayor?” The supposed call was made “sometime in the first week of October.” Surprise? The case was initially investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department’s “Major Crime Division’s Criminal Conspiracy Section” before at some point being turned over to the FBI. As part of this preliminary probe, “surveillance” was conducted. What type wasn’t immediately clear.

The source for that information provided to the Los Angeles Times in their initial reporting by Jany, Richard Winton, and David Zahniser is “anonymous,” in order to protect it. Williams is maintaining his innocence. So what’s the deal? Williams hasn’t been arrested or charged, and it was unknown who authorized the FBI to raid his home, much less what was found. As a matter of policy, the FBI doesn’t comment on investigations; William’s attorney, Dmitry Gorin, stated that he was “cooperating.” Nevertheless, the headlines percolated, and people jumped to certain conclusions. Los Angeles City Hall is a frustrating place, to be certain, but that doesn’t mean that an otherwise bright and upcoming civic leader must have committed a crime. The crazy part here for sure is that evidently the FBI didn’t attempt to at least ask Williams questions before raiding his home. Wouldn’t that be prudent? Williams has been placed on administrative leave pending further investigation by authorities.

Having spent more than two years asking questions about incidents in Los Angeles and even being targeted by a pernicious swatting campaign myself while investigating swatting, things just keep getting murkier. Sometimes there’s a relationship, and then other times the event is isolated, but the timing here is suspicious. Williams is being represented by attorney Dmitry Gorin of the firm Eisner Gorin LLP, a criminal defense firm, with Gorin himself having more than a decade of service in the LA District Attorney’s office. As noted in press reports, William could be seen recently speaking at the swearing-in of new District Attorney Nathan Hochman. I didn’t make much of his short bit reading a message from Mayor Karen Bass, nor is it clear when new LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell may have been alerted to the investigation having taken office only in November. The FBI in Los Angeles has been led by Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis since last May, following the retirement of Donald Alway, perceived to be an improvement.

The Office of Mayor Karen Bass appears to have been blindsided by the news, stating only that they were “notified” of the search. The Mayor’s spokesman, Zach Seidel, issued a statement saying, "The Mayor takes this matter very seriously.” LAPD reportedly said that Williams was the “likely” source of the call, which frankly isn’t a high degree of certitude. So for months were the LAPD and FBI investigating a top official in the Mayor’s office without telling her? That’s bizarre, even if consistent with law enforcement investigative protocols, and the timing is highly suspicious given that Los Angeles is starting to look towards the 2026 elections, including a potential showdown between Mayor Bass and Rick Caruso again. Williams was involved in the search for a new LAPD Chief, which resulted in McDonnell being hired. Los Angeles Times journalist Jany’s November 27 report on the search for a new Chief along with noting that Bass had hired a Chief who had supported her prior political opponent, began by noting: “Some candidates for Los Angeles police chief campaigned openly for the job, enlisting influential friends to put in a good word with the mayor.” Was Williams a conduit in this campaign?

Williams by trade is a lawyer, having served as President & CEO of Junior Achievement of Southern California and Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Civilian Oversight Commission. He received his B.A. and J.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles. In announcing his appointment as Deputy Mayor a year ago on LinkedIn, the President of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, Dr. Erroll Southers, wrote back, “Congratulations, my brother. Thank you for your service. I am looking forward to working with you.” It’s unclear if Southers, himself an FBI veteran, was aware of the investigation. William’s law firm is based in Pasadena, and he was first admitted to the State Bar in 1989. His firm practices both civil and criminal law, and Williams served in the City Attorney’s Office previously as well, handling high-profile cases. So in short, he’s the last person in Los Angeles you would suspect would make a bomb threat against City Hall, and also he’s got a lot of potential enemies out there.

Here’s LAPD’s full statement on the matter (including extra spaces):

Earlier this year the LAPD responded to a bomb threat made against Los Angeles City Hall. Our initial investigation revealed that the source of the threat was likely from Brian Williams, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety. Due to the Department’s working relationship with Mr. Williams, the investigation was referred to the FBI. The FBI remains the investigating agency.

The digital space has become incredibly advanced. For one, spoofing of phone numbers is commonplace. Secondly, artificial intelligence has become available that can falsify someone’s voice with a high level of forensic viability. So in short, this can look and feel like Brian Williams, Deputy Mayor, and not be. So long as audio is available, it can be processed with software to be almost lifelike. So-called “voice cloning” here is a real possibility. Some of the best voice-cloning applications include ElevenLabs, Speechify, WellSaid, Respeecher, Altered, and Murph, according to a May 2024 article by Miguel Rebelo writing in a blog post for the software company Zapier. Moreover, covering your tracks in electronic crimes has never been easier; as noted by Times journalist Libor Jany in his follow-up coverage, “With the growth of privacy-focused technology and social media, identifying the source of the threat can be difficult.” The government has yet to restrict these applications outside of efforts in regards to elections. Nor is it clear that even if regulated, we’d be able to put the cat back into the bag.

In California, making a false emergency report is a wobbler offense that can be prosecuted as a misdemeanor or felony under Penal Code Section 148.3 depending on whether “who knows or should know that the response to the report is likely to cause death or great bodily injury, and great bodily injury or death is sustained by any person as a result of the false report.” In this case, no one is injured, so at best Williams is guilty of a misdemeanor or felony. Additionally, bomb threats are sadly becoming more commonplace, with LAPD reporting 144 callouts in the last 5 years where devices were found and 34 in 2023, according to Jany’s reporting. In this case, there’s no report that any corresponding device was located by LAPD. Already, there’s been one public demonstration outside the 77th Division Street Station, which is in South Los Angeles, as others have suggested that the case is somehow related to the separate legal matters of Curren Price and Mark Ridley-Thomas. This one, though, is far more speculative than those, which involve pattern corruption cases brought by the District Attorney’s Office and U.S. Attorney’s Office. So not the same thing, but could this be political still, perhaps?

The Pasadena Police Department didn’t respond to a request for comment on if the LAPD or the FBI had notified them they planned to execute a search warrant within their jurisdiction. The authorities maintain they have to respond to all calls, but there are also guidelines out there for how a dispatcher can detect potential swatting cases. Given other high-profile cases, this should be a topic of increasing concern, and for example, I’ve placed a California Public Records Act request for information on how LAPD has responded to this issue. Responsive records won’t be provided until February 27, 2025. Hopefully we’ll have some answers about what’s really going on here before then. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security publishes a manual on swatting calls and hoax threats, which notes that “swatting calls and hoax threats are a daily occurrence, often come in clusters across the U.S., and are typically made to harass, intimidate, and/or retaliate against their intended target.” So much fun! It further notes that public agencies should “have a plan for sharing information with your local Fusion Center, the local FBI Field Office, and community-based security focused organizations for national awareness.”

What’s a Fusion Center, you might ask? According to DHS, they exist to “serve as focal points in states and major urban areas for the receipt, analysis, gathering and sharing of threat-related information between State, Local, Tribal and Territorial (SLTT), federal and private sector partners.” Sounds nice, right, but this is Los Angeles, and without knowing what if any additional evidence was seized from Brian Williams residence, it’s hard to know just how far up the chain of command this went for approval. Experiencing swatting calls and hoax threats is in fact quite terrifying, and so the most suspicious thing is when someone doesn’t seem terrified by its occurrance. Detectives would do well to probe, in particular, any cases that Williams previously prosecuted that involved such acts. In this country, people are still innocent until proven guilty. What’s alarming here is the ability to generate negative headlines upfront without clear proof.

States such as Georgia and Iowa have recently increased penalties for being found guilty of such offenses, making them felony, and in George requiring restitution. Interstate calls are prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which recently prosecuted an 18-year-old from Lancaster with a plea agreement “to four counts of making interstate threats to injure the person of another” after making 375 calls in Florida and other states. The man will be sentenced on February 11, 2025, and faces up to 5 years of prison time for each count. Other high-profile cases recently have involved international actors. The last time California increased penalties for fake calls was in 2013, with the effort being led by now Congressman Ted Lieu and former State Senator Mike Gatto. Even with misdemeanor activity alone, prosecutors have the option to escalate the matter to felonious conduct in certain situations, such as gang activity or witness intimidation. Should fake calls that target public officials or law enforcement officers be further escalated? Repeated activities in certain situations can even be met with terrorism charges.

Whether this is what happened to Deputy Mayor Brian Williams remains unknown, but he should have his day in court before jumping to any conclusions given the high probability that he’s innocent. Whatever the authorities have, it better be good, because otherwise we’re just losing a battle to bad actors. Sadly, a phone these days can be as dangerous as a gun, and if the authorities jumped the gun in this situation, there ought to be a concerted effort to make things right given the optics. Anything less is a modern-day disservice and part of the environment of manipulation that’s winning out in this country. I got scolded in the Ethics Commission for talking to loudly with gadlfly Wayne Spindler as Rob Quan of UnrigLA called in. The President of the Ethics Commission confused him with Eric Preven of Citywatch to Quan’s chagrin, and it was just another day in LA. My favorite thing about those meetings is that essentially everyone on the agenda has already been found guilty, even if the fines levied are so often a proverbial slap on the wrist. The weather was strangely sunny, and life went on for all.

There was a new Ethics Commissioner, as I pointed the camera of my iPhone 15 Pro in the hallway after she had to recuse from discussion of the minutes I suggested she investigate a certain former LAPD officer. She blanched, declining to comment. If the most scandalous thing in LA is another Black public official getting caught by the media, then we have a real problem, because there’s real corruption in LA and not just bomb threats. The mysteries that preoccupy our imaginations can’t be just the stories put in front of us, but the unanswered and unexposed questions. That’s why good investigative journalism digs deeper and hits harder in the end. Could Brian Williams, Deputy Mayor, have made a bomb threat? Maybe, but probably not. So we got to the end of the week, and all public meetings in the city have gone “dark” in 2024.

Link: LAPD investigates scores of bomb threats a year. Was one sent by the deputy mayor?

Link: FBI agents search home of L.A. deputy mayor over City Hall bomb threat

Link: Eisner Gorin LLP

Link: Mayor Karen Bass Swears in Chief Jim McDonnell as the 59th Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department

Link: Akil Davis Named Assistant Director in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Office

Link: FBI raids home of LA deputy mayor who allegedly made bomb threat against City Hall

Link: Inside the LAPD chief search: Secretive meetings, surprise names, leaked details

Link: The 6 best AI voice generators in 2024

Link: California Penal Code 148.3

Link: Department of Homeland Security Swatting Calls & Hoax Threats

Link: Department of Homeland Security Fusion Centers

Link: New Georgia law that makes swatting calls a felony takes effect