Part 174: Losing the LAPD Lottery – Law Enforcement Culture and Leadership Change

Published May 29, 2025. Updated May 30, 2025.

May 30, 2025

Photo of former California Attorney General Kamala Harris in 2015 announcing a plan on biased policing with then Sheriff Jim McDonnell (Barbara Davidson/L.A. Times).

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

The Los Angeles Times headline was truly head-spinning: “Officers are winning massive payouts in ‘LAPD lottery’ lawsuits.” The May 14 story by journalist Libor Jany reported the ongoing rotary of payouts of “at least $68.5 million over the last five years to resolve lawsuits filed by officers who claimed to be victims of sexual harassment, racial discrimination or retaliation against whistleblowers.” The nation’s third-largest police department, and perhaps the most well televised, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), has struggled with both changing its culture and with leadership’s response. New Chief Jim McDonnell is now more than six months into service, having assumed office on November 8, 2024. McDonnell succeeded Interim Chief Dominic Choi and former Chief Michel Moore in pursuing an organizational revamp of the law enforcement agency with a study by the RAND Corporation.

The chief alone isn’t responsible for the LAPD, with the Board of Police Commissioners having ultimate oversight in a governmental ecosystem that includes the City Council, City Attorney, and Mayor’s Office. All of which raises legal questions of why the City of Los Angeles appealed the $4 million verdict in favor of Commander Lillian Carranza, costing the City of Los Angeles an additional $2 million in a losing effort on a clear-cut case. The City Attorney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on if they would further appeal the ruling. Nor did the Los Angeles Police Department reply to a request regarding McDonnell’s remark, as told by Jany, that he viewed some officers as seeking to “weaponize” the department’s disciplinary system. McDonnell, caught in the vortex of a budget crisis and natural disaster, alone can’t fix what ails the shrinking department, nor is he the cause.

First reported in the legal publication Daily Journal, the Carranza case highlights a broken Internal Affairs system that was unable or unwilling to reveal the source of a digitally created image meant to look like Carranza that was leaked with clear intent to harm her personally. The Journal headlined the case as one of misidentification, but in reality there was no confusion. Carranza was already known in the troubled department for whistleblowing against the falsification of crime statistics, nor was it the first time that she’d been targeted in this way, with the prior attempt to harass her involving an offensive recorded remark. The Appellate Court ruling in B327196 by Associate Justice Natalie P. Stone was precedent-setting in case law, concretizing a change made in 2019 that a single incident of harassment could be sufficiently severe as to constitute a violation of law under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).

All of which raises the question, why did the City of Los Angeles decide to defend the indefensible? Furthermore, at least one officer refused to provide his personal cellphone to LAPD Internal Affairs investigators in relation to the inappropriate image, and yet there are no indicators that anyone was disciplined in relation to the harassment of Commander Carranza. Nor was the source of the image identified. LAPD, as a matter of policy, doesn’t comment on Internal Affairs investigations, outside of exceptional circumstances. The ruling attests that this failure to secure evidence was directly related to LAPD’s probe into the source of the image in November 2018 when distributed. After the incident, Carranza had to be hospitalized on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2018, due to the stress induced by the severe harassment.

Prior reporting in the Los Angeles Times from journalist Richard Winton states that LAPD’s internal investigation determined that “the photograph had been distributed” at “four different locations at different times” and “was portrayed to various officers as an image of Carranza.” Former Chief Michel Moore refused Carranza’s direct request to have a message sent department-wide condemning the image in a “video roll call,” claiming that it would be a move to “appease” her and result only in further dissemination. Inexplicably, LAPD failed to inform “Carranza of Moore’s decision or his reasoning” despite having discussed it with her. The fact that this has gone on now for more than six years to reach a point of legal resolution is troubling. The harm is to more than just Commander Carranza but rather to a department that has failed to effectively change its culture. Most importantly, it’s not Carranza alone who has faced trouble.

The case of Captain Silvia Sanchez raises renewed concerns that LAPD has widespread discrimination, harassment, and retaliation issues in a new lawsuit that follows troubling allegations about the use of force against a 16-year-old girl in March 2022. Sanchez alleges that she was compared to a “yapping Chihuahua” by her superiors for speaking out and reporting against gender discrimination and other misconduct by male officers.

Sanchez isn’t alone either, as Libor Jany’s story about the “LAPD lottery” shows this is a broken culture that has yet to be checked effectively. It’s also hardly the only scandal to rock the department this year after recordings emerged highlighting racist and sexist recruiting practices. At the time, Mayor Karen Bass called the recordings “especially outrageous and unacceptable.” McDonnell clearly has to do more to put changing LAPD’s culture at the top of his agenda and follow through on it.

RAND Corporation study or not, LAPD’s recruiting and budgetary woes won’t be resolved by more lawsuits and more scandals. To root out the corruption that festers in LAPD’s ranks, first up on the chopping block should be LAPD’s Internal Affairs Division (IAD, formerly the Office of Internal Affairs, or OIA), charged with upholding order in the 8,832-member police force. New Inspector General Matthew Barragan, a former U.S. Attorney, was a promising choice to lead the Office of Inspector General (OIG), but it’s not clear that the change in OIG is being replicated in formerly led by Assistant Commanding Officer Lonya Childs-Graves and Captain Divyesh “John” Shah, both of whom have recently departed the unit.

Shah faced questions about his conduct from two of his own IAD detectives over alleged interference that LAPD leadership took the rare step to publicly deny after investigation. The critical unit is now led by Captain Ruthann Chavez and Captain David Hwang. Shah has been promoted to Commander, Operations Valley-Bureau. It’s not clear what it would take to conduct a thorough review of the LAPD’s handling of complaints, but it’s a critically necessary transparency step to regain the public trust even ahead of a broader reform of the disciplinary process. Whether done privately or under the legal auspices of an organization like the U.S. Department of Justice, there are most assuredly things that are being rugswept in LAPD. Former Director of the Office of Constitutional Policing and Policy Lizabeth Rhodes was ousted by McDonnell and is on leave until June pending departure.

LAPD also has a consultant, Arif Alikhan, who was also her predecessor, suggest a return to the past rather than the future. Alikhan was hired at a cost of $240,000 over 6 months and also serves as President and Chief Counsel for TacLogix Inc., a private consulting firm. Former Chief Charlie Beck is listed as a Senior Advisor and Consultant by the Irvine-based firm. Former Chief Michel Moore has also seemingly associated with the organization, which contracts with local law enforcement agencies as well as with federal agencies, other cities, and international entities.

Alikhan, like Rhodes, is a former federal prosecutor and federal official. TacLogix Inc. promises to match technology with policing. His contract was approved by the Los Angeles City Council as a gift from the Los Angeles Police Foundation on May 31, 2024, with extendability for up to 1 year as Council File 24-0593. Alikhan’s gifting to LAPD was met with opposition from both Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martinez, and presumably any further extension would again require such approval.

A seasoned official, Alikhan told Times journalist Libor Jany about the city’s litigation problem, that part of the problem with good order in the department was that when there was trouble, “Then it kind of bubbles up and becomes a bigger issue and then you have multiple people suing.” It’s not clear what other impact this consultancy has had on LAPD’s approach to its internal culture and the perennial legal liability it creates. A spokesperson for the LAPD’s Board of Police Commissioners referred questions about the scope of his work to the LAPD Media Relations Division.

The Los Angeles Police Department is losing the proverbial lottery, and the classic business solution is to pursue a deliberate strategy of culture change. To be fair, no business is perfect in this regard, but the cost of inaction here is clearly higher than the final amount, seemingly $480,000, needed for another consultant to simply study this issue. Spending to more effectively directly change the culture of the LAPD can only help recruiting, which the department has notably struggled with in ensuring that the department is reflective of the communities that it serves. This too will take money, but ultimately, if done right, it could ultimately be a money saver, and that’s important in a city that’s struggling with a mammoth budgetary crisis. For starters, LAPD Command needs to re-establish its clear authority with its troubled union.

In rejecting a tentative reform proposal backed by City Councilmember Tim McOsker, Mayor Bass promised further study to reform the disciplinary system. Almost a year has passed since that time, and yet the mayor, who visited every single station in search of a new chief, has seemingly taken her foot off the pedal on reforming the LAPD. While the mayor was touring the department, perhaps she could have taken note of what an embarrassment the LAPD’s station lobbies generally are, from my experience.

LAPD’s morale and culture problems clearly aren’t a product of underfunding alone, with policing being an extremely well compensated profession. No business would tolerate LAPD’s current challenges without taking decisive action to right the ship. In appointing McDonnell last October, Mayor Bass described him as “a leader, an innovator, and a change maker.” McOsker is a former attorney for the force’s union.

Why has the effort to reform the LAPD seemingly stalled? Reports are good, but action on reports in a collective fashion is what it takes to remodel an organization the scale of the LAPD with all its challenges. The Police Commission has a role here clearly as well. Led since 2023 by USC executive Erroll Southers along with attorney Rasha Gerges Shields, top leadership must become more concerted in its deliberations and more rapid in its actions to keep pace. Absent such an accelerated reform effort, the most likely outcome is a slew of continuing failures as a department that’s waiting on a conclusive plan sputters away from opportunity.

Getting to the bottom of who targeted then-Captain Lillian Carranza in 2018 would be a big step toward the sort of accountability needed to restore trust in LAPD. There is clear authority to reopen the investigation should Chief McDonnell so decide and to take action against those responsible for the offensive act. Doing so would set a positive example for the department. Rather than seeking to further legally challenge Carranza for defending herself, the city could have and should have pursued greater transparency.

The explanation given to Libor Jany in reporting on the “LAPD lottery” by the City Attorney’s office led by Hydee Feldstein Soto that they will do “what is in the best interests of the city and continue to aggressively defend lawsuits — especially when plaintiffs’ attorneys try to make a fortune off of the City with unreasonable non-economic damages claims” is normal. What’s dangerously legalistic and even harmful, though, is not recognizing when a case has merit and settling it as quickly as possible.

For the amount of money the firm Lozano Smith undoubtedly made off of taking the matter up on appeal for the city, LAPD could have most assuredly patched at least a little of its budget hole. After alarm spread following the release of the city budget by the Mayor’s Office, which even after pushback will still both reduce officer hiring and lay off civilian employees who provide essential support services for crime-fighting. The City Attorney’s office should immediately undertake a thorough review of its current litigation portfolio for additional cost savings. Simply put, Los Angeles can’t afford to keep playing the LAPD lottery endlessly.

The parade of embarrassments only seems to be picking up, and there are fewer journalists than ever before in Los Angeles to keep LAPD leadership accountable for its outcomes. New Chief Jim McDonnell still has time, but the longer “uncertainty” continues, the harder it will become to fundamentally revamp the organization’s culture. McDonnell has reportedly created working groups to address the matter.

Last March, veteran CalMatters reporter Jim Newton described the dynamic as follows: “ But its victories have to be won again and again. There is no complacency in policing.” Violent crime has been dropping for the most part; outside of property crimes, things are somewhat on the right path. Los Angeles still has an embarrassing human trafficking problem and a homelessness crisis on the streets. How can it begin to address those human catastrophes if it can’t keep good order in its own ranks?

Not all lawsuits filed are with merit. For example, as noted in Jany’s report. The latest claim made by Jamie McBride, who continues to occupy a leadership position in the LAPPL, about being investigated after making a patently offensive remark about African-American officers is without merit. Such lawsuits coming from a firm that routinely represents LAPD officers justify questions about just who exactly is endlessly feeding the litigation frenzy in Los Angeles, and how can it be stopped?

It’s not that all law enforcement-related lawsuits are equal; it’s that some lawsuits are just bad claims and others are reflections of our society. The sharks in and around the department are unlikely to change, but should the waters of policing continue to be chummed with indifference? We all have an obligation to speak out when things are wrong and to seek safety. Why is it so disturbing that some find none while others rejoice? Power alone should never be a solution, but all too often the personality dynamics that feed its resurgence as a logic of its own haven’t earned trust. The LAPD can be reformed if and when the City of Angels decides enough is enough.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more is learned.

UPDATE: This story was updated to reflect recent leadership changes in the Internal Affairs Division and with comment from the Board of Commissioners.

Link: Officers are winning massive payouts in ‘LAPD lottery’ lawsuits

Link: Overhaul the LAPD, in this economy? Questions surround chief’s plan amid budget crunch

Link: $4-million verdict for LAPD captain over fake nude photo shared by cops

Link: Court Upholds $4M verdict for LAPD captain harassed over misidentified nude photo

Link: LAPD captain files sexual harassment lawsuit, alleging culture of sexism, cruel pranks in department

Link: LAPD captain files lawsuit, alleges she was compared to a 'yapping chihuahua'

Link: LAPD captain claims she saw cops slamming teen into concrete — then faced union’s wrath

Link: Secret recordings reveal LAPD cops spewing racist, sexist and homophobic comments, complaint alleges

Link: TacLogix Inc.

Link: LAPD chief ousts lawyer blamed by union for disclosing thousands of officer photos

Link: Council File 24-0593

Link: Mayor Bass Selects Jim McDonnell To Serve As Chief of LAPD