Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has now thrown LA Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley under the bus in her ongoing crusade to save her own skin in the wake of the deadly Palisades Fire, announcing Friday morning that she has removed Crowley as Fire Chief:
“Acting in the best interests of Los Angeles’ public safety, and for the operations of the Los Angeles Fire Department, I have removed Kristin Crowley as Fire Chief. We know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch. Furthermore, a necessary step to an investigation was the President of the Fire Commission telling Chief Crowley to do an after action report on the fires. The Chief refused. These require her removal. The heroism of our firefighters – during the Palisades fire and every single day – is without question. Bringing new leadership to the fire department is what our city needs.
“While the Department is in the experienced and expert hands of Chief Villanueva, my office will lead a national search and I will speak directly with firefighters and Angelenos about what they want to see in their next permanent chief."
Bass told Fox LA's Elex Michaelson on Thursday that she wasn't aware of warnings for the windstorm other than the normal "We're going to get Santa Ana winds" type of warning, as our Sister Toldjah covered, and specifically named and blamed Crowley. However, loud, public warnings started on January 2 and were upgraded several times by January 6, when Bass was already in Ghana:
"Bass traveled to Ghana to attend the inauguration of the nation's new president on Jan. 4, a day after the National Weather Service issued a fire weather watch for Los Angeles. She landed on Jan. 5., and later that day, the weather service issued a red flag warning.
"Warnings escalated several times on Jan 6., becoming a "particularly dangerous situation" by the late afternoon in Los Angeles. That evening Bass posted her first statement on X about the fires, sharing information that was out of date by a few hours."
That post was made at 7:30 PM PST:
The Palisades fire started about 15 hours later. So, if Bass' big criticism of Crowley is that on the morning of January 7, she sent home 1,000 firefighters who could have been on duty to help battle any fires that broke out, why didn't Bass order those firefighters held over - which would have cost the city a healthy amount of money in paying overtime - as part of mobilization? And if those 1,000 firefighters were there, how effective could they be without an adequate number of functioning engines and without adequate access to water?
Just two months before the fire, Crowley begged the Los Angeles City Council for $100 million to replace LAFD's aging fleet and hire more maintenance technicians. That plea went unanswered, as Ward Clark reported back in January. In addition, as the Daily Mail reported, "Bass demanded LAFD make $49 million in cuts...on top of $17.6 million of cuts in her latest budget."
Crowley has been open about the challenges facing the department and how they affect public safety. From a January 10 interview:
An LAFD source told the Daily Mail how the firing went down:
'Bass and two of her lawyers walked into Crowley's office today,' the source said. 'She said 'Our relationship is not working out,' and fired her.
'Not even 'you didn't do a good job.' Not, 'you failed me.'
'It took two minutes and she was done. There was no emoting. She had two lawyers with her. She's covering her a**.
'Crowley said, 'that's it. I'm packing, I'm done.'
'She wasn't shocked, but she was sad of course. From what I could tell, she thought there's nothing else she could do. She may change her mind, but that was her initial reaction.'
The source said they believed Bass was 'covering her a**' with the firing, and that Crowley did a good job as fire chief.
'She fired the only person doing anything about the fires,' the source said.
Bass was extremely testy in a press conference following her announcement, hilariously claiming that the city is not in crisis and that she just wants to move forward.
Thousands of people in Pacific Palisades desperately want to move forward, too, Mayor Bass. They need answers and actual accountability first.