On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council met for the first time since Mayor Karen Bass fired LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley on Friday.
Bass spoke about Crowley’s firing with KNX News’ Craig Fiegener.
“State law requires after-action-report that is conducted or led by the fire commission, but it's an independent investigation,” she said.
She added that Crowley expressed she would not cooperate with the investigation and she didn’t explain why.
“At that point to me it was clear that the leadership needed to change and needed to change immediately,” she said.
Council member Nithya Raman told Fiegener that she didn't expect a final decision on Crowley's future until after the investigations into the Palisades disaster were complete.
“There [have] been some after-action reports about what happened, about deployment, about readiness for these fires, about how people can respond to notices that we're going to have high winds that we haven't seen yet and I was really looking forward to getting those,” she said. “But I also know that the mayor, who is in charge of the city right now, particularly during emergency operations times, needs to be able to trust her fire chief. I think that's a really important relationship for Los Angeles.”
Councilmember Traci Park told Fiegener she was blindsided by Bass’ decision.
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“Clearly this was orchestrated and coordinated with some members, I was not included in that,” she said. “And as the member who represents the council district where this devastation happened and the thousands of people who are displaced and traumatized and as the member who has been and will be for years to come on the ground navigating us through the aftermath of this, yes, I'm really disappointed.”
Parks added that it was not a decision she would’ve made at this time.
“But I also want to be very clear, if there is anybody who deserves answers about what happened, it's me and the residents of the Pacific Palisades,” she said.
Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson told Fiegener he supports the mayor's decision and thinks it should have come sooner.
“I thought the leadership showed really poor judgment and poor timing,” he said.
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