A new chief is at the helm of the Los Angeles Police Department. What does that mean for the future of the department?
Outgoing Interim Chief Dominic Choi and the new Chief Jim McDonnell both joined Chief Correspondent Charles Feldman for a KNX In Depth special to examine what’s ahead for the department.
Listen here:
Before he was even sworn in, McDonnell’s appointment was plagued by concerns about his views on immigration. As Los Angeles County Sheriff, McDonnell allowed immigration agents into county jails, and in 2017 he opposed a bill to make California a sanctuary state.
McDonnell pushed back on those concerns, pointing to a long-standing LAPD policy that prohibits officers from stopping someone to determine their immigration status and saying it’s “really not in our interest at all” to work with ICE.
“I think that in order for a police agency to operate effectively, you have to have the trust of the people that you serve,” he said. “If a big percentage of the population believes that the Los Angeles Police Department is working to do, as has been speculated, roundups, or working with ICE to determine immigration status and assisting them in their efforts in that regard, that erodes trust.”
Choi said that the challenges his successor will face are the same ones he faced when he took control of the agency.
“Our hiring and our retention, our employee wellness, challenges with deployment, crime being a priority for the organization, building community trust, focusing on our officers and their not only physical well-being but their mental well-being,” he said.
Choi said the LAPD is seeing higher application numbers than in the previous few years, but it takes time to get recruits through the hiring process.
“We continue to be in conversations with not only the personnel department, but also the mayor's office in trying to figure out ways to become more efficient in that hiring process,” he said.
Another big challenge on the horizon: the 2028 Olympics. How prepared is the LAPD for the event, and what more needs to be done? McDonnell said there are “a lot of different perspectives on that depending on who you're talking to.”
“We have so many layers of threats that are potential for the ‘28 Games,” he said. “You look at just the cyber arena alone and, you know, people looking to shut down, you know, the grid, or shut down portions of that to try and disable our ability to be able to do a number of different things… You can just imagine some of the other things that are out there, and I won't go into great detail, but we have people with tremendous expertise to address all of the threats that we're aware of.”
Listen to the full conversation above.
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