Former Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley is suing the city, claiming in a whistleblower lawsuit that Mayor Karen Bass “orchestrated a campaign of retaliation” to protect her own political future and paper over her failures during the most destructive fire in city history.
In the lawsuit, filed Monday in L.A. County Superior Court, Crowley and her attorneys allege Bass sought to shift blame for the way the city handled last year’s catastrophic Palisades fire to Crowley amid mounting criticism of the mayor’s decision to attend a ceremony in Ghana on Jan. 7, the day the fire erupted. Bass, the suit alleges, left L.A. despite knowing of the potential severe winds and fire danger.
“She sought to avoid accountability by shifting blame and lying — including falsely claiming that she was not aware of the nationally anticipated weather event, falsely claiming that the LAFD’s budget was not cut, and falsely claiming that LAFD’s resources would have supported an additional 1,000 firefighters to fight the blaze — claims contradicted by public records and Bass’ own prior statements,” the lawsuit alleges. “These false statements were not mistakes but part of a deliberate strategy to divert scrutiny from Bass’ decisions and to avoid accountability.”
The Palisades fire took off the morning of Jan. 7, 2025 amid fierce Santa Ana winds, killing 12 people and destroying thousands of homes amounting to billions of dollars in damage. While authorities allege a Florida man started the fire, saying it was actually a rekindling of a Jan. 1 fire, decisions by both LAFD brass and the mayor before, during and after Jan. 7 have come under scrutiny.
According to records obtained by The Times, shortly before releasing an after-action review report on the Palisades fire, the Los Angeles Fire Department issued a confidential memo detailing plans to protect Bass and others from “reputational harm.” The 13-page document is on LAFD letterhead and includes email addresses for department officials, representatives of Bass’ office, and public relations consultants hired to help shape messaging about the fire.
But as questions about the fire response swirled, instead of getting in lockstep with Bass, Crowley revealed to the public that “budget cuts had weakened the department’s readiness and jeopardized public and firefighter safety” and said her repeated warnings were ignored, the lawsuit says. It alleges Bass retaliated by ousting her as fire chief on Feb. 21, 2025.
Since the fire, the city has faced criticism for an inadequate deployment of firefighters, a chaotic evacuation of Pacific Palisades and a lack of water caused in part by a local reservoir being left empty for repairs. In December, The Times revealed that the city’s after-action report had been altered to deflect criticism of LAFD’s failure to predeploy engines and crews to the Palisades, among other shortcomings.
Crowley’s lawyers claim Bass’ view of her performance shifted with political opinion — starting with initial praise before reversing course and criticizing Crowley as the mayor came under fire for being out of the country during the blaze.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
When Crowley was ousted, the mayor said it was because Crowley failed to inform her about the dangerous conditions that day or to predeploy hundreds of firefighters just in case. She also said Crowley rebuffed a request to prepare a report on the fires — a critical part of ongoing investigations into the cause of the fire and the city’s response.
But Crowley’s lawyers, Genie Harrison and Mia Munro, allege their client “repeatedly warned of the LAFD’s worsening resource and staffing crisis” prior to the fire and warned that aging infrastructure, surging emergency calls and shrinking staff left the city at risk.
“An analysis of the 90th percentile of all incidents indicates that the overall response time of LAFD resources has increased from 6:51 (minutes) in 2018 to 7:53 in 2022. This dramatic increase is nearly double the time by national standards for first-arriving units,” the lawsuit says.
Three days after the fire, Crowley told a local TV news station that her department was “screaming to be properly funded,” which prompted Bass to summon Crowley to her office, according to the lawsuit.
“I don’t know why you had to do that; normally we are on the same page, and I don’t know why you had to say stuff to the media,” Bass told Crowley, according to the lawsuit. Bass allegedly told Crowley she wasn’t firing her then because “right now I can’t do that.”
Before Crowley was ousted, the city’s top financial analyst pushed back on her budget-cutting narrative, saying that spending on the Fire Department actually went up during that budget year — in large part because of a package of firefighter raises. Those increases added an estimated $53 million to the department’s budget.
Regardless, the day after Crowley and Bass met in her office, the lawsuit alleges, retired LAFD Chief Deputy Ronnie Villanueva began working at the Emergency Operations Center, donning a mayor’s office badge. On Feb. 3, 2025, more than two weeks before Crowley was removed from her position, Villanueva wrote a report to the Board of Fire Commissioners identifying himself as the interim fire chief — a position he held until the appointment of Fire Chief Jaime Moore last fall.
The lawsuit alleges that Bass and others in her administration defamed Crowley, retaliated against her in violation of California’s labor code and violated Crowley’s 1st Amendment rights. Crowley is seeking unspecified damages.
Bass repeatedly has denied she was involved in any effort to water down the after-action report, which was meant to spell out mistakes in the Palisades fire response and suggest measures to avoid repeating them. But two sources with knowledge of Bass’ office said that after receiving an early draft of the report, the mayor told Villanueva it could expose the city to legal liabilities.
Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD’s actions removed or softened before the report was made public, the sources told The Times this month. The mayor has said The Times’ story based on the sources’ accounts was “completely fabricated.”
Crowley and her lawyers allege the LAFD “did not have sufficient operating emergency vehicles to safely and effectively pre-deploy 1,000 (or anywhere near 1,000) additional firefighters on January 7.” The department did not have the money or personnel “to repair and maintain emergency fire engines, fire trucks, and ambulances,” the suit alleges.
“This case is about accountability,” said Harrison, Crowley’s attorney. “Public servants should not face punishment or be silenced for telling the truth about public or firefighter safety and on matters of public importance.”
Times staff writers Alene Tcheckmedyian, David Zahniser and Paul Pringle contributed to this report. Pringle is a former Times staff writer.
