Mayor Bass fires Crowley as LA’s fire chief
Mayor Bass fires Crowley as LA’s fire chief
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has removed Kristin Crowley as the city’s fire chief and has appointed former Chief Deputy Ronnie Villanueva to serve as interim chief.
Bass’ administration has maintained that cuts to areas of the fire department’s budget did not impact firefighters’ ability to respond to the fires, despite comments from Crowley that suggest otherwise. The fire chief recently lashed out against city officials, saying the city “failed” her and her department.
The mayor and her office have been inundated with questions since the first fire broke out — everything from whether Bass regretted her trip to Ghana and if she should apologize to Angelenos for being away to whether the city cut the fire department’s budget and left it ill-equipped to battle the flames to whether city officials failed to ensure that L.A. had enough water to respond to massive fires.
Bass said in a statement she is removing the chief immediately
Bass said 1,000 firefighters could have been on duty the morning the fires broke out but “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,” she added. “The Chief (Crowley) refused. These require her removal.”
Bass was scheduled to hold a late-morning news conference to discuss her decision. In her announcement, the mayor said she fired Crowley “in the best interests” of L.A.’s public safety and the operations of the L.A. Fire Department.
This is a breaking news story; watch for updates
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