los angeles — the Former Los Angeles Fire Chief He filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging that Overthrow her It was part of a coordinated effort to discredit her behavior and decision-making so that Mayor Karen Bass could avoid accountability for the most devastating wildfires in Los Angeles history.
Bass sacked Christine Crawley a month later in January 2025 Palisades fireHer dismissal was followed by finger-pointing between the former president and City Hall over the devastation caused by the fire and the funding of the fire department. In March of that year, Crowley He lost the appeal To the city council to get her job back.
Crowley’s lawsuit filed last week alleges that Bass spread misleading information to protect the mayor’s political reputation in the wake of the fire. The mayor’s office did not immediately comment on the lawsuit. A message seeking comment was also sent to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.
Crowley accuses the Democrat in his first term of trying to distract attention Criticism is over She was in Africa attending a presidential delegation when the fire broke out, although weather reports warned of dangerous bushfire conditions in the days before she left.
Bass made statements to shift blame, “including falsely claiming that she was not aware of a nationally forecasted weather event, falsely claiming that the LAFD budget was not reduced, and falsely claiming that LAFD resources would have supported an additional 1,000 firefighters to fight the fire,” the lawsuit alleges.
“These false statements were not errors but part of a deliberate strategy to deflect scrutiny of Bass’s decisions and avoid accountability,” the lawsuit states.
In the lawsuit, the former president seeks unspecified economic and compensatory damages.
Bass Crowley expelled On February 21, 2025, six weeks after the Los Angeles fire started. She credited Crowley early in the firefighting efforts, but said she later learned that 1,000 additional firefighters could have been deployed on the day the fire broke out. Furthermore, she said Crowley refused a request to prepare a report on the fires that is an important part of investigations into what happened and why.
Crowley’s legal filing disputes both of these claims.
Palisades fire It began on January 7 in high winds. It destroyed or damaged nearly 8,000 homes, businesses and other buildings, and killed at least 12 people in Pacific Palisades, an affluent neighborhood in Los Angeles. last The fire started that day in Altadenaan East Los Angeles suburb, killing at least 17 people and destroying or damaging more than 10,000 homes or other structures.