Former county sheriff has been appointed to lead the Los Angeles police force

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former LA county sheriff Jim McDonnell will lead the Los Angeles Police Department, taking charge of the force of nearly 9,000 officers as discontent grows among the city’s residents over public safety even as violent crime numbers drop.

An official with knowledge of who was chosen confirmed it was McDonnell. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it.

The appointment follows the surprise retirement of Chief Michel Moore in early 2024. Moore’s tenure was marked by greater scrutiny into excessive force and police killings of civilians in the nation’s second-largest city. Dominic Choi has led the department as interim chief — and the first Asian American chief — since March 2024.

The incoming chief will have to make sure the department is ready for the additional security challenges of the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics.

A civilian board of Los Angeles police commissioners vetted McDonnell.

McDonnell was elected LA County Sheriff in 2014 to oversee the largest sheriff’s department in the U.S. Before that, he spent 29 years in the LAPD and served as Long Beach’s police chief for almost five years.

While there was debate over whether Mayor Karen Bass would choose an “insider” or “outsider” who would shake things up and challenge the way things were done within the department’s insular culture, the mayor ended up with three candidates all with decades of experience at the LAPD.

The other two candidates sent to Bass, who made the final selection, were Deputy Chief Emada Tingrides and former Assistant Chief Robert “Bobby” Arcos, both reported by the Los Angeles Times as finalists for the position.

The LAPD has faced criticism through the years over its response to the George Floyd protests and several high-profile shootings by officers. It has struggled to get rid of bad cops while also struggling to recruit as more officers leave its ranks than are coming in.

“I’m looking for a leader who will bring about significant change inside of the department,” Bass said to the Los Angeles Times before the final pick was announced. “I think the morale issue is really critical; my concern, of course, is law enforcement’s interaction with communities, and it’s pretty hard to have a positive interaction if the morale is really low.”

John Sullivan, who retired as a lieutenant in 2018 after 30 years at the county sheriff’s department, called McDonnell a “hybrid” in the insider-outsider debate.

“He grew up in the organization, he knows the organization … but he’s also been the chief of a separate department, and he’s also been sheriff,” Sullivan said. McDonnell would bring a “fresh set of eyes” to the LAPD’s problems while understanding the concerns of the rank-and-file.

At the LAPD, McDonnell held every rank from police officer to second-in-command under former LAPD chief Bill Bratton. During that time, he helped implement a federal consent decree imposed on the department largely as a result of the Rampart scandal, a corruption case involving rampant misconduct within the anti-gang unit.

When he was elected county sheriff, he inherited a department in the wake of a jail abuse corruption scandal that led to convictions against his predecessor, longtime Lee Baca, and more than 20 other officials. Members of a civilian watchdog commission applauded McDonnell for embracing federal mandates for jail reform, including improving de-escalation training and better documentation of force that has led to improved jail conditions, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In 2022, he joined the University of Southern California as director of the Safe Communities Institute, which conducts research on public safety solutions.

McDonnell also served on an advisory committee with McDonnell to USC’s Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Threats and Emergencies, a U.S. Homeland Security department-funded institution to do research on counterterrorism, according to Sullivan. His experience with studying international security threats could be an asset as police chief.

“We have really large public events that are coming that could well be terrorist targets,” Sullivan said, referring to the World Cup and Olympics. “The war in Gaza, the brewing war in south Lebanon, all that’s going to have echoes or ripples here in Los Angeles.”