Legal claim by ex-Los Angeles fire chief alleges mayor orchestrated smear campaign after her ouster

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The former Los Angeles fire chief filed a legal claim Wednesday against the city, alleging that her ouster by Mayor Karen Bass was followed by an orchestrated effort to smear her conduct and decision-making during the most destructive wildfire in LA history.

Former Chief Kristin Crowley’s dismissal a month after January’s Palisades Fire was followed by finger-pointing between her and City Hall over the blaze’s devastation and the fire department’s funding. In March, Crowley lost an appeal to the City Council to win back her job.

Crowley’s legal claim this week alleges that Bass led “a campaign of misinformation, defamation, and retaliation” to protect the mayor’s political reputation following the fire.

The mayor’s office said Wednesday that it would not comment on “an ongoing personnel claim.” A message seeking comment was also sent to the LA City Attorney’s office.

Crowley accuses the first-term Democrat of defaming her to distract from criticism of the mayor for being in Africa as part of a presidential delegation when the blaze started, even though weather reports had warned of dangerous wildfire conditions in the days before she left.

In the filing, the former chief demands “that Bass immediately cease and desist her defamatory and illegal public smear campaign of Crowley, retract her false statements about Crowley, and apologize for lying about Crowley.”

Such legal claims are often precursors to lawsuits. Crowley’s legal team wouldn’t say if a lawsuit was imminent or what it might seek.

Bass fired Crowley on Feb. 21, six weeks after the LA fire started. She praised Crowley in the firefighting effort’s early going, but she said she later learned that an additional 1,000 firefighters could have been deployed on the day the blaze ignited. Furthermore, she said Crowley rebuffed a request to prepare a report on the fires that is a critical part of investigations into what happened and why.

Crowley’s legal filing disputes both those claims.

The Palisades Fire began Jan. 7 in heavy winds. It destroyed or damaged nearly 8,000 homes, businesses and other structures, and it killed at least 12 people in the Pacific Palisades, an affluent LA neighborhood. Another fire started that day in Altadena, a suburb east of LA, killing at least 17 people and destroying or damaging more than 10,000 homes or other buildings.