Multiple current and former Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) officials have sent a letter to LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley demanding that she resign from her position immediately because of the horrible mismanagement that caused and exacerbated the Los Angeles wildfires.
The five-page letter does not include any signatures, but supposedly was sent by numerous current and former LAFD officials, including battalion chiefs, assistant chiefs, and deputy chiefs.
In the letter, these officials laid the blame on Crowley for the terrible response to the wildfires that are still ravaging the Los Angeles area.
“Chief, please focus on your current duties and responsibilities which currently should be focused on mitigating and stabilizing the Palisades fire,” the officials wrote in the letter, which was obtained by NewsNation’s Rich McHugh. “Your outburst regarding the budget and the statement that the ‘City failed the LAFD’ was ill-advised, poorly timed and took away from the most important issue, the Palisades fire.”
The “outburst” that the letter is referencing was Crowley’s comment to reporters on January 10, where she stated that city officials had failed the LAFD, effectively blaming everyone except herself. Crowley also explained in a memo to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) on December 4, 2024 that her $18 million cut to the fire department budget had “severely limited the department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires.”
“Without this funding, pilot compliance and readiness are jeopardized, and aerial firefighting capabilities are diminished,” the fire chief added in the memo.
Fire Chief Kristin Crowley told Karen Bass a month ago that the budget cuts she made to the fire department would be catastrophic. pic.twitter.com/VLPUramYjr
— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) January 9, 2025
Highlighting her comments as an admission, the fire officials noted in the letter that she had clearly “been aware of the budget issues of the LAFD prior to [her] appointment as Fire Chief” in March 2022, but she is only complaining about these issues now that the scrutiny has fallen on her because of the botched response to the Los Angeles wildfires.
“Please do not be disingenuous as we know better,” the officials wrote. “You went along with the budget cuts and now that they have come back to haunt you, you appear to be in [cover your a—] mode.”
The letter goes on to highlight 11 different failures that occurred under Crowley’s leadership, including a lack of mechanics and properly updated equipment.
NEW: Retired and Active LAFD Chief Officers write scathing letter to LAFD Chief Kristen Crowley https://t.co/eexTZxOXKV pic.twitter.com/2eAGF0Vg2Y
— Rich McHugh (@RichMcHugh) January 17, 2025
The officials also complain in the letter about “lawsuits filed by females, minorities and command officers related to retaliation, harassment and hostile work environment issues.”
Upon taking office in 2022, Crowley vowed to focus on so-called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) initiatives, which ended up being a detriment to readiness and merit. This focus “often leads to the very same lawsuits the officials now complain about. The DEI priorities could also lead to positions being filled without sufficient merit, potentially making the fire department less prepared to fight fires,” according to The Daily Wire.
Of course, as they live in a deep-blue area and are most likely majority Democrats, the fire officials refused to acknowledge the role that DEI played in these failures, though they did call out Crowley for promoting DEI-hire Kristine Larson to deputy chief “despite [Crowley] knowing about her lack of professionalism and lack of emotional intelligence.”
They went on to highlight Larson’s shocking statement that recently went viral, where she stated that if a man needed her to carry him out of a fire, “he got himself in the wrong place.”
LAFD Assistant Chief Kristine Larson:
"Am I able to carry your husband out of a fire? He got himself in the wrong place." pic.twitter.com/BofTVr6dWP
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 9, 2025
“While no one is saying that this fire could have been stopped, there is no doubt among all of us that if you had done things right and prepared the LAFD for an incident of this magnitude, fatalities would have been reduced, and property would have been saved… As harsh as this sounds, the horrific truth is that you and your command staff own this terrible loss of life,” the fire officials told Crowley.
“All the preventative systems and mechanisms that we have put into place in the past were nonexistent at the Palisades fire,” the letter continued. “We attribute this to you and your command staffs lack of experience, arrogance, inability to lead and manage the LAFD both in emergency and non-emergency times… Your job as Fire Chief was to prepare us, the LAFD for an incident of this magnitude and you have failed.”
Meanwhile, an LAFD spokesman stated in an email that Crowley is unable to respond to this letter because she is “focused on mitigating the fires.”
