Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced Friday that Jim McDonnell will be the city’s next police chief, ending a months-long search after Michel Moore said he was retiring from the department’s top job.
McDonnell is familiar to many Angelenos. He served with the Los Angeles Police Department for 29 years, and later was elected to L.A. County sheriff. He most recently served as the director of the University of Southern California's Price School’s Safe Communities Institute.
"Chief McDonnell is a leader, an innovator, and a change maker, and that's what we need in L.A.," Bass said at a Friday morning news conference. "I'm appointing Chief McDonnell because he and I have aligned in our desire to change the direction of Los Angeles by preventing crime in the first place — responding urgently when crime takes place and to hold people accountable and bring down crime."
But some community activists were less than enthusiastic about the choice. For example, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles was critical of McDonnell's tenure as sheriff, and said Bass had other, more progressive, options when selecting the next chief.
“It's a betrayal of the progressive values that Karen Bass claims to hold,” Melina Abdullah told LAist.
Bass said at the news conference that she will work with McDonnell on expanding the police force, deploying more officers on the street and modernizing the department's technology. She said she also wants to strengthen community relations with the LAPD.
As the new police chief, McDonnell will be tasked with making sure the department is ready for the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics. LAPD is the nation’s second-largest police department, with nearly 9,000 officers.
"After visiting France and seeing the games, the magnitude of what L.A. needs to prepare for is crystal clear to me," Bass said. "And I trust that Jim McDonnell will make sure that we are prepared and vigilant for anything that comes our way."
The City Council will have to confirm the hiring of McDonnell as chief. It's not yet clear when that will happen or the specific date he is expected to start in his new role.
What McDonnell says
Speaking at the news conference, McDonnell recited a list of his goals as LAPD's new leader, including expanding the department and build community trust.
"In simplest terms, my goals are to enhance public safety, to grow our department back to full strength through a solid recruitment and retention campaign, [and] to strengthen public trust, the foundation of all we do," he said.
McDonnell stressed that he wants to "ensure respectful and constitutional policing practices" and work with the community to address concerns.
"I will go out, we will talk to everybody who will listen, we will engage, and I will listen to the concerns of every community in this city... ," he said, adding that he would look to other police departments across the country for "best practices" that could be deployed in L.A.
Increasing recruitment, he said, will help with department morale.
In a statement released as the announcement was made, McDonnell also said he understands the challenges officers face in working to protect the city.
“It is a tremendous honor to lead the men and women of the LAPD," he said in the statement. "I will work hard to make sure their work to keep Angelenos safe is supported. Mayor Bass’s efforts on public safety reflect thoughtful, compassionate, and solution-oriented approaches to policing. I greatly appreciate her confidence in me and I look forward to working closely with her to make Los Angeles a safer city.”
Reaction to the new chief
After nearly three decades with LAPD, McDonnell was hired as chief of the Long Beach Police Department in 2010.
In 2014, he was elected sheriff of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, becoming the first non- member in 100 years to serve as the department's leader. He was elected at a time when the department was plagued by allegations of deputies beating and humiliating people held in the county jails, convictions of several deputies for obstructing an FBI investigation into the jail system, and general low morale within department ranks.
During McDonnell's time as sheriff, he was credited with setting up accountability systems and working to restore public trust, Bass said in a news release.
However, he lost his bid for reelection in 2018, the year that Alex Villanueva won in an upset. McDonnell was voted out of office with the help of big spending by the labor union that represents deputies, who did not like his disciplinarian ways.
The decision to select him for police chief came with input from city's Personnel Department, LA Police Commission, community leaders, residents as well as a recruiting firm, city authorities said.
"Chief McDonnell understands the need to embrace the guardian mindset, both within the department and with the public," said Erroll Southers, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, at the news conference. "I've spoken with many people who have worked with him during his career and the descriptions I hear have consistently included honest, seasoned, and a man of integrity."
In selecting McDonnell, the mayor passed over two other finalists — one of whom would have been the first woman chief and the other the first Latino chief of the LAPD.
When asked about increasing representation in the force, Bass said, she has been speaking to officers and "a lot that needs to be done" particularly in increasing Latino representation in department leadership, given the city's population is half Latino. That said, she indicated she is satisfied with the decision to select McDonnell.
"I feel very confident in one of the top law enforcement professionals in our country who is willing to come back to the department and lead us in a time when the department internally needs to be transformed," she said.
Civil rights attorney Connie Rice praised the mayor’s decision to appoint McDonnell.
“Jim is a deeply decent, honest, very skilled executive policing leader,” said Rice, who knows McDonnell personally. “It doesn't mean he shares a vision for progressive policing but he’s always been open to good ideas that work.”
Rice added: “He may not have the good ideas but he’s not afraid of having people around him who have more of what he doesn’t have.”
Others were more critical.
Abdullah, of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, said McDonnell failed to improve horrible conditions inside Men’s Central Jail when he was sheriff, failed to rid the department of deputy gangs, and handed over unauthorized immigrants in jail to immigration agents.
How we got here
Michel Moore, who had served as the LAPD chief since 2018, announced in January that he would step down from the department's top job, but said he would stay on as a consultant until Bass found his replacement.
Assistant LAPD Chief Dominic Choi stepped in as interim chief in February.
At the time of his announcement, Moore said he had made mistakes as chief, but was proud of his achievements.
“During my tenure, I know I’ve made mistakes and missteps,” he said. “But I’m also confident that my work has seen success across a broad spectrum of topics unmatched by any other law enforcement agency in this country.”
Under Moore’s tenure, the department faced criticism for alleged excessive use-of-force, the botched handling of an illegal fireworks cache that caused an explosion that ripped through a South L.A. neighborhood and a lack of preparedness during the summer protests in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
When Choi took over as interim chief, he announced he would focus on officer training, employee mental wellness, preparation for public demonstrations, and a smooth framework for transition when the next chief is picked.
Choi’s short time as interim chief was marked by the encampment protests at universities across the city, including at USC and University of California, Los Angeles.
Civics and Democracy Correspondent Frank Stoltze contributed to this report.
