Inside the secretive search for the new LAPD chief

By Libor JanyStaff Writer

Nov. 27, 2024 3 AM PT

Mayor Karen Bass chose Jim McDonnell to serve as LAPD chief after a process in which her office and the Police Commission have tried to keep the names of applicants and contenders secret.
The Times confirmed the names of 14 people who interviewed for the job. The list includes an LAPD official facing termination and a chief from another city who publicly denied applying for the position.

Some candidates for Los Angeles police chief campaigned openly for the job, enlisting influential friends to put in a good word with the mayor.

Others tried to avoid the spotlight, including one reported contender who denied even applying when asked about it by her hometown newspaper.

And then there was former LAPD Assistant Chief Alfred “Al” Labrada, who interviewed despite facing termination over accusations he tracked a former romantic partner with an AirTag.

Mayor Karen Bass ended up choosing former L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell to lead the LAPD, but the lead-up to her decision has largely remained cloaked in secrecy.

Through interviews with the candidates, LAPD records and sources familiar with the chief’s search who requested anonymity to speak openly about the confidential process, The Times confirmed the names of 14 people who were interviewed. Many have not been previously named.

The list reveals who among the LAPD’s top brass angled for the position, and also sheds light on the heavy politicking that went on behind the scenes to replace former Chief Michel Moore.

After relative transparency in past LAPD chief searches, much of this year’s hiring effort was shielded from public view. The applicants said the Police Commission, the LAPD’s civilian watchdog that conducted the hiring process, promised to keep their identities under wraps.

Such executive searches often are secretive, but some candidates said they too were kept in the dark as the field narrowed, learning they hadn’t made the cut only when the three finalists’ names appeared in The Times.

The commission conducted several rounds of interviews starting in late July. Candidates said they were summoned individually to a downtown L.A. skyscraper and the offices of Jones Day, the law firm where Police Commissioner Rasha Gerges Shields is a partner. Some said they were just told when and where to show up, and that they weren’t allowed to bring any notes.

After riding the elevator up to the 50th floor, the candidates were asked to wait in a small, windowless room with frosted glass doors before being led to a large conference room with the blinds drawn. Inside were two members of Bob Murray & Associates, a headhunter firm hired to assist in the search, and three commissioners, with a fourth appearing via Zoom.

The commissioners grilled the candidates on how their previous jobs had prepared them to run the LAPD, and asked them to outline their views on community relations, recruitment and other topics.

The unlikeliest person interviewed was Labrada. Although he was a 30-year department veteran and once seemed to have an inside track to be the next chief, at the time of his interview he was on the verge of being fired.

Labrada was accused last year of unlawfully monitoring his former romantic partner — a fellow LAPD officer who is suing the city over the matter — and then lying to internal affairs investigators about it.

He retired from the LAPD in July on the same day that a disciplinary board found him guilty of the allegations. The same board later recommended his termination, a ruling that if upheld could affect his ability to serve as a peace officer in the state of California.

Labrada has maintained that he committed no wrongdoing, writing in a claim filed against the city that Moore conspired to block his path to the chief’s job.

Attempts to reach Labrada were unsuccessful.

The deadline to apply for the chief’s job was in late June. Leading up to the deadline, Labrada expressed confidence he would clear his name and had a shot at being chief, according to multiple sources who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Other sources familiar with the matter said that Labrada’s interview was granted as a courtesy by the Police Commission, and that he was never a real contender.

A spokesperson for the Police Commission responded to questions about the hiring process with an emailed statement.

“While the Police Commission’s role in the selection of the Chief of Police followed a publicized process which included extensive community input, information regarding individual candidates is confidential,” the statement said. “Candidates have both an expectation and a right to privacy as they participate in the process.”

Asked about the chief candidates and how she made her decision, Bass said in a short statement released Tuesday: “A professional search requires a certain level of discretion and the priority at all times was to find the right person, at the right time, to lead the Department. We found him.”

The chief search kicked off in March after Moore announced his plan to retire several years sooner than expected. Names of potential successors surfaced immediately, but the chatter around City Hall and LAPD headquarters picked up in mid-July after a former LAPD sergeant posted what she asserted was a partial list of applicant names on her LinkedIn account.

The post mentioned former Houston and Miami Chief Art Acevedo, who had made no secret of his intentions to apply and was considered an early favorite for the job. Other candidates hadn’t been on many people’s radars, including Anne Kirkpatrick, the superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, among others.

For the record:

11:08 a.m. Nov. 27, 2024An earlier version of this story said Erroll Southers served as Police Commission president while working with Alma Burke at USC. Southers did not become president of the commission until later.

Written by Alma Burke, who left the department to work at USC, where she briefly overlapped with future Police Commission President Erroll Southers, the post was later taken down. Burke wrote a follow-up clarifying that she was not part of the search committee and was only an “interested observer and supporter of some of the candidates on the list.” She didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Burke’s post touched off a furor in New Orleans, where Kirkpatrick through a spokesperson denied the report to the Times-Picayune newspaper and other media outlets.

She later released a video in which she explicitly stated: “I just want to let you know that I am not a candidate.”

The Police Commission released its own statement casting doubt on the list, saying that it had not released “any information about potential candidates.” “Any purported list of finalists is premature, unofficial, and unconfirmed.”

A source familiar with the search said, however, that Kirkpatrick was in fact a candidate and interviewed for the position.

Kirkpatrick didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

In the end, the mayor went with McDonnell — despite his support for Rick Caruso during the billionaire developer’s mayoral campaign against Bass.

But his appointment was far from a sure thing. He faced strong challenges from two candidates with established national profiles: Acevedo and Carmen Best, the first Black woman to lead Seattle’s police department.

Another early favorite was Emada Tingirides, a deputy LAPD chief credited with reducing violent crime and improving relationships in some of the city’s most troubled housing developments.

McDonnell’s name had long circulated in connection with the chief’s job, first for an interim appointment and later the full-term post. But the former L.A. County sheriff and Long Beach chief ran a far quieter campaign than several other candidates.

Working in his favor was a long-standing relationship with former Chief Bill Bratton, who was among those Bass consulted when making her decision.

Bratton said he’s known McDonnell, a fellow Boston native, since 1975. When Bratton ran the LAPD from 2002 to 2009, McDonnell was one of his assistant chiefs.

Bratton said he voiced his support to the mayor for McDonnell and several other candidates with whom he had been in touch, including Acevedo, former LAPD Assistant Chief Sandy Jo MacArthur and Tingirides.

“I talk to them routinely anyway and I bump into them in different conferences,” he said.

Bratton said he was impressed with the thoroughness and discretion of the search. “I think it was handled very well, to be quite frank with you,” he said.

Ultimately, he said, he thought that Bass had picked a qualified leader in McDonnell.

“Several of the candidates would’ve done an excellent job — Art Acevedo, Sandy Jo MacArthur — but I think Jimmy was an excellent choice,” Bratton said. “It’s ironic that two Boston kids would’ve ended up chief of the LAPD.”

Other semifinalists for the job, according to The Times’ reporting, were former LAPD Deputy Chiefs Donald “Donnie” Graham and Alan Hamilton; LAPD Cmdrs. Elaine Morales and Lillian Carranza; LAPD Assistant Chief Blake Chow; MacArthur, the former LAPD assistant chief; Montebello Chief Paul Espinosa; and Santa Monica Chief Ramon Bautista.

Robert “Bobby” Arcos, a former LAPD assistant chief, was previously confirmed to be a finalist along with Tingirides and McDonnell when he was spotted arriving at the mayor’s mansion for an interview.

Arcos, who led the investigative branch of the L.A. County district attorney’s office, had the backing of Latino groups and was ranked above McDonnell when the Police Commission presented its list of the top three candidates to Bass; McDonnell was ranked last, City Council members were told.

By most accounts, the names were a closely guarded secret shared by only a handful of top deputies inside Bass’ office, including Brian Williams and Karren Lane, her deputy mayors of public safety and community safety, and her deputy chief of staff, Celine Cordero.

McDonnell said he found out that he was being offered the job in a phone call from the mayor only about a day and a half before it was announced.

“I did not mount a public campaign. I had previously run for sheriff twice and had been through that process,” he said during a press briefing Tuesday. “This was a very different process, where you put into the job, you put out your qualifications, your background, your experience, and then it’s done by the executive research firm.”

Connie Rice, a civil rights attorney who has been a confidante to several mayors, said that this year’s search was more of a “black box” than any of the 10 others she had witnessed.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” she quickly added, saying that the commission was trying to avoid the types of media leaks that may have scared away otherwise qualified candidates.

In her statement Tuesday to The Times, Bass said she made her pick after “unprecedented engagement with LAPD rank and file officers as well as community members including civil rights leaders, activists, clergy, residents, business leaders and Neighborhood Council members.”

With McDonnell now sworn in, the mayor added, the city is working to “make sure that Los Angeles is prepared for upcoming major events and for anything that comes our way.”

Najee Ali, a longtime social activist, still felt as though the community’s voice was not heard.

Ali called the secrecy of the hiring process “worthy of the CIA,” and said it kept the public from giving feedback on McDonnell until after he was chosen. McDonnell’s record on immigration, which included allowing federal agents to target L.A. County jail inmates for deportation, has since faced scrutiny, Ali noted.

“Historically, everything always leaks out at some point,” he said, “so you might as well be transparent from the very beginning.”