LAPD Chief responds to comments made during LA Mayor debate

The Dodgers are back in town. Security is as high as ever. The LAPD continues its crackdown on cargo thefts. Lots to get through. We're here to talk about more of all of this. LAPD Chief Jim McDonald, thank you for being here this morning. Thank you for having me. Before we get into all that, I do want to talk to you about the mayoral debate last night. Nithya Raman, of course, made some comments that televised. Raman said, quote, I want to replace the police chief. I've been very open about that. I've been very clear about that. I don't believe this chief has met the moment. I believe he's lost the trust of Angelenos, especially in response to the ICE raids. That was her quote when she was asked. This is her response when she was talking about this viral video, which has been deleted since. But it is still out there, Nithya Raman criticizing the use specifically of tear gas against protesters. So I want to, chief, get your response to criticism specifically about you, quote, not meeting the moment. No, thank you for that opportunity because I look at that and a year later, to be critical of the actions taken by the Los Angeles police officers and other agencies who came in to assist us during what were riotous situations and the time we used gas that saved lives without a doubt. We had officers on a skirmish line being assaulted with commercial grade fireworks, Molotov cocktails, vehicles and the people who were doing this, the instigators were barricaded behind positions where less lethal deployment did not impact them. So they continued to do this. It was getting to a point where it could have become a deadly force situation which we wanted to avoid at all costs by using gas to be able to disperse the crowd successfully. We were able to do it and we didn't have the issues to deal with that we might otherwise have had. back on that now, and I don't think it could have been done differently that would have had a better outcome. I'm very proud of our people, the courage that they showed standing on those lines sometimes for 10 and 12 hours being assaulted routinely. Most of the crowd, we talk about peaceful protests, we have peaceful protests almost every day somewhere in the city. They go off without any problem at all. When we have a situation where the crowd becomes violent, then it's my duty to be able to protect the public and to protect our officers on that skirmish line from being assaulted and we had 52 officers injured during that time. Some of them with concussions, some of them with hearing issues and some of them with a variety of other different types of injury. So when I hear that kind of thing and I look back from somebody who wasn't there, it's It's problematic, and I talk about just my take on politics, and I try and stay out of politics as much as I can. My job is public safety, ensuring that everybody is taken care of. We've known you a long time, and the last thing you wanna be is like the big headline and the big viral moment. You're focused on public safety, but it is now a viral moment and a big part of the conversation. One of the things that also struck us last night is that the mayor talked about security specifically now for you and for the mayor herself. Because when language like this is used, that was a word that was used in this viral, that security has been set up. Has that been an issue for you, the mayor, the department? It's always an issue to the degree that we have security details and we have them for a reason because most of the people, not an issue at all. But you have people who are on the fringe and for whatever reason, something will set them off and you have to be sensitive to that. And we have a team of people that are very sensitive to that. We watch what's put out there about us and we try and do everything we can to keep ourselves our family safe. But we certainly don't need people instigating or creating language that would cause somebody on the fringe to take actions as a result of those comments. So we try and just take a step back or I try and take a step back. When I look at the political climate today as we get close to the election, campaigning is very different than governing. In a campaign, you can say anything you want, and maybe someone pushes back, maybe they don't. But you have a limited amount of time to get out whatever you think you need to do for your potential voters. But once you get in the chair, you see that it's very different. And everything is very nuanced, very complex. And to be able to protect a city like Los Angeles with the number of officers and civilian professional staff that we have deployed, it is a careful balance. Every day, everything we do is very measured. We're constantly triaging our resources to be able to get the most from the limited number of people we have. And I look at where we are today and it's like the last two years that I've been back with the LAPD, it's amazing. The crime statistics are down, homicides down to 1965 levels. We're down in every single crime category across the board. Morale is up within the organization, recruitment and retention are trending in the right direction. All of the indicators that you would look at the metrics for a police department are all stellar right now. So I look at that and I feel like in retrospect, could we have done anything differently to get a different result? I couldn't be more proud of our people and the work that's been done in the last two years that I can speak to that I've been back. Our folks have been out there on the front lines no matter what the circumstances. We went through FIFA and that was flawless. I couldn't think of a way where we could have done that better, but it's working with the community. It's engaging the community to try and keep things safe. We were able to do that in FIFA. My hope is we'll be able to do that with the Super Bowl and the Olympics and Paralympics two years down the road as well. But it is a balancing act to be able to keep everything in the right order, in the right perspective as we move forward, and we've been able to do that for the last two years. I'm very proud of that. Worth mentioning also that Mayor Karen Bass, if she does get back in office, she will not relieve you of your duties, and she says she has complete confidence in you. Let's turn now to Operation Skid Row, leading to what, almost two dozen arrests, suspected drug dealers there. Talk about the impact that those arrests have made. Yeah, not just arrest, but strategic arrest for people who were the shot callers, people who were bringing the drugs, the cartels manufacture the drugs. These mid-level players, they're on Skid Row, and their role is to basically exploit those most vulnerable in our society. People are there where the missions are and other resources for somebody to try and be able to get their life back on track. And these folks are out there selling all sorts of different drugs to folks. You know, just as an example, what's being sold on Skid Row, PCP, we grabbed 61 grams of that. Cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, an unknown substance, 209 grams of that. Marijuana and guns and then cash and vehicles. And some of the vehicles you look at are Mercedes-Benz, we see and other guys using a Bentley. These people are making a lot of money. they don't live on Skid Row or anywhere near Skid Row, but they exploit it, they're there. And that some of these tents that have been set up or storage for drugs being sold, it is not what it appears in some cases. I think that's one thing that Angelenos might not recognize even if they were to, let's say, somehow be near Skid Row or see those tents and things like that. But the MO, the modus operandi of these people who are going out there and targeting folks that are on Skid Row kind of blend in with the population and they almost like walk around as if they are one of the unhoused individuals. Absolutely, they try and blend into the environment so that they're not stopped by police in the area and that they don't draw attention to themselves. But the amount of money they're making and just the destruction of human lives that they're responsible for. And not just recently, but over a couple of generations in one case, father son situation. So you look at that, and four street gangs from LA were identified in this. But as we see, it's a multi-layered, multinational criminal enterprise, starting with the cartels, then through the, in the case of some other, like MacArthur Park, the Mexican Mafia, and then the local street gangs, and then street dealers subordinate to them. And this is a significant operation, but in general, open-air drug markets like this, it's almost like playing whack-a-mole. So how do you make sure that this doesn't happen again like this? Yeah, well, I mean, there's a number of ways to approach it. The easy way, I guess, where you get numbers but not really results is to arrest the users. And we don't do that. We go in and we try and be able to refer people to services to get them off the streets. But you have to go after the mid-level dealers who are out there on the streets and be able to take them down and do it continuously. And then you have to, and we did that with our federal partners, to go after the cartels, go after those that are bringing large quantities of these drugs to Los Angeles. And we've had some success in doing that as well, and that will continue. This is a lot of the stuff that the public doesn't see, especially they're so far removed from things like Skid Row. Another thing that you've been working on is cargo theft, and it continues to happen too. I almost liken it to like the Wild West when they were stopping these trains and robbing these trains. And really, some of that stuff is kind of happening today. It is, it is. I mean, you look at particularly the expanse of land that railroads go across the country to bring in goods from the port to points all over the US, Canada. But when you're in the desert and you've got miles and miles of stretch, there's an opportunity to be able to break into the cars and to be able to steal from them. They do the same in LA County here as they come into the train yards or leave the train yards with goods. We recently took down an operation working with our partners, our federal partners, the railroad police, several different entities there. That's really the benefit we have. We have tremendous relationships with federal, state and local partners. In this case, we took down a lot of high end shoes, Yeti cups and products like that. And it was, let me see, I got the numbers on that. 59 pallets of shoes, a million in stolen property, guys did search warrants, and there's a place called Shoes and Shoes in Whittier, and they took down and arrested the owner of that- So these are big organizations. Yeah. These are very big organizations, right? And they're taking the stuff stolen off and selling them in what appear to be legitimate stores that are in the marketplace for them, as well as online. Wow. All right, let's talk Dodgers. Okay, I love the fact you've got the Dodgers blue today. We tried to represent, we know you do. We know you represent. We wear LAPD blue every day. That's right. Dodger blue, and we're all one big team pulling together for a big win for the Dodgers. Yeah, what's your prediction? They're going to come back. They're down 2-0. They've been down before like this and been able to rally, particularly now coming home. I think they're going to be able to rally and get back in the series and be able to win it. We have faith. What's the security looking like? What's the what? What's the security looking like? Security's looking good. We've had a lot of practice doing this with the Dodgers, the parades the last two years, the victory parades, and all of the games and the excitement leading up to it. My ask would be for people who are going to the games, who are celebrating on the streets, celebrate, go Dodgers, but do it responsibly. Make sure you don't do anything that's going to hurt someone else. It's events like this, because we had World Cup, Now we have the postseason here with the Dodgers, and then we talk about the Olympics coming up. It really kind of showcases the LAPD and shows like they do this time and time again, and so you guys kind of have it down. It's like plug and play by now. Well, there's always factors that come up and threats that we become aware of, and behind the scenes we're doing things to protect everybody that nobody hopefully ever becomes aware of. But, yeah, it's something that we're pretty well practiced in the basics of it. We're always in a position to be able to bring in additional resources to be able to deal with whatever comes at that time. But again, the biggest part of this is working with the public, having open lines of communication and asking for the public's help and support in celebrating responsibly. Well, let's hope that at least tonight the biggest threat is the brewers. Yeah. But they're not gonna be a threat, are they? No, it's right now. All right, chief. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thanks for coming.