The Los Angeles City Council on Friday confirmed Jim McDonnell as the city’s 59th police chief in a split 11-2 vote, and he was later officially sworn in before a packed room of city leaders.
While several council members praised Mayor Karen Bass’ choice of a respected and experienced attorney to lead the department, the lack of unanimous approval underscored ongoing concerns about McDonnell’s record on immigration as President-elect Donald Trump returns to his office.
McDonnell, who has made few public appearances since his appointment, made his strongest comments yet on guaranteeing the department would not participate in federal immigration enforcement.
“LAPD will not assist with mass deportations. Los Angeles is a city of immigrants and I know immigrants are being disparaged right now,” McDonnell told the City Council, striking a more decisive tone than he did when answering some of the same questions at a meeting. previous committee hearing. “My job is to protect everyone in Los Angeles and build trust, and that’s what I plan to do.”
After the new chief’s personal swearing-in, Bass said she was “so grateful for the way he handled everything.”
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“He heard everything people said. And to me, that’s just emblematic of the kind of chef he’s going to be,” she said. A public swearing-in ceremony is expected to take place next week.
Councilors Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martínez cast votes against McDonnell, while Kevin de León and Heather Hutt were absent.
In response to a question about how he will ensure that all officers under his command will comply with the department’s immigration rules, McDonnell said, “It’s very clear what our policy is.”
“Accountability is actually the basis of trust, and we are accountable to the rule of law and to the policies of this organization,” he said.
When asked about a hypothetical scenario in which LAPD officers had stopped someone in the back of a police car and asked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to turn them over, McDonnell responded that his officers would not comply.
Most of the opposition has focused on McDonnell’s past willingness to allow immigration authorities into the nation’s largest prison system, which he did while serving as L.A. County sheriff from 2014 to 2018. Allowing federal agents to target prisoners for deportation, critics say, has led to the forced separation of “thousands of families.”
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McDonnell said he had evolved in the decade since he was sheriff, but argued his record was misunderstood. He pointed to statistics showing that the number of detainees released to immigration authorities fell to 820 in the final year of his term, down from more than 7,800 in 2013, the year before his election. The number of U-Visas, which provide protection to immigrants who are victims of crimes sponsored by the department, also increased during his tenure.
The council vote on the LAPD chief was unusual. McDonnell’s two immediate predecessors, Michel Moore and Charlie Beck, were each confirmed unanimously.
Soto-Martínez said in an interview before the vote that he would stick with his “no” vote from last week’s Public Safety Committee meeting, where he questioned McDonnell about his record on immigration and his views on traffic enforcement.
Soto-Martínez, whose district extends from Echo Park to Hollywood, said he remained concerned about the new county chief’s “history of working with ICE and expanding some of its policies.”
“I don’t have any questions today, but I’m voting no,” he said.
The council also approved McDonnell’s annual salary of $450,000. It was reduced from the original salary proposal of $507,509, prompting criticism as the city was in financial difficulty.
While McDonnell sat before the City Council, hundreds of activists gathered Friday morning for a rally in front of City Hall calling for a new “sanctuary city” law that would ban city staff and resources from being used in federal immigration enforcement.
Many clutched signs reading “Trump out of LAPD” and “McDonnell is anti-immigrant,” while a band played cumbia and banda music from the back of a flatbed truck.
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“Sheriff McDonnell does not deserve or have the trust of the community he is sworn to protect,” Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network said in a statement.
The council vote on McDonnell was preceded by a fiery public comment period, with about 85 speakers split between supporters and opponents.
One speaker said she feared for the safety of children in her West Side neighborhood and said she supported McDonnell, who she said will “help restore peace, safety and tranquility to our city.”
Like others who supported McDonnell, her comments were met with a bit of applause and cheers.
Andrés Dae Keun Kwon, a senior policy adviser at the American Civil Liberties Union, said “thousands of families” have been separated thanks to the Sheriff Department’s good relationship with federal immigration authorities.
Pastor Stephen Cue Jn-Marie, founder of Creating Justice LA, called McDonnell’s appointment “a spit in the face” after he was voted out of office by LA County residents after one term as sheriff. “You want to pay this guy $500,000 a year, and we have a budget deficit?”
Some Latino establishment community and political figures expressed disappointment that Bass did not select Robert “Bobby” Arcos, a former assistant chief of the LAPD who would have been the first Latino leader in the department’s long history. In a list of finalists presented to Bass by the police commission, McDonnell ranked third behind Arcos and Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides, who is Black.
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At a press conference after his nomination, McDonnell raised questions about whether he would cooperate with Trump’s deportation efforts.
“Any talk about mass raids or police involvement in those kinds of things – we don’t do those kinds of things,” McDonnell said. “We would be alienating a large part of our population, a large part of our community, by doing something like that. So it wouldn’t make sense for us to do that.”
The new chief added, “We are here to keep everyone safe in all communities across our city, and the way we do that is by fostering trust.”
Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
