LA mayoral rivals clash over public safety and the police chief but miss key issues

As Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman vie to become the next mayor of California’s largest city, they are sparring over the wrong issues regarding public safety, discussing it in terms that fail to illuminate the most important questions about the direction of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Start with the department’s top cop, Chief Jim McDonnell. 

Raman says McDonnell has “lost the confidence” of the city, an assertion for which she offers no real evidence. She says there‘s a perception that the LAPD is doing too much to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Both observations are, at best, debatable and, at worst, wrong. 

Bass, meanwhile, is responsible for McDonnell and has supported his efforts to stem attrition and rebuild the department’s ranks. 

She appointed him to a five-year term in 2024, with Raman joining 10 other council members who voted in support. Shortly after that, the first wave of President Donald Trump’s strategy to militarize immigration enforcement blasted into Los Angeles, ratcheting up the level of violence in other Democratic cities. 

That placed McDonnell and the LAPD in a delicate position: Department policy has long prohibited police officers from making stops based on suspicion of immigration status, a measure adopted in 1979 to protect all residents by encouraging witnesses and victims to come forward. 

But the LAPD also has an historic obligation to “protect and serve” all those who are in the city, regardless of race, orientation, immigration status — or even professional position. That means LAPD officers have sometimes found themselves protecting ICE officers from angry residents, a situation Raman and others have complained creates “bad optics” of local police seeming to side with ICE over immigrants.

That’s nonsense. ICE officers are doing dumb and counterproductive work in Los Angeles, and the mayor, council and chief have every responsibility to resist that work at the policy level. 

That does not mean allowing ICE officers to be assaulted, though. LAPD’s obligation to protect and serve extends to the hapless ICE agent who is here only because Trump’s ego requires a show of force.

Moreover, federal immigration authorities have the right to deport those who are in the country illegally. That does not mean the LAPD should lend a hand — it should not — but police officers cannot impede federal law. 

Marijuana enforcement provides a good analogy: Police officers in Los Angeles may not stop a Drug Enforcement Administration agent from enforcing federal drug laws, but that doesn’t mean the police are required to cuff every kid smoking a joint.

Whatever the merits of McDonnell’s leadership of the LAPD, his continued service should not rest on a false assumption that the LAPD should withhold protection from ICE agents to assure residents the department is not an agent of federal authority. ICE’s work is deplorable; leaving its agents at risk of harm is not the right response.

As to the claim that McDonnell does not deserve to continue in his job, that warrants a larger analysis than a campaign soundbite. 

The critical criteria for evaluating a chief of police are crime, the behavior of officers and the department’s response to allegations of misconduct. Are LAPD officers respecting the constitutional protections of those they arrest or otherwise encounter? And are those officers doing their work in ways that serve the public? 

In other words, are police obeying and enforcing the law, and doing so in ways that make the city safer? 

McDonnell has some significant points in his favor. Violent crime in Los Angeles is at historic lows: The city had 230 homicides in 2025, down 54 from the year before and the fewest of any year since 1966. 

Overall, violent crimes and property crimes were down. That is evidence of a city getting safer.

Meanwhile, however, LAPD officers increased their uses of force — firing their guns more than 45 times in 2025, a 70% increase, and leaving 14 people dead. 

Responding to Bass’ concern about the uptick in officer-involved shootings, McDonnell warned that every shooting would be “rigorously investigated, both internally as well as externally, through independent oversight bodies.” 

McDonnell’s statement is to be commended, and city leaders should hold him and his subordinates responsible for any violence committed by police, with the obvious understanding that some violence is inevitable and may be justifiable. 

Former Chief Bernard C. Parks used to say that the LAPD disciplines too many officers and fires too few. 

His point about leniency still stands: A chief cannot prevent every unwarranted use of force or inappropriate contact with the public, but the chief can — and must — set firm standards and hold officers to them.

The other issue that creeps into the discussion of policing is money, and there the mayoral campaign has tended to distort rather than clarify. Bass has called for more funding for the LAPD while Raman has objected — seeming to place the mayor in defense of the department and Raman as its critic. 

To put it simply, the right political response to criticism of the LAPD is not to cut the department’s budget. Throwing money at the LAPD also won’t solve its problems, but sometimes more officers are needed to do better work, and cutting budgets can result in more violence and misunderstanding, not less.

Budgets should not be used to punish or reward the LAPD. They should be tailored to fighting crime and holding police accountable for doing their important work within the strictures of the law and constitution.

To be clear, the right debate over public safety is not about whether Jim McDonnell should be fired or whether he or the LAPD has “lost the confidence” of the city. 

The real conversation starts with both mayoral candidates articulating a vision for the police department’s responsibilities. 

Then it moves to the work of civilian authorities to solidify that vision into a set of directions for the department. Once it has those directions, the LAPD and its chief should be held responsible for carrying them out — lawfully and effectively. 

A chief who carries out that mandate, who brings down crime and holds his (or her) officers accountable for genuinely protecting and serving the community should be rewarded. One who does not should be replaced.