{"id":373778,"date":"2026-06-25T00:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/373778\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T00:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:36:12","slug":"ex-la-fire-chief-kristin-crowleys-latest-lawsuit-is-meritless-says-mayor-karen-bass-daily-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/373778\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley\u2019s latest lawsuit is \u2018meritless,\u2019 says Mayor Karen Bass \u2013 Daily News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has responded to a second lawsuit filed against her by former Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley, this one accusing the city\u2019s leader of defamation in comments made about Crowley\u2019s handling of the 2025 Palisades fire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court claims that Bass is maligning Crowley\u2019s reputation and cites a May 6 mayoral debate when Bass said, \u201cThe primary problem there was that the chief sent home 1,000 firefighters \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s office released a statement in response to the latest suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is another meritless lawsuit from a disgruntled individual who was removed from her position,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

But according to the lawsuit, after announcing her re-election candidacy, and after Bass\u2019 false statements about Crowley were proven to be untrue, Bass continued to put her personal interests and desire to win a second term ahead of the truth.<\/p>\n

Bass, 72, knew that her statements about the Palisades fire, the LAFD\u2019s resources and deployment decisions and those she made about Crowley were false, but the mayor continued making many of the same untrue statements again and again, the lawsuit alleges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were not mistakes, but instead were and continue to be part of a deliberate strategy to mislead the public and divert criticism of Bass\u2019 decisions in her bid to win reelection,\u201d according to the complaint.<\/p>\n

Bass\u2019 allegedly incorrect statements were made in her personal capacity as a political candidate and are not subject to the governmental immunity that may otherwise be held by politicians acting on the government\u2019s behalf, the suit further contends.<\/p>\n

This is the second lawsuit Crowley, 55, has filed in connection with Bass and the aftermath of the Palisades fire<\/a> that erupted on Jan. 7, 2025. In February, Crowley brought a retaliation suit against the city<\/a> a year after Bass removed her as LAFD chief<\/a>. Bass said a reason for Crowley\u2019s removal was her failure to pre-deploy firefighters the morning that the fire broke out. She also contended that Crowley refused to conduct an after-action report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has responded to a second lawsuit filed against her by former Los Angeles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7,4132,48,119534,52,51,1846,205,47,137,50,49,100,13,136],"class_list":["post-373778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-california","tag-karen-bass","tag-la","tag-la-fire-department","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lawsuit","tag-local-politics","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}