{"id":488124,"date":"2026-10-07T14:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T14:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/488124\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T14:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T14:50:10","slug":"mayor-bass-continues-to-disparage-her-with-ill-will-says-ex-la-fire-chief-kristin-crowley-daily-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/488124\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Bass continues to disparage her with \u2018ill will,\u2019 says ex-LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley \u2013 Daily News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kristin Crowley<\/a> has responded to the city\u2019s motion to dismiss the second of two lawsuits<\/a> filed by the former Los Angeles fire chief, saying that Mayor Karen Bass continues to disparage her with \u201cill will\u201d and that the impact on her has been \u201cheartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her first Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed Feb. 20, Crowley, 55, alleges retaliation by the city<\/a> in violation of the Labor Code and retaliation in violation of the state Constitution in the aftermath of her termination in the wake of the deadly 2025 Palisades fire<\/a>. The city denies any retaliation took place and says the first suit should be tossed out as a result.<\/p>\n

Crowley\u2019s second suit, for defamation, was brought against Bass on June 23. In court papers filed Friday with Judge Kristin S. Escalante in advance of a Nov. 4 hearing, Crowley says in a sworn declaration that her termination has effectively demoted her three ranks and left her in the status of a regular LAFD long-term employee.<\/p>\n

\u201cBass\u2019 choice to use her well-funded political campaign to disparage me, a much lower-level city employee, and damage my reputation as a 26-year veteran of the LAFD is heartbreaking to me,\u201d Bass says.<\/p>\n

Crowley alleges Bass has chosen to voice with \u201cill will\u201d disparaging and false remarks about the former chief\u2019s work performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cBass has done so despite my repeated opposition to her prior false statements, my demonstration that her statements are false, my requests that she stop and despite that her statements are contradicted by the LAFD\u2019s official documents,\u201d according to Crowley.<\/p>\n

\"LAFDThen fire Chief Kristin Crowley speaks at LAFD Fire Station 88 on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024, the 30th anniversary of the Northridge earthquake. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News\/SCNG)<\/p>\n

In their court papers, Crowley\u2019s attorneys state that their client is suing Bass in her personal and not her mayoral capacity. The Crowley lawyers are asking that the Nov. 4 hearing be delayed until Dec. 3 so that they can do more discovery in opposition to the city\u2019s dismissal motion.<\/p>\n

In their anti-SLAPP motion, the 73-year-old Bass\u2019 attorneys state that Crowley\u2019s lawsuit is \u201can improper attempt to stifle and punish critical public discourse.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawyers\u2019 pleadings state that Crowley wants to hold Bass liable for a statement the city\u2019s leader made during a televised mayoral debate. But the Bass remark falls within the anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) statute\u2019s protections for any oral statement or writing made in a place open to the public or a public forum in connection with an issue of public interest, according to Bass\u2019 attorneys\u2019 court papers.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s anti-SLAPP law is intended to prevent people from using courts, and potential threats of a lawsuit, to intimidate those who are exercising their First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n

The challenged statement concerns the response of the LAFD and the city to the Palisades fire, a topic that remains the subject of public interest as well as widespread news coverage, public discussion and ongoing investigation, Bass\u2019 attorneys note in their court papers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBass falsely stated that \u2018the primary problem there was that the chief sent home 1,000 firefighters. \u2026 (there were) fire trucks that were out of use because she had sent the firefighters home. \u2026 there was supposed to have been deployment and pre-deployment in the area that did not happen,\u201d according to Crowley\u2019s defamation suit.<\/p>\n

\"LosLos Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman debate each other at the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association on Aug. 19, 2026. The pair are running against each other in the Los Angels mayors race. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News\/SCNG)<\/p>\n

But in their court papers, Bass\u2019 lawyers contend that in making the challenged statement, the mayor took part in the ongoing discussions regarding the Palisades fire and, thus, her statement was in connection with a matter of public interest.<\/p>\n

Crowley was removed as LAFD chief by Bass on Feb. 21, 2025, although she is still with the LAFD as an assistant chief in the Valley Bureau.<\/p>\n

Bass accused Crowley of leadership failures during the January 2025 windstorm that led to the deadly Palisades fire, and also accused the former fire chief of refusing to prepare an after-action report on the firefight. The mayor also accused Crowley of failing to deploy 1,000 firefighters who \u201ccould have been on duty\u201d the morning the fire erupted.<\/p>\n

Bass also contended in interviews that Crowley failed to inform her of the fire danger presented by forecasted Santa Ana winds \u2014 despite those warnings being widely publicized by the National Weather Service and in media reports for days in advance.<\/p>\n

Crowley in 2025 appealed her removal as chief to the City Council, but the council stood behind Bass, rejecting the appeal<\/a> in a 13-2 vote.<\/p>\n

The Palisades fire burned more than 23,000 acres, killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of structures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kristin Crowley has responded to the city\u2019s motion to dismiss the second of two lawsuits filed by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7,1312,4132,48,119534,52,51,1846,205,47,137,50,49,100,13,136],"class_list":["post-488124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-california","tag-courts","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\/488124","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=488124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}