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John McKinney speaks at a news conference at the Los Angeles Police Protective League in May. <\/p>\n
(Kayla Bartkowski \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
McKinney beams with pride while discussing his hardscrabble East Coast upbringing \u2014 whether praising his sister\u2019s hustle for working \u201csix days a week,\u201d or refusing to turn in his Yankees hat in a Dodger blue city. In interviews, he\u2019ll sneak in a verbal jab at Roy, then finish the insult with a wry smirk. McKinney notes he\u2019s been a prosecutor almost as long as his 34-year-old opponent has been alive.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s never tried a case,\u201d McKinney said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re running for city attorney overseeing trial lawyers and having to make high-impact decisions on whether to settle a case for $20 million or not, you should at least know what it\u2019s like to go through a jury trial.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roy was part of the team that secured a $17-billion settlement from Meta<\/a> in a landmark case this year, and has tried many cases decided by judges, rather than jury panels. She\u2019s pushed back on McKinney\u2019s barbs, noting he has no experience handling civil cases, a core component of the job.<\/p>\n McKinney has focused his campaign on lessening the city\u2019s homelessness crisis by leveraging people into treatment, tackling quality-of-life crimes, and reducing the city\u2019s out-of-control legal costs.<\/a> <\/p>\n But he faces an uphill battle. Roy, a deputy state attorney general, has been campaigning for more than a year and raised more than twice as much money as McKinney. With the backing of both the county\u2019s Democratic Party and the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter, Roy won June\u2019s primary easily, outpacing McKinney by 15 percentage points. Both finished far ahead of City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto.<\/a><\/p>\n Marissa Roy, a deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice, is running against John McKinney to become L.A.\u2019s next city attorney.<\/p>\n (Gary Coronado\/For The Times)<\/p>\n Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman leads a strong coalition of law enforcement support for McKinney, who has also been endorsed by four former city attorneys, two prior district attorneys and several City Council members, including Traci Park. <\/p>\n McKinney has emphasized the word \u201cDemocrat\u201d in his ads, a nod to Roy\u2019s attempts to cast him as the preferred choice of Republicans who won\u2019t stand up to the Trump administration if elected. Although McKinney rubbed elbows with Republicans during efforts to recall then-Dist. Atty. George Gasc\u00f3n and employed fundraisers who worked with Trump, he says he \u201cdespises\u201d the president and was disgusted by immigration raids in the city last year. <\/p>\n McKinney thinks Roy\u2019s emphasis on fighting Trump speaks to a misunderstanding of the job. Across the country, it has been state attorneys general, not city attorneys, who have spearhead litigation against the White House, said McKinney, who dismissed the partisan attacks as a \u201cmisleading smear campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHer lack of management experience and jury trial experience has not gone unnoticed by voters and her platform of wanting to turn the city attorney\u2019s office into the country\u2019s largest public interest law firm is out of alignment with the issues important to voters: public safety, homelessness and protecting taxpayer dollars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Long before he was concerned about winning an elected office, McKinney was simply worried about survival.<\/p>\n The youngest of seven children, McKinney lost his mother to cancer when he was only 2. His father passed away unexpectedly three years later. His oldest sister, Ora, was recently divorced with three kids of her own but took in McKinney and his sister. He remained especially close to Ora \u2014 whom he described as his \u201cmother, father and best friend\u201d \u2014 until she passed away last year.<\/p>\n With his caretaker working nearly round the clock, McKinney said, he easily could have run in the streets with friends caught up in the crack cocaine boom of the 1980s. But McKinney said his sister\u2019s determination inspired him to choose a better path.<\/p>\n \u201cMy sister made me believe there was really no limit to what I could do in life if I worked hard enough for it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n McKinney isn\u2019t seeking sympathy, but believes sharing his backstory shows he\u2019s \u201clived a life that mirrors a lot of the adversity Angelenos face every day.\u201d<\/p>\n For much of his career in L.A., McKinney was seen as one of the district attorney\u2019s office\u2019s premier trial lawyers. He said he had no interest in management or politics until Gasc\u00f3n was elected in 2020. McKinney was one of several prosecutors to publicly criticize<\/a> and sue Gasc\u00f3n. His involvement in the failed bid to recall Gasc\u00f3n put him in a political spotlight for the first time. He frequently spoke at recall events \u2014 which sometimes overlapped with rallies against Gov. Gavin Newsom and promoted conservative causes \u2014 and later joined the crowded field<\/a> vying to replace Gasc\u00f3n in 2024. <\/p>\n Colleagues said McKinney has a history of being able to reach across ideological and cultural aisles. Bobby Grace, a veteran prosecutor who has worked with McKinney for decades, said he had a knack for getting people to take risks to take the stand in important cases.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s where he made his reputation as a good trial lawyer,\u201d Grace said. \u201cTo be successful, particularly in gangs, you\u2019ve got to be able to convince witnesses who don\u2019t want to come forward, and I think that was really his strength.\u201d<\/p>\n Although he failed to gain traction in the race to unseat Gasc\u00f3n, finishing far behind Hochman, he caught the future district attorney\u2019s eye and the two became allies. When Hochman took office, he put McKinney in charge of specialized prosecutions, giving him oversight of a wide range of cases, including cop killings, juvenile crimes, gang homicides and child abuse.<\/p>\n McKinney said he wasn\u2019t even thinking about getting into the city attorney race until the middle of January, when a number of people approached him about entering.<\/p>\n City attorney candidate John McKinney, left, walks through Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles on July 1.<\/p>\n (Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n By March, McKinney was scrambling to get a campaign together, and Hochman was quick to lend the fundraisers and managers who helped him oust Gasc\u00f3n. <\/p>\n He soon ascended from nonfactor to legitimate contender. Frustrated with ballooning legal costs and her handling of a department data breach, the city\u2019s powerful police union abandoned Feldstein Soto and backed McKinney<\/a>. Independent expenditures \u2014 political interest groups that can spend unlimited amounts in campaigns if they don\u2019t coordinate with candidates \u2014 doled out $3 million to support McKinney. <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792760889_15_.jpeg\")
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