BREAKING: LA Mayor FIRES Fire Chief…or Did She?

I have to admit, I was expecting the knives to come out, but not like this.

Not fifteen minutes ago – so that would be about 8 Central – I was watching a Jake Tapper interview with Kristen Crowley, the LAFD Fire Chief.

She was being flat-out honest about the shortages they’ve worked under…

…and I found myself sympathizing with her. I didn’t see it as ‘eating each other alive’ anymore, especially as I’d watched her earlier interview with a local news station. The reporter had pressed the chief right out of the gate, ‘Did they fail you?’ referring to the massive budget cuts that her department has been laboring under. The water that was supposed to be in the hydrants.

And the chief, to her credit, says ‘yes.’

That ‘yes’ got her fired by Mayor Karen ‘I Love Ghana in the Winter‘ Bass shortly thereafter.

YHGTBFKM Then again, I am not surprised.

Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley was fired by Mayor Karen Bass on Friday afternoon, a source close to the chief’s office told DailyMail.com.

‘Kristin was summoned by Bass this afternoon, about 4pm. She came back from that meeting, hugged her staff goodbye and left. She said she was fired,’ the source said.

The alleged booting follows Crowley lashing out against the Mayor’s cuts to her department, in an interview with a local Fox TV station around 12pm Friday.

‘My message is the fire department needs to be properly funded,’ the Chief said. ‘It’s not.’

‘Did they fail you?’ Fox LA’s Gigi Graciette asked. ‘Yes,’ Crowley replied.

The Fire Department (LAFD) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A second source close to Bass’ office told DailyMail.com that they were aware Crowley ‘was called to the office’ this afternoon, but did not know the outcome of the Mayor and Chief’s meeting.

A retired senior LAFD official told DailyMail.com that he was shocked by Crowley’s comments in her TV interview.

HOLY CRAP

As all hell’s breaking loose at the news, Mayor Bass’s office is sending out panicked messages ‘NO, I DIN!!!!’

Have you ever seen such a s**t show?

I have no doubt Bass fired her…and then had an ‘OMG WTF I DO?!?’ moment, totally resulting in an even more excruciatingly cringe statement.

I’m sure Crowley doesn’t want to have to walk out on the department in the middle of this (and frankly, leave it to that Assistant Chief? Um…no.). I can bet she wants to see this thing finished, and she’s not going to abandon her troops.

Don’t forget, as Ed posted earlier (and more stories have come out), on top of the close to $18M Crowley department lost last year, Bass had just sent a memo demanding another $49M in fire department cuts right before she took herself off to Africa for that jaunt. And the hills around the city exploded in flames.

I’m going to reiterate my support for the working-class slobs here. Crowley’s department is at the bottom of a very well-fed, very well-paid food chain. Her firefighters, however DEI the course they take to get there, can only do what they do with what they’re given from the brahims occupying the heights. Like the lost frickin’ water district head,  Janisse Quiñones, who pulls down $750K a year but couldn’t begin to tell you how the hydrants gravity feed water from the tanks. Whose water district is in charge of the reservoirs that ensure those hydrants stay hydrating, but who is not obligated to inform the fire chief when there’s no water in the auxiliary reservoir that supplies them?

What in the actual furk?!

From everything I’ve seen and read, Crowley’s firefighting teams – undermanned, bedeviled by problems they didn’t cause, and tortured by Mother Nature at every turn – have performed magnificently and maintained a tremendous amount of compassion in the middle of an impossible, heartbreaking, hopeless task.

She has been a fire CHIEF in the worst possible circumstances. When the world is on fire around you, the only ones you can rely on are yourselves and the LAFD has stepped up.

Yes, the personnel of the Los Angeles Fire Department have been failed miserably by the mayor, who used their budget as a cash cow for other social programs, and by the governor, whose state budget slashed at the programs that do the groundwork to prevent these conflagrations and provide extra help when they flare up. And the LAFD has been left to stand alone by the heads of the other city departments that are supposed to work in concert for the citizens of LA in good times and in bad…and in God awful. 

There are people who need to answer for this, but it’s not the currently rehired Fire Chief of Los Angeles.

I think everyone knows where to start.

In the meantime, Mayor Bass – try to keep the frickin’ water on, will you?