Former Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley has filed a defamation lawsuit against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, alleging that the Mayor repeatedly made false statements blaming Chief Crowley for decisions surrounding the January 2025 Palisades Fire in an effort to deflect criticism of her own leadership and budget decisions.

This is the second lawsuit Chief Crowley has filed that names Mayor Bass. Here is coverage of the earlier suit.

• Los Angeles Fire Chief Sues City Alleging Retaliation After Palisades Fire
• Former LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley Files Civil Claim Against Mayor Karen Bass

According to the new complaint, Chief Crowley served more than 26 years with the Los Angeles Fire Department, including as Fire Chief from March 2022 until Mayor Bass removed her from that position on February 21, 2025. The suit alleges that throughout her tenure as Fire Chief, Chief Crowley repeatedly warned Mayor Bass, the Board of Fire Commissioners, and the Los Angeles City Council that the department lacked sufficient staffing, apparatus, and funding to safely meet the City’s growing emergency response demands.  

The complaint recounts a series of budget requests submitted by Chief Crowley during 2024 seeking increased funding for staffing, fleet maintenance, wildfire suppression, dispatch operations, and technology. Instead, according to the lawsuit, Mayor Bass proposed reducing the LAFD’s operating budget, and the City ultimately adopted a budget that reduced operating funding by approximately $17.6 million while eliminating 61 positions, including personnel responsible for maintaining fire apparatus.  

Chief Crowley alleges she continued warning city officials that the reductions were affecting operational readiness. Among the reports cited in the complaint is a September 2024 budget request stating that maintenance positions deleted from the budget were “critical to provide maintenance to the Department’s fleet and reduce out of service time.” The report went on to say:

• The LAFD emergency fleet is in a constant state of disrepair attributable to years of deferred maintenance, deferred vehicle replacement, increased call volume, and the lack of resources for adequate staffing and replacement parts. Restoration of these positions will provide a minimum staffing level to maintain a basic level of readiness in the field which includes a minimum level of reserve apparatus.

Another report submitted in December 2024 warned:

• The Los Angeles City Fire Department (LAFD) is facing unprecedented operational challenges due to the elimination of critical civilian positions and a $7 million reduction in Overtime Variable Staffing Hours (V-Hours). These budgetary reductions have adversely affected the Department’s ability to maintain core operations, such as technology and communication infrastructure, payroll processing, training, fire prevention, and community education.
• The reduction in v-hours has severely limited the Department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires…

The complaint alleges those reports were presented to city officials and that their accuracy was never disputed before the Palisades Fire.  

The lawsuit further alleges that beginning January 2, 2025, the National Weather Service issued repeated warnings about the dangerous wind event expected on January 7. According to the complaint, Mayor Bass informed city officials she would be “out of state” but did not disclose to Chief Crowley that she would actually be traveling in Ghana during the anticipated weather event. The complaint alleges that while Bass was overseas, emergency management officials coordinated weather briefings attended by LAFD personnel and other city officials, and the LAFD followed its established pre-deployment procedures.  

Chief Crowley alleges the department pre-positioned 24 fire engines, three battalion command teams, five brush patrols, two water tenders, additional dispatchers, air operations personnel, and other resources totaling approximately 128 augmented personnel. The complaint also alleges that all operational front-line engines, trucks, and ambulances were staffed on the morning of January 7.  

The complaint notes that shortly after the Palisades Fire began, Mayor Bass’s office issued a press release praising the City’s preparedness efforts and describing the department’s pre-deployment strategy. It also alleges that Mayor Bass publicly credited the LAFD’s leadership during radio interviews from Ghana, stating:

• When we saw the wind warning, with the outstanding leadership from our fire department, we immediately moved. We know this is a historic event, and so we moved aggressively to make sure that we deployed resources right away in the high-risk areas. So we didn’t want to wait. We were proactive about that.

Mayor Bass also thanked “the leadership of Kristin Crowley and the Los Angeles Fire Department.”  

According to the complaint, public attention later shifted to questions about the Mayor’s overseas travel and prior reductions to the LAFD budget. Chief Crowley alleges that Mayor Bass then began publicly attributing responsibility for operational shortcomings to her.

The complaint alleges that Mayor Bass ultimately removed Chief Crowley as Fire Chief after publicly asserting that Crowley had failed to adequately prepare for the fire, refused to conduct an after-action report, and failed to utilize available firefighters and apparatus. Chief Crowley contends those statements were false and that they were made to shift blame for the City’s budget decisions.  

The lawsuit identifies several statements that Chief Crowley alleges were defamatory, including assertions that:

• She could have pre-deployed an additional 1,000 firefighters before the fire.
• Approximately 40 fire engines sat idle because she had sent firefighters home.
• She lied about reductions to the LAFD budget.
• She refused to participate in an after-action review.

Chief Crowley alleges that each of those statements was false. She contends the department lacked sufficient apparatus to safely deploy an additional 1,000 firefighters, that the 40 engines referenced by Mayor Bass were actually out of service because of mechanical problems, that the $17.6 million operating budget reduction is documented in City records, and that she never refused to participate in an after-action review.  

The complaint also relies on the LAFD’s October 8, 2025 After-Action Report concerning the Palisades Fire. According to the lawsuit, the report concluded that the department’s January 7 pre-deployment “went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.” The complaint also quotes the report as stating that 40 engines were unavailable because they were in the Supply and Maintenance Division repair yard due to mechanical issues and notes the report attributed the shrinking reserve fleet to declining mechanic staffing, increased apparatus wear, and related resource constraints.  

Chief Crowley further alleges that she submitted Government Tort Claims during 2025 demanding that Mayor Bass cease making false statements about her, and that she later filed a retaliation lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles. Despite those filings, the complaint alleges Mayor Bass continued repeating many of the same statements, including during a televised mayoral debate in May 2026, where Chief Crowley alleges Bass again asserted that she had sent 1,000 firefighters home and failed to properly pre-deploy resources.  

The lawsuit asserts a single cause of action for defamation. Chief Crowley alleges the statements falsely accused her of gross negligence, damaged her professional reputation, harmed her future employment opportunities, and were made with actual malice. She seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, and other relief. 

Shout out thank you to all who have written in about the suit. It was not available on Lexis (even as of today), and I had trouble accessing it from the LA Superior Court web site. I did not want to blog about it without a copy of the complaint in hand.