LOS ANGELES, CA – Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell has become a central dispute in the Nov. 3 race for mayor, with incumbent Karen Bass backing him and City Councilmember Nithya Raman saying she would replace him.
The disagreement was on display at a televised mayoral debate Tuesday, Oct. 13, and drew a public response from McDonnell on Wednesday, Oct. 14. The Los Angeles City Clerk’s Elections Division certified Bass and Raman as the two candidates for mayor in the 2026 General Municipal Election.
Raman says McDonnell has not met the moment, pointing to the department’s response to federal immigration raids. Bass says removing a chief close to the 2028 Olympic Games would put the city at risk.
The dispute has also pulled in the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union for rank-and-file officers, which is backing Bass and spending heavily against Raman.
Raman says the chief has lost the city’s trust
At the debate, Raman said she wants to replace the police chief. “I believe that he’s lost the trust of Angelenos, especially in light of the ICE raids,” she said.
She also said removing a chief is not a unilateral decision by the mayor and depends on other decision-making bodies. Under the City Charter, the police chief serves a five-year term and the Board of Police Commissioners can remove the chief.
The department’s own position on immigration enforcement is set out in a June 2025 statement from McDonnell. In it, he said the LAPD is not involved in civil immigration enforcement and will not assist or take part in mass deportations or try to determine a person’s immigration status. The statement also says department policy since 1979 has barred officers from initiating action solely to determine someone’s immigration status.
Bass defends the chief she selected
Bass chose McDonnell in 2024. In announcing the selection, she said she picked him so the city would be prepared for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
After City Council confirmation, Bass took part in his swearing-in in November 2024 as the department’s 59th chief. The Council confirmed him 11-2.
At the debate, Bass said the city is “640 days away from the largest sporting event to ever take place, a major national security event.” She told Raman, “I don’t think you have any idea about what it takes to identify a police chief.”
A Bass campaign spokesperson, Alex Stack, said in a statement that “this is yet another example of Nithya Raman having no core beliefs.”
Raman’s timeline for a replacement shifts
Raman’s statements about when she would replace McDonnell have changed over the past two weeks. In a television interview last week, she said she expected to replace him in 2030, after he completes his first five-year term.
Hours later, she issued a statement saying she expects to replace him before the end of his term, which concludes in late 2029. “Chief McDonnell is Mayor Bass’s police chief,” the statement said, adding that she would seek a chief who can keep Angelenos safe and restore trust with immigrant communities.
She also promised a careful, orderly transition with the Police Commission. At the debate, she did not say whether she would make a change before the Olympics.
Video remarks added to the controversy
Raman also faced criticism last week over a campaign video in which her remarks were read as aimed at Bass and McDonnell. She later said the video was improperly edited, denied she was referring to either of them and said she had it pulled.
McDonnell called the episode disappointing and said he could not be distracted by it.
McDonnell defends the department’s protest response
During a regular morning television appearance Wednesday, McDonnell said he found it problematic to hear criticism of the department’s response to civil unrest from someone “who wasn’t there.”
He defended the response to the June 2025 protests over federal immigration enforcement, saying officers acted appropriately when crowds threw bottles, bricks, Molotov cocktails and fireworks. He said 52 officers were injured, with injuries ranging from concussions to hearing loss.
McDonnell said those conditions made it necessary to use tear gas on crowds, something he said the department had not done in decades. The department published information about its handling of the demonstrations in a June 2025 news release and issued a separate statement on the June 6 federal enforcement activities that preceded the protests.
After-action report went to the Police Commission
The department’s 62-page after-action report on the June 2025 protests became public in August. The Board of Police Commissioners’ Aug. 11 agenda listed the report, with a recommendation that the board approve it.
According to initial reports on the document, officers made 435 arrests, mostly for failure to disperse, and more than 1,500 officers were deployed on some days. The same reports say officers used 2,431 less-lethal projectile rounds and 35 tear gas canisters over nine days of protests.
The city spent more than $17 million on officers for the protests, including more than $12 million in overtime, according to initial reports.
Police union backs Bass and targets Raman
The Protective League campaigned against Bass in her first mayoral race in 2022 but is now supporting her. Its spending against Raman has included millions of dollars in attack ads, according to the information available Friday. Raman has said she declined contributions from the organization in the past.
Earlier this year, union president Richard Mendoza wrote in the league’s monthly magazine that the Democratic Socialists of America, which has endorsed Raman, posed a threat to the union’s members.
In an Oct. 7 statement, the league said Raman “has now amplified those threats and further endangered our members” and “has no business leading Los Angeles.”
Pay and crime data also divide the candidates
Raman voted against the 2023 LAPD contract, which raised officer pay by about 20% over four years at a cost of $994 million. The Council approved it 12-3. Bass emphasized officer pay raises at the debate, along with enforcement of encampments near schools.
Raman also said the public has less access to neighborhood-level crime statistics and officer-involved shooting data. Bass said the LAPD changed how it compiles the data and committed to releasing it.
The department’s COMPSTAT citywide profile for Sept. 13 to Oct. 10 compares homicide, person and property crime counts with prior periods and year-to-date trends.
Runoff election is Nov. 3
In the June 8 primary, Bass received 34.3% of the vote, Raman 29% and Spencer Pratt 25.5%. A recent poll showed Raman with a slight lead, with about a third of voters undecided; a poll is a snapshot of voter preferences during a specific period and not a forecast of the result.
Voters will decide the runoff Nov. 3. The next mayor will have a role in whether McDonnell stays, but any move to remove him would go through the Board of Police Commissioners under the City Charter.
