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Former Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley has lodged a claim against the city, accusing Mayor Karen Bass of engaging in a “smear campaign” against her.
Crowley “demands that Bass immediately cease and desist her defamatory and illegal public smear campaign of Crowley, retract her false statements about Crowley, and apologize for lying about Crowley,” the filing obtained by Fox News Digital declares.
She is seeking damages of greater than $25,000.
LA MAYOR BASS DELAYS PALISADES FIRE REPORT AT DOJ’S REQUEST AMID PROBE
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, right, and Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, left, address the media at a press conference on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2025. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
“Kristin Crowley, a 25-year veteran of the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), has filed a tort claim alleging that Mayor Karen Bass orchestrated a campaign of misinformation, defamation, and retaliation to protect her political image while
concealing the extent to which she undermined public safety,” the document declares.
In a statement obtained by Fox News Digital, counsel to the mayor, David Michaelson, said, “We will not comment on an ongoing personnel claim. Mayor Bass is focused on the city’s preparations for the hottest temperatures of the year and the potential for regional fire danger.”
After fires ravaged the region in California earlier this year, Bass announced that she had removed Crowley from the fire chief post.
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Flames from the Palisades Fire burn a building on Sunset Boulevard amid a powerful windstorm on Jan. 8, 2025, in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Calif. (Apu Gomes/Getty Images)
At the press conference in February, the mayor said that the Fire Commission president had told Crowley to conduct an after-action report regarding the fires, but Crowley “refused.” Bass also said, “We all know that a thousand firefighters that could’ve been on duty on the morning the fires broke were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch. These actions required her removal.”
Crowley’s filing pushes back, labeling those claims as false.
The former fire chief unsuccessfully appealed to the city council to reverse the mayor’s move to oust her from the role.
“Integrity, truthfulness, and serving others before self have guided me throughout my career. As the Fire Chief, for nearly three years, I advocated for the proper funding, staffing and infrastructure upgrades to better support and protect our Firefighters, and by extension, our communities,” Crowley said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital.
LOS ANGELES MAYOR BASS SAYS ‘HELL YEAH’ SHE REGRETS GHANA TRIP AFTER WILDFIRES RAVAGED CITY
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass prepares to leave the scene where city workers clear a large homeless encampment behind a public storage facility along the San Diego (405) Freeway at the end of Oxnard Street in Van Nuys on July 31, 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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“The lies, deceit, exaggerations and misrepresentations need to be addressed with the only thing that can refute them – the true facts. As Firefighters, we run towards uncertainty and are willing to risk it all. Doing the right thing even when it is hard, is always the right decision and that is why I am continuing to fight for the resources our Firefighters need to keep us all safe,” she noted.