In one of his final acts as mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti stood alongside Kristen Crowley, whom he had appointed as the city’s first female fire chief, and announced a new bureau at the Fire Department.
The Bureau of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, created in November 2022, was supposed to spearhead recruitment of underrepresented groups, including women, who were less than 4% of firefighters at the time. The bureau was also supposed to make working for LAFD “safe and supportive” for all.
Instead, amid a maelstrom of budget cuts, a flurry of criticism from conservative media and the targeting of DEI by the Trump administration, Mayor Karen Bass has proposed folding the Equity Bureau into another part of the Fire Department.
Of nine “equity and inclusion” positions in the department, five were cut in Bass’ proposed budget for 2025-26, though the mayor’s office said that would not result in any layoffs.
“This was Karen Bass cowing to the Trump administration,” said Rebecca Ninburg, a former fire commissioner under Garcetti. “Chief Crowley was very proud of this, and they are basically eliminating this project during their installation of a whole new regime.”
Bass, who ousted Crowley in February, said that folding the Equity Bureau into the department’s Professional Standards Division has nothing to do with anti-DEI campaigns. The Fire Department remains committed to diversity, including the recruitment of more female firefighters, she said.
“That’s the beauty of living in L.A. I don’t need to placate anybody over diversity and inclusion,” she said in an interview Friday. “We are looking at doing some reorganization at that level. But we would never roll back the goals. We don’t have any reason to do that at all.”
The LAFD did not respond to a request for comment.
Conservative backlash against the Equity Bureau arose after the Jan. 7 fire that devastated Pacific Palisades and surrounding areas. A 2019 video resurfaced that featured Deputy Chief Kristine Larson — who now leads the Equity Bureau — talking about being a Black woman in the LAFD.
In the video, Larson said that residents want first responders who look like them, which she said can feel more comfortable during emergencies. She also seemed to denigrate her own ability to carry someone out of a burning building.
“He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire,” Larson said in the video, which went viral, with outlets like the New York Post and pundits like Bill Maher using it to point out “questionable budget priorities” in liberal cities.
Bass, in the Friday interview, said she was not familiar with the video.
A month before the Palisades fire, the city’s fire commission reported that departures of key personnel in the Equity Bureau had “compromised” its ability to perform many of its stated goals, including developing a “robust equity and inclusion framework.”
Larson declined to comment on the 2019 video or the dissolution of the Equity Bureau.
She touted the bureau’s work on mediation and reconciliation for lower-level disputes between firefighters. She said the bureau was also working on new grooming standards and updates to its racial equity plan.
The slim representation of women in the LAFD has not appreciably increased since the Equity Bureau’s formation, hovering at under 4% in 2023.
The LAFD is not alone in struggling to recruit female firefighters. Fewer than 5% of career firefighters in the U.S. are female, according to a 2018 national survey cited in a city report.
About 30% of L.A.’s firefighters were Latino in 2023, compared with 47% of the city’s population. About 11% of firefighters were Black, in a city that is 9% Black.
In a letter to the City Council in March, the Los Angeles City Stentorians, a group of Black firefighters, said the department under Crowley had seen an increase in reports of discrimination and harassment, along with an increase in discriminatory hiring practices.
Ninburg said she is concerned that the department will become less welcoming for women and for Latinos. The city may end up spending more on lawsuits filed by firefighters from marginalized groups, she said.
“These are not little tiny issues. These are huge issues,” she said. “It goes back to the status quo, which wasn’t working, which is why the Equity Bureau got created in the first place.”
At the same time that Bass is proposing cuts to the Equity Bureau, her budget calls for an overall increase in Fire Department workers.
To close a nearly $1-billion gap, Bass proposes laying off 1,650 city workers while adding 227 positions at the Fire Department. About half the new hires would be firefighters, in a department of just under 3,250 firefighters. The remaining new positions would include 25 new emergency medical technicians in addition to mechanics and others.
Crowley, who was also the LAFD’s first openly LGBTQ+ chief, asserted after the Palisades fire broke out that budget cuts had affected the LAFD’s ability to fight the fire. Bass and her team said the department’s budget had not been decreased and actually grew once employee raises were factored in.
Explaining her decision to remove Crowley as chief, Bass said she had not heard from Crowley, amid worsening wind forecasts, until after the fire broke out. She also questioned the chief’s deployment decisions.
Crowley remains with the LAFD as assistant chief of Operations Valley Bureau, with Ronnie Villanueva serving as the department’s interim chief.
Jimmie Woods-Gray, a member of the city’s fire commission, said that cutting the Equity Bureau is a necessary step in a tough budget year.
“It’s not going to impact the public and the safety of the people,” she said.
Times staff reporter David Zahniser contributed to this report.
