• Former Fire Chief Kristin Crowley sues Mayor Karen Bass, alleging she orchestrated a campaign of retaliation to shift blame for Los Angeles’ catastrophic Palisades fire.
• Crowley repeatedly warned of budget cuts and staffing shortages weakening firefighter readiness before the Jan. 7 blaze killing 12 and destroying thousands of homes.
• The lawsuit alleges Bass’s administration drafted a confidential memo detailing plans to protect the mayor from reputational harm and sought to alter the after-action report.

Former Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley is suing the city, claiming in a whistleblower lawsuit that Mayor Karen Bass “orchestrated a campaign of retaliation” to protect her own political future and paper over her failures during the most destructive fire in city history.

In the lawsuit, filed Monday in L.A. County Superior Court, Crowley and her attorneys allege Bass sought to shift blame for the way the city handled the catastrophic Palisades fire to Crowley amid mounting criticism of the mayor’s decision to attend a ceremony in Ghana on Jan. 7, the day the fire erupted. Bass, the suit alleges, left L.A. despite knowing of the potential severe winds and fire danger.

“She sought to avoid accountability by shifting blame and lying — including falsely claiming that she was not aware of the nationally anticipated weather event, falsely claiming that the LAFD’s budget was not cut, and falsely claiming that LAFD’s resources would have supported an additional 1,000...

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