Bass, Garcia won’t discuss McDonnell’s vetting process, record as LBPD chief

In Jim McDonnell’s half-decade as chief of the Long Beach Police Department, settlements and jury findings related to excessive force by officers spiked, costing the city over $5 million per year on average, although officers were almost never held to account.

McDonnell also had his officers stopping people on public streets for taking photos. He claimed literally no public records existed related to a hundred enforcement actions against medical marijuana dispensaries. On at least one occasion he provided the city council with false information.

If Karen Bass knew any of that — or whether she vetted his time in Long Beach at all — she isn’t saying. And although she is now in receipt of the information, she won’t comment on whether what she’s learned disturbs her or whether she expects better of McDonnell now that she has put him in charge of the LAPD.

On October 14, Random Lengths News contacted Mayor Bass’s office about an October article documenting the McDonnell era in Long Beach, along with questions concerning McDonnell’s vetting process and whether past actions such as providing false information to city council and failing to discipline officers for excessive force are of concern to her. Over the next month-and-a-half, RLn followed up numerous times and was twice asked by staff to resend the article and questions. But Bass never responded.

RLn also sought comment from U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, who was a Long Beach councilmember during McDonnell’s tenure as chief. As part of Mayor Bass’s October 4 press release about McDonnell’s appointment, Garcia called McDonnell “an excellent pick” for LAPD chief, “a leader of the highest ethical character,” and claiming “he earned the respect and trust of the community and his department.”

RLn submitted questions to Garcia asking whether Bass sought his counsel concerning McDonnell’s time in Long Beach — and if so, what information he provided beyond, including whether he noted any negative aspects of McDonnell’s chiefdom. Garcia was also asked whether the actions documented in the above-noted article comport with the actions of “a leader of the highest ethical character” who “earned the respect and trust of the community.”

Garcia did not reply.

As RLn noted in October, McDonnell provided the Long Beach City Council with misinformation in his effort to get the city to disallow medpot dispensaries. He also implicitly threatened to divert “resources in the gang detail and the enforcement of realignment, prohibited possessors, property crime, and human trafficking” if Long Beach continued to allow dispensaries to operate.

The culture under McDonnell was such that officers regularly employed what one judge decried as “strong-arm tactics to knock down the doors of the collective without a warrant and without exigent circumstances.” This included routinely smashing dispensary surveillance cameras, “deprivation[s] of property without due process of law” that are “violat[ions of] the Fifth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

During one 2012 raid, police failed to locate all the surveillance cameras and digital video recorders, one officer stepped on the neck of Dorian Brooks, a dispensary worker who had fully complied with police instructions and was lying face-down. The assault against Brooks cost the City of Long Beach a $50,000 settlement.

The offending officer, John Gibbs, was one of the only two officers disciplined for excessive force during McDonnell’s time as chief.