LAPD report says confusion hampered Palisades Fire response
The Los Angeles Police Department has released a report that identifies several shortcomings in its response to the devastating Palisades fire, including communication breakdowns, inconsistent record-keeping and poor coordination at times with other agencies — most notably the city’s Fire Department.
The after-action report called the January blaze a “once in a lifetime cataclysmic event” and praised the heroic actions of many officers, but said the LAPD’s missteps presented a “valuable learning opportunity” with more climate-related disasters likely looming in the future.
LAPD leaders released the 92-page report and presented the findings to the Police Commission at the civilian oversight panel’s public meeting Tuesday.
The report found that while the Fire Department was the lead agency, coordination with the LAPD was “poor” on Jan. 7, the first day of the fire. Though personnel from both agencies were working out of the same command post, they failed to “collectively establish a unified command structure or identify shared objectives, missions, or strategies,” the report said.
Uncertainty about who was in charge was another persistent issue, with more confusion sown by National Guard troops that were deployed to the area. Department leaders were given no clear guidelines on what the guard’s role would be when they arrived, the report said.
The mix-ups were the result of responding to a wildfire of unprecedented scale, officials said. At times the flames were advancing at 300 yards a minute, LAPD assistant chief Michael Rimkunas told the commission.
“Hopefully we don’t have to experience another natural disaster, but you never know,” Rimkunas said, adding that the endeavor was “one of the largest and most complex traffic control operations in its history.”
Between Jan. 11 and Jan. 16, when the LAPD’s operation was at its peak, more than 700 officers a day were assigned to the fire, the report said.
The report found that officials failed to maintain a chronological log about the comings and goings of LAPD personnel at the fire zone.
“While it is understandable that the life-threatening situation at hand took precedence over the completion of administrative documentation,” the report said, “confusion at the command post about how many officers were in the field “resulted in diminished situational awareness.”
After the fire first erupted, the department received more than 160 calls for assistance, many of them for elderly or disabled residents who were stuck in their homes — though the report noted that the disruption of cell service contributed to widespread confusion.
The communication challenges continued throughout the day, the report found.
Encroaching flames forced authorities to move their command post several times. An initial staging area, which was in the path of the evacuation route and the fire, was consumed within 30 minutes, authorities said.
But because of communication breakdowns caused by downed radio and cellphone towers, dispatchers sometimes had trouble reaching officers in the field and police were forced to “hand deliver” important paper documents from a command post to its staging area on Zuma Beach, about 20 miles away.
Several commissioners asked about reports of journalists being turned away from fire zones in the weeks that followed the fire’s outbreak.
Assistant Chief Dominic Choi said there was some trepidation about whether to allow journalists into the fire-ravaged area while authorities were still continuing their search for bodies of fire victims.
Commissioner Rasha Gerges Shields said that while she had some concerns about the LAPD’s performance, overall she was impressed and suggested that officers should be commended for their courage. The department has said that dozens of officers lost their homes to the fires.
The report also recommended that the department issue masks and personal protective equipment after there was a shortage for officers on the front lines throughout the first days of the blaze.
The Palisades fire was one of the costliest and most destructive disasters in city history, engulfing nearly 23,000 acres, leveling more than 6,000 structures and killing 12 people. More than 60,000 people were evacuated. The deaths of five people within L.A. city limits remain under investigation by the LAPD’s Major Crimes Division and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The LAPD reports details how at 11:15 a.m., about 45 minutes after the first 911 calls, the call was made to issue a citywide tactical alert, the report said. The department stayed in a heightened state of alert for 29 days, allowing it to draw resources from other parts of the city, but also meaning that certain calls would not receive a timely police response.
As the flames began to engulf a nearby hillside, more officers began responding to the area, including a contingent that had been providing security at a visit by President Trump.
Initially, LAPD officers operated in largely a rescue- and traffic-control role. But as the fire wore on, police began to conduct crime suppression sweeps in the evacuation zones where opportunistic burglars were breaking into homes they knew were empty.
In all, 90 crimes were reported in the fire zone, including four crimes against people, a robbery and three aggravated assaults, 46 property crimes, and 40 other cases, ranging from a weapons violation to identity theft. The department made 19 arrests.
The new report comes weeks after the city of Los Angeles put out its own assessment of the fire response — and on the heels of federal prosecutors arresting and charging a 29-year-old Uber driver with intentionally setting a fire Jan. 1 that later grew into the Palisades fire.
The LAPD’s Major Crimes and Robbery-Homicide units also worked with the ATF to investigate the fire’s cause.
