McDonnell

The chief spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department has resigned amid accusations from the region’s top federal prosecutor that her office was leaking information, according to three sources familiar with the matter but not cleared to speak publicly.

Jennifer Forkish, the LAPD’s public information director, said she left the department Thursday at the request of Chief Jim McDonnell but vehemently denied making any unauthorized disclosures.

“Any suggestion that I have ever shared or leaked information to the media is categorically false,” she said in a statement. “No one in the Department, including the Chief has ever raised or discussed this baseless allegation with me, because it simply never happened. Anyone claiming otherwise is lying.”

The three law enforcement sources said the chief’s concerns about Forkish’s overall performance had been mounting, and that pressure Tuesday from acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli may have prompted her ouster.

The drama began the prior evening after a Times reporter reached out to an official at the U.S. Attorney’s office to inquire about plans to schedule a news conference related to the Palisades fire.

Flanked by McDonnell and other law enforcement leaders, Essayli announced at a briefing on Wednesday that authorities had arrested and charged a 29-year-old Uber driver with intentionally sparking one of the most destructive fires in California history.

Before the media event, according to the three sources who had been briefed on the matter, Essayli called LAPD senior staff and demanded to know who in the department had tipped the paper off to the news conference, which had not yet been officially scheduled when The Times asked about it.

It wasn’t immediately clear why Forkish was suspected of revealing details about the news conference, which federal authorities announced to members of the media via email at 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Forkish had already left work that afternoon when McDonnell summoned her back to his office at LAPD headquarters for a meeting with him and Assistant Chief Dominic Choi, she told The Times. McDonnell did not reference a call with Essayli during the meeting, telling Forkish only that he did not share her long-term vision for the department’s public relations strategy, she said.

She said the conversation revolved around the difference of opinion about the department’s overall media strategy, adding “there has never been any conversation with me regarding the possibility of a leak with anyone from the LAPD.”

Choi would not address any phone conversation between LAPD leadership and Essayli. He told The Times he could not discuss Forkish’s case due to confidentiality around personnel matters but confirmed she submitted her letter of resignation on Thursday morning.

“We don’t wish any ill will or anything for her,” he said in a brief telephone interview. “We thank her for her service and everything she’s done and for her time with the department.”

McDonnell did not respond to a phone call and email seeking comment on Thursday. Inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s office and Mayor Karen Bass also went unreturned.

Forkish expressed gratitude for her time with the LAPD.

“After much thought, I’ve decided to step down from my role to pursue new opportunities,” she wrote in a statement. “I do so with immense pride in what my team and I accomplished together. We told the hard stories with honesty and balance, supported our officers and our city in moments of crisis, and built a foundation of professionalism that I’ll always be proud of.”

For months, word has circulated in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles that Essayli — a Trump appointee — is trying to root out leaks to the media. The LAPD has itself routinely opened investigations into employees who speak with journalists without authorization, and faced lawsuits from employees who claimed they were falsely accused of leaks.

Forkish began her career working for former Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine, who worked as an LAPD cop for more than three decades before going into politics. She later had stints at PR firms around town, including GCG Rose & Kindel, where she worked with Celine Cordero, the future mayor’s deputy chief of staff.

After working as a vice president of corporate communications for casino giant Caesars Entertainment Corp. in Las Vegas, Forkish served as a spokesperson for former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón for several months in 2024.

Eric Rose, a partner at the lobbying and crisis communication firm EKA, where he was once Forkish’s boss, said she has made a positive mark at every stop of her career.

“Jennifer is an accomplished public affairs professional with deep and diverse expertise, having worked with elected officials at the local, state and federal levels for more than two decades,” he said.

But Forkish’s appointment to the LAPD job was not without controversy. Multiple department sources not authorized to speak publicly said a dispute over Forkish’s salary demands created tension before she started on the job. Then, the sources, said there was a disagreement over strategy between Forkish and her predecessor, Capt. Kelly Muniz, which ended with Muniz’s transfer to another unit.

Some press advocates say McDonnell’s tenure has been marked by conflict with the local media. The department faces lawsuits for aggressive behavior by officers toward journalists who covered protests against the Trump administration over the summer, and a federal judge has barred police from targeting reporters with less-lethal projectiles during demonstrations.

Adam Rose, a deputy director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said the department has in recent months been frustratingly unresponsive when confronted with reports of abuses by officers.

“While I often vehemently disagreed with past PIOs and past department leadership, at least they were responsive,” Rose said. “The fact that McDonnell and his staff are so recalcitrant — and are so reluctant — to do their jobs is shameful.”

In her statement, Forkish said she is proud of her time at the LAPD.

“I’ve always approached this work with transparency, respect, and accountability, and that will never change,” she said.

Times staff writers James Queally and Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.

After Los Angeles police officers shot at people on three consecutive days late last month, the LAPD’s civilian bosses turned to Chief Jim McDonnell for an explanation.

The Police Commission wanted to know: What more could the department be doing to keep officers from opening fire?

But in his response at the panel’s meeting last week, McDonnell seemed to bristle at the notion his officers were too trigger-happy.

“I think what we’re seeing is an uptick in the willingness of criminals within the community to assault officers head-on,” he said at the Aug. 26 meeting. “And then officers respond with what they have to do in order to control it.”

The commission has heaped praise on McDonnell for his performance since taking over the department in November. But the exchange over the recent cluster of police shootings — part of an overall increase that has seen officers open fire in 31 incidents this year, up from 20 at the same point in 2024 — marked a rare point of contention.

Commission Vice President Rasha Gerges Shields told the chief that she and her colleagues remained “troubled by the dealings of people both with edged weapons — knives, other things like that — and also those who are in the midst of a mental health crisis.”

During a radio appearance earlier this year, the chief brushed aside questions about shootings, saying officers are often put into dangerous situations where they have no choice but to open fire in order to protect themselves or the public.

“That is something that’s part of the job unfortunately,” he said. “It’s largely out of the control of the officer and the department as far as exposure to those types of threats.”

Such remarks have left some longtime observers worried that the department is backsliding to the days when department leaders tolerated pervasive and excessive use of force. McDonnell’s defense of aggressive tactics during this summer’s pro-immigration protests, critics argue, sends a dangerous message to the rank-and-file.

The LAPD sits at a “pivotal” crossroads, according to Jorja Leap, a professor at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

The federal consent decree that followed the Rampart gang scandal of the late 1990s pushed the LAPD into becoming a more transparent and accountable agency, whose leaders accepted community buy-in as essential to their mission, said Leap.

Out of the reforms that followed came its signature outreach program, the Community Safety Partnership, which eschews arrests in favor of bringing officers together with residents to solve problems at some of the city’s most troubled housing projects.

Leap said support for the program has in recent years started to wane, despite research showing the approach has helped drive down crime. “The LAPD has now evolved into an inward-facing organization,” she said.

McDonnell was not available for an interview this week, an LAPD spokeswoman said.

Others faulted the chief for his response to the Trump administration’s immigration raids in Southern California, taking issue with the local police presence at federal operations and the aggressive actions of LAPD officers toward protesters and journalists during demonstrations in June.

Fernando Guerra, a political science professor at Loyola Marymount University, said McDonnell seems unwilling to acknowledge how the sight of riot-gear-clad officers holding off protesters created the impression that police were “protecting the feds and the buildings more than the residents of L.A. who pay for LAPD.”

McDonnell has repeatedly defended his department’s response, telling reporters earlier this year that officers were forced to step in to quell “direct response to immediate, credible threats.”

He also issued an internal memo voicing his support to officers in the Latino-majority department and acknowledging the mixed feelings that some may have about the immigration raids.

After his public swearing-in in November, McDonnell acknowledged how much had changed with the department since he left in 2010, while saying that “my perspective is much broader and wider, realizing that we are not going to be successful unless we work very closely with the community.”

At the time, his appointment was viewed with surprise in local political circles, where some questioned why a progressive mayor with a community organizing background like Karen Bass would hitch her fortunes to a law-and-order chief. Others argued that McDonnell was an appealing choice: A respected LAPD veteran who also served as the chief in Long Beach and later as Los Angeles County sheriff.

After numerous scandals in recent years, McDonnell’s selection for the job was widely seen as offering stability while the city prepared for the massive security challenges of the upcoming World Cup and Olympic Games.

With an earnest, restrained manner, McDonnell has won over some inside the department who were put off by his predecessor Michel Moore’s micromanaging leadership style. After his much-publicized union battles during his tenure as sheriff, McDonnell has courted the powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League by putting new focus on police hiring and promising to overhaul the department’s controversial disciplinary system.

By some measures, McDonnell has also delivered results for Bass. Violent crime numbers continue to drop, with homicides on pace for 50-year lows.

But the two leaders have taken starkly different positions on the White House’s indiscriminate raids and deployment of National Guard troops.

McDonnell took heat during a City Council hearing in June when he described federal law enforcement officers participating in immigration operations as “our partners.”

Andrés Dae Keun Kwon, policy counsel and senior organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that McDonnell’s record on immigration was one of the reasons the ACLU opposed his selection as chief. Since then, Kwon said, the chief seems out of touch with the message of Bass and other local leaders rallying around the city’s immigrants.

“Given that we’re three months into this Trump regime siege of Los Angeles you’d think that the leader of this police department” would be more responsive to the community’s needs, Kwon said.

In a statement, Clara Karger, a spokeswoman for Bass, said that “each leader has a different role to play in protecting Angelenos and all agree that these indiscriminate raids are having devastating consequences for our city,” she said.

McDonnell’s relationship with the Police Commission has been cordial, but several department insiders — who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose private discussions — said that behind the scenes some commissioners have started to second-guess the chief’s handling of disciplinary cases.

The tensions were evident at the recent meeting when the issue of officer shootings led to a public dressing-down of the chief.

Echoing the frustrations of LAPD critics who flood the commission’s meetings on a weekly basis, board members questioned how it was possible that officers needed to fire their weapons on back-to-back-to-back days last month.

Commissioner Fabian Garcia called the three shootings “a lot.”

He and his colleagues told McDonnell they expected the LAPD to present a report on the shootings at a future meeting.

McDonnell responded, “Great, thank you,” before launching into his regular crime and staffing updates.

In his first major shake-up since taking over the Los Angeles Police Department in November, Chief Jim McDonnell has given new assignments to more than a dozen officials from the upper ranks.

Faced with ongoing struggles to woo new recruits and uncertainty around his plans to overhaul the LAPD, McDonnell gave the first indications about how he intends to reorganize by elevating three deputy chiefs — Emada Tingirides, Michael Rimkunas and Scott Harrelson — to top positions and resurrecting a long-dormant bureau.

The moves were announced in a departmentwide email last week but aren’t expected to take effect until later this month.

Tingirides, who lost out to McDonnell in a bid to become chief last fall, becomes assistant chief in charge of the Office of Operations, which oversees patrol functions. She was recently announced as a finalist for the same job in Fort Worth, according to local news reports. Her recent promotion is seen by some inside the department as a move to convince her to stay. She becomes the highest-ranking Black woman in the department’s history.

Harrelson will now be in charge of the department’s training and recruitment efforts as the head of the Office of Support Services, replacing Assistant Chief Daniel Randolph, who is expected to retire in the coming weeks.

Filling out McDonnell’s inner circle are two other holdovers from the administration of former Chief Michel Moore: Rimkunas and Dominic Choi, who served as interim chief until McDonnell took over in November. Choi remained an assistant chief but was named McDonnell’s chief of staff — in effect the department’s No. 2.

The head of the bureau that includes internal affairs, Rimkunas will now run the Office of Special Operations.

McDonnell also resurrected the department’s Human Resources Bureau, which was shut down in 2004 when McDonnell he was a senior official under former Chief William J. Bratton. He didn’t immediately say what the new bureau’s responsibilities will be.

It’s unclear whether McDonnell will have to submit parts of his reorganization plan to the City Council, which in the past has had to sign off on changes to the department’s structure.

When he took the job last year, McDonnell initially said he wanted to spend at least three months studying the LAPD to understand how it had changed since he came up through the ranks. He left in 2010 to become the top cop in Long Beach, then served a term as L.A. County sheriff. His early review timeline was thrown off, he told reporters at a news conference last week, because of the fires in January and the recent protests over federal immigration raids.

The series of major incidents, McDonnell said, presented an unexpected opportunity to evaluate his senior staff to see how they performed “in crisis mode.”

The chief added that he had delayed his realignment for the “outcome of the budget to see where we were” and the completion of a monthslong study of the department by Rand Corp., a global policy think tank brought in last year to conduct a top-down review. The study was recently finished, and McDonnell said he was reviewing its recommendations, as well as those made by the numerous internal working groups he had convened to look at recruitment, discipline and other workplace issues.

Without offering details, McDonnell hinted that another one of his priorities will be beefing up the department’s detective ranks and overhauling the system that handles misconduct complaints against officers, long a source of controversy and frustration.

“I have in rough form what I think it could look like, but I certainly want to get the input from those who are dealing with it on a day-to-day basis on how do we best deal with the nuances of doing the job today with the number of resources that we have,” he told reporters.

McDonnell has come under growing pressure from critics who have said he is moving too slowly to make changes, with more urgency required as the city gets ready to host events such as the next year’s World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games.

In other personnel moves announced last week, McDonnell moved Deputy Chief Marc Reina from the Training Bureau to South Bureau, where he previously worked as captain, and promoted German Hurtado, the department’s immigration coordinator, to deputy chief over Central Bureau, which has been the epicenter of recent protests.

Hurtado has been named in at least two pending lawsuits by LAPD officials accusing him of covering up unjustified uses of force by officers during the 2020 protests. The city has denied wrongdoing and is fighting the cases in court.

“As far as I know, I’m only named as a witness in those cases, and I’m not at liberty to talk about ongoing lawsuits,” Hurtado said when reached Monday by The Times.

McDonnell also demoted Assistant Chief Blake Chow to his civil service rank of commander — a similar trajectory to McDonnell, who was made to drop a rank during the tenure of former Chief Charlie Beck. Capt. Ray Valois, who helped oversee the department’s response to the Palisades fire, was elevated to commander in the Valley Bureau.