other thing

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.

The summer rain in Mexico City has been driving Meme del Real crazy. “This season of permanent torrential downpour gets to a point where you’re like, ‘Enough,’ he says with a sigh. “There’s people who really enjoy it, but I’m done. It’s too much introspection to be in here all day, to not be able to go outside. It forces you to try other things, to find a conversation within that rather than a resistance.”

Surrender has been a big theme lately in the life of the longtime vocalist and keyboardist of legendary Mexican alt-rock group Café Tacvba. Del Real — a Swiss Army Knife of a musician who has produced for the likes of Julieta Venegas and Natalia Lafourcade, among others — has been unpacking his life after a recent move back to the Mexican capital, after five years in the idyllic Valle de Bravo. About two hours away from CDMX, the lakeside town became his district of solitude.

It was in this escape from city life that the singer-songwriter was able to be quiet enough to tap into something beyond himself. With his own studio, a broad space overlooking a forest, he had the mental space to look inward. Perhaps more importantly, he gave himself permission to welcome the inspiration that arrived without him seeking it.

“It’s not that I went to this place and said, ‘OK, now I’m going to find inspiration.’ It was more of a tension within myself that naturally unraveled,” says Meme of his “Walden” moment. “From that exercise of exploring old songs and ideas in process, something started to bloom within me in a way that had never happened before. It was a moment that invited me into a solitary process that I hadn’t undertaken with any formality or intention. If these songs have anything to do with where I was physically at the time, I do think that distance I had from everything manifested itself as music.”

The songs on Del Real’s first solo album — the title yet to be revealed — plumb the depths of silence and sonic expansion. He is unpretentious in his experiments and unafraid to get playful. “Tumbos” is a warbling electronic love song intercepted at times by plinking bachata strings. Del Real swelters on futuristic bolero “Incomprensible,” which takes the old-school Cuban torch-song genre and pitches its emblematic guitar to psychedelic new heights. Atmosphere is everything here: Two of the soon-to-be-released tracks border on ambient, zeroing in on the sounds of church bells and chirping birds and the expansive feeling of mushrooms blooming across a forest floor.

These little mountains of fire blaze with a gentle heat emanating from Del Real’s voice. Die-hards and casual fans of Café Tacvba have heard “Eres” at least in passing, a smash from the group’s 2003 album, “Cuatro Caminos,” that features Del Real on lead vocals. He’s still singing about love: Careening norteña-inspired “Embeces” sees Del Real’s voice soar over warbled trumpets, and lead single “Princesa” layers cinematic orchestration with trip-hop beats and sweltering lyrics about failed promises and proclamations of loyalty.

For those who can’t get enough, Del Real is set to preview some of the new music with a special performance on Sept. 2 at the Grammy Museum.

“These songs arrived, and I couldn’t look the other way. It was an instinct that was stronger than me, a now-or-never moment,” says Del Real. “I’ve found that every unknown and every challenge has left me with a lesson. When I’m onstage [with Café Tacvba], I play and sing, but I also love to dance and express myself with my body. Before we can play, when we’re children, we hear a rhythm and dance. It doesn’t matter if you look ridiculous, but you made something. It’s better to make a fool of yourself and experiment rather than not live what you’re feeling.”

De Los spoke with Del Real over Zoom from Mexico City as he’s settling into a number of beginnings: a new home, a new daily rhythm and his first solo project, which is out next month.

There are so many places where artists go to isolate and channel, but you weren’t looking for that at all. Listening to the album, I heard the parallels between the songs and the space that natural environments bring. There are two tracks that border on ambient, focusing on the sounds of a church bell and a small sound that grows into an encompassing roar.
The creative act is intuitive and spontaneous, and I think it makes a symmetry with the cycles and forms of nature. Having such a tangible way to witness creation left a deep impression on me, to be in such an exuberant forest coexisting with so much.

How was making this solo record different from making a Café Tacvba record?
I have a certain experience of creation with the band — of making an album, a project, a video, a tour, a spectacle — but these songs manifested themselves almost like they rose out of the floor to meet me. At my old house, the studio I made was surrounded by a massive forest. I really felt like I was yet another element of nature in that cycle of life that I had to live there. Something bloomed in that moment for me. More than the result, the experience itself for me was its own project, and it’s been so personally valuable to me that anything that comes of that is a consequence, an extra gift. The process was transformative, like nature itself, something that couldn’t be controlled or manipulated.

I love that you describe the songs as arriving; that’s very different than creating with the intention of connecting to a muse. To your point about movement, there’s so much of it here: bachata, cumbia, electronic music … so much to dance to.
Everything you describe came about very organically. My dad was a musician, and he devoted his life to music. At home, my mom and dad and siblings and I all grew up hearing a lot of music across genres. I got very familiar. Watching my dad [on the trumpet] with his orchestra play at parties, specifically all of these formal Latin American genres to dance to …

When I started making the songs, the genres rose out pretty organically. If it came out sounding like Ministry or a norteña or a bolero or disco or punk, then that’s what it was. If creating doesn’t have that playful factor, if it doesn’t translate honesty, then it becomes so intellectualized. I think it’s a balance between spontaneity, a game between the organic, the intellectual, the conceptual. When I listened to all the songs, I really didn’t know if it was an album. I approached Gustavo Santaolalla [Godfather of Latin rock] to get his feedback, and that’s when it became clear to me that something was happening.

The songs were there, as I built them there in this place I described to you, like beyond just composing on guitar, piano and making a demo, it was like, “Well, what if I add something else?” I started experimenting, and before I knew it, there were already quite robust and complex arrangements in most of them. But another thing is that, when I [would] bring a demo to [Café Tacvba], I [would] sing it, and that [was] it. But in this case, the same thing. Gustavo told me, “Hey, one of the things that’s interesting is the way you’re singing … What’s happening on a vocal level, that seems to me to be revealing a very clear picture of you at this moment.” So, nothing, it stayed that way.

When I was trying to find the throughline here, I was thinking about the subject matter: There’s a lot of love and yearning here. Would you consider yourself a romantic?
Based on some interviews I’ve been doing, they haven’t asked me this question, but the term “romantic” has come up. And it’s not that I’ve thought about it or assumed it, but I think that if romantic means, in my case, finding a translation of what I feel and what I reflect on and resonating well with it, then yes.

I’ve also found myself — who hasn’t in these times? — being attentive and reflecting on the issues that are happening around the world, all the horrors of certain situations and in certain regions. But I definitely find that there is beauty in human relationships or in personal relationships, in relationships with your personal, universal, cosmic or internal ecosystem, with paradoxes, with what is opposed. I don’t know if that’s romantic, but that’s it. Even at the end of the world, in the midst of so much horror, love and beauty are the things that give us the desire to want to go on, right?

This album is so sonically forward-thinking, and I’d say it’s aligned to the current zeitgeist of genre mixing. Where do you situate it?
I am also very attracted to the way in which I don’t understand much of what is happening with these new generations and all the music, all the art and creation that is taking place. It seems that, as in other eras, attention was focused on the situations that were happening around them, socially and politically, and there was a lot of talk about it and criticism was made. Today, it seems that this generation is not observing that, but I have discovered in my theory that discourse is more powerful precisely because it is not talked about directly, but rather it is talked about as, “I am going to have a good time and enjoy it because this is coming to an end … I have no choice but to take what I have and what I can do and what I can experience with my gang, with my people, and with this global digital community.”

I find that very powerful and very sad at the same time. I mean, it’s very sad to think that there is a generation that sees the world as ending. That’s my take on it — that there’s little hope, that everything is so complex that it’s better not to look at that. “Just look at what’s in front of me, because I’m young and because if I don’t take advantage of my youth to have a good time right now, I don’t know if I’ll make it to the next stage. Or I don’t see how.”

In our time, at least in my time, I think there was more. The outlook was clearer. You could see further ahead.

This interview was conducted in Spanish, translated, edited and condensed for clarity.