records

For months after the Palisades fire, many who had lost their homes eagerly awaited the Los Angeles Fire Department’s after-action report, which was expected to provide a frank evaluation of the agency’s handling of the disaster.

A first draft was completed by August, possibly earlier.

And then the deletions and other changes began — behind closed doors — in what amounted to an effort to downplay the failures of city and LAFD leadership in preparing for and fighting the Jan. 7 fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes, records obtained by The Times show.

In one instance, LAFD officials removed language saying that the decision not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available crews and engines ahead of the extreme wind forecast “did not align” with the department’s policy and procedures during red flag days.

Instead, the final report said that the number of engine companies rolled out ahead of the fire “went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.”

Another deleted passage in the report said that some crews waited more than an hour for an assignment the day of the fire. A section on “failures” was renamed “primary challenges,” and an item saying that crews and leaders had violated national guidelines on how to avoid firefighter deaths and injuries was scratched.

Other changes in the report, which was overseen by then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva, seemed similarly intended to soften its impact and burnish the Fire Department’s image. Two drafts contain notes written in the margins, including a suggestion to replace the image on the cover page — which showed palm trees on fire against an orange sky — with a “positive” one, such as “firefighters on the frontline,” the note said. The final report’s cover displays the LAFD seal.

The Times obtained seven drafts of the report through the state Public Records Act. Only three of those drafts are marked with dates: Two versions are dated Aug. 25, and there is a draft from Oct. 6, two days before the LAFD released the final report to the public.

No names are attached to the edits. It is unclear if names were in the original documents and had been removed in the drafts given to The Times.

The deletions and revisions are likely to deepen concerns over the LAFD’s ability to acknowledge its mistakes before and during the blaze — and to avoid repeating them in the future. Already, Palisades fire victims have expressed outrage over unanswered questions and contradictory information about the LAFD’s preparations after the dangerous weather forecast, including how fire officials handled a smaller New Year’s Day blaze, called the Lachman fire, that rekindled into the massive Palisades fire six days later.

Some drafts described an on-duty LAFD captain calling Fire Station 23 in the Palisades on Jan. 7 to report that “the Lachman fire started up again,” indicating the captain’s belief that the Palisades fire was caused by a reignition of the earlier blaze.

The reference was deleted in one draft, then restored in the public version, which otherwise contains only a brief mention of the previous fire. Some have said that the after-action report’s failure to thoroughly examine the Lachman fire reignition was designed to shield LAFD leadership and Mayor Karen Bass’ administration from criticism and accountability.

Weeks after the report’s release, The Times reported that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area on Jan. 2, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering and rocks remained hot to the touch. Another battalion chief assigned to the LAFD’s risk management section knew about the complaints for months, but the department kept that information out of the after-action report.

After The Times report, Bass asked Villanueva to “thoroughly investigate” the LAFD’s missteps in putting out the Lachman fire, which federal authorities say was intentionally set.

“A full understanding of the Lachman fire response is essential to an accurate accounting of what occurred during the January wildfires,” Bass wrote.

Fire Chief Jaime Moore, who started in the job last month, has been tasked with commissioning the independent investigation that Bass requested.

The LAFD did not answer detailed questions from The Times about the altered drafts, including queries about why the material about the reignition was removed, then brought back. Villanueva did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for Bass said her office did not demand changes to the drafts and only asked the LAFD to confirm the accuracy of items such as how the weather and the department’s budget factored into the disaster.

“The report was written and edited by the Fire Department,” the spokesperson, Clara Karger, said in an email. “We did not red-line, review every page or review every draft of the report. We did not discuss the Lachman Fire because it was not part of the report.”

Genethia Hudley Hayes, president of the Board of Fire Commissioners, told The Times that she reviewed a paper copy of a “working document” about a week before the final report was made public. She said she raised concerns with Villanueva and the city attorney’s office over the possibility that “material findings” were or would be changed. She also said she consulted a private attorney about her “obligations” as a commissioner overseeing the LAFD’s operations, though that conversation “had nothing to do with the after-action” report.

Hudley Hayes said she noticed only small differences between the final report and the draft she reviewed. For example, she said, “mistakes” had been changed to “challenges,” and names of firefighters had been removed.

“I was completely OK with it,” she said. “All the things I read in the final report did not in any way obfuscate anything, as far as I’m concerned.”

She reiterated her position that an examination of missteps during the Lachman fire did not belong in the after-action report, a view not shared by former LAFD chief officers interviewed by The Times.

“The after-action report should have gone back all the way to Dec. 31,” said former LAFD Battalion Chief Rick Crawford, who retired from the agency last year and is now emergency and crisis management coordinator for the U.S. Capitol. “There are major gaps in this after-action report.”

Former LAFD Asst. Chief Patrick Butler, who is now chief of the Redondo Beach Fire Department, agreed that the Lachman fire should have been addressed in the report and said the deletions were “a deliberate effort to hide the truth and cover up the facts.”

He said the removal of the reference to the LAFD’s violations of the national Standard Firefighting Orders and Watchouts was a “serious issue” because they were “written in the blood” of firefighters killed in the line of duty. Without citing the national guidelines, the final report said that the Palisades fire’s extraordinary nature “occasionally caused officers and firefighters to think and operate beyond standard safety protocols.”

The final after-action report does not mention that a person called authorities to report seeing smoke in the area on Jan. 3. The LAFD has since provided conflicting information about how it responded to that call.

Villanueva told The Times in October that firefighters returned to the burn area and “cold-trailed” an additional time, meaning they used their hands to feel for heat and dug out hot spots. But records showed they cleared the call within 34 minutes.

Fire officials did not answer questions from The Times about the discrepancy. In an emailed statement this week, the LAFD said crews had used remote cameras, walked around the burn site and used a 20-foot extension ladder to access a fenced-off area but did not see any smoke or fire.

“After an extensive investigation, the incident was determined to be a false alarm,” the statement said.

The most significant changes in the various iterations of the after-action report involved the LAFD’s deployment decisions before the fire, as the wind warnings became increasingly dire.

In a series of reports earlier this year, The Times found that top LAFD officials decided not to staff dozens of available engines that could have been pre-deployed to the Palisades and other areas flagged as high risk, as it had done in the past.

One draft contained a passage in the “failures” section on what the LAFD could have done: “If the Department had adequately augmented all available resources as done in years past in preparation for the weather event, the Department would have been required to recall members for all available positions unfilled by voluntary overtime, which would have allowed for all remaining resources to be staffed and available for augmentation, pre-deployment, and pre-positioning.” The draft said the decision was an attempt to be “fiscally responsible” that went against the department’s policy and procedures.

That language was absent in the final report, which said that the LAFD “balanced fiscal responsibility with proper preparation for predicted weather and fire behavior by following the LAFD predeployment matrix.”

Even with the deletions, the published report delivered a harsh critique of the LAFD’s performance during the Palisades fire, pointing to a disorganized response, failures in communication and chiefs who didn’t understand their roles. The report found that top commanders lacked a fundamental knowledge of wildland firefighting tactics, including “basic suppression techniques.”

A paperwork error resulted in the use of only a third of the state-funded resources that were available for pre-positioning in high-risk areas, the report said. And when the fire broke out on the morning of Jan. 7, the initial dispatch called for only seven engine companies, when the weather conditions required 27.

There was confusion among firefighters over which radio channel to use. The report said that three L.A. County engines showed up within the first hour, requesting an assignment and receiving no reply. Four other LAFD engines waited 20 minutes without an assignment.

In the early afternoon, the staging area — where engines were checking in — was overrun by fire.

The report made 42 recommendations, ranging from establishing better communication channels to more training. In a television interview this month, Moore said the LAFD has adopted about three-quarters of them.

A daunting rainfall forecast isn’t expected to stop Californians or the rest of the U.S. from traveling in record numbers over the end-of-year holiday season.

An estimated 122.4 million people — more than a third of the entire national population — will travel at least 50 miles from home between Dec. 20 and Jan. 1, according to the American Automobile Assn.

That would represent a 2.2% increase over last year, when a record 119.7 million travelers hit the road or took to the skies for the holidays.

“Year-end travel is a mix of family road trips, friend getaways and tropical vacations,” Stacey Barber, vice president of AAA Travel, said in a statement.

Holiday festivities are different for everyone, but “a common thread is the desire to travel, whether it’s returning to your hometown or exploring new destinations,” Barber said.

As always, though, winter weather could pour cold water on some of those festive getaways. A Pacific storm is forecast to bring heavy rain to Southern California over the Christmas holiday — potentially snarling travel and increasing the risk of flooding, said Adam Roser, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s San Diego office.

“The storm will move through the region from north to south, starting as early as Tuesday,” Roser said.

Roser said he is confident there will be slick roadways and possible aviation disruptions because of heavy rains.

The peak of the storm for Southern California is likely to start Tuesday and continue through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, according to Bryan Lewis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Oxnard. In Orange County, the Inland Empire and San Diego County, light showers may start Tuesday, but the heaviest rainfall is expected to be on Christmas Eve.

Meteorologists say light to moderate showers are forecast for Christmas Day and into the weekend.

AAA expects to see across-the-board increases in modes of travel this holiday season. For example, a projected 109.5 million people will travel by car — a 2% increase compared to last year, according to AAA. For Californians commuting with gas-fueled vehicles, the average price of a gallon of gas this week is $4.33, a 2-cent increase compared to last year.

Approximately 8.03 million travelers will take to the skies to reach their holiday destination, a 2.3% increase compared to last year. AAA said this is the first time more than 8 million domestic air travelers are expected over the end-of-year holiday season.

Boarding passes have burned a hole in many holiday budgets, however. AAA said a round-trip domestic flight is 7% more expensive this year, averaging nearly $900 a ticket.

About 4.9 million travelers will use another mode of transport such as a bus, train or cruise.

NEW YORK — Secret grand jury transcripts from Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case can be made public, a judge ruled on Wednesday, joining two other judges in granting the Justice Department’s requests to unseal material from investigations into the late financier’s sexual abuse.

U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman reversed his earlier decision to keep the material under wraps, citing a new law that requires the government to open its files on Epstein and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell. The judge previously cautioned that the 70 or so pages of grand jury materials slated for release are hardly revelatory and “merely a hearsay snippet” of Epstein’s conduct.

On Tuesday, another Manhattan federal judge ordered the release of records from Maxwell’s 2021 sex trafficking case. Last week, a judge in Florida approved the unsealing of transcripts from an abandoned Epstein federal grand jury investigation in the 2000s.

The Justice Department asked the judges to lift secrecy orders in the cases after the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump last month, created a narrow exception to rules that normally keep grand jury proceedings confidential. The law requires that the Justice Department disclose Epstein-related material to the public by Dec. 19.

The court records cleared for release are just a sliver of the government’s trove — a collection of potentially tens of thousands of pages of documents including FBI notes and reports; transcripts of witness interviews, photographs, videos and other evidence; Epstein’s autopsy report; flight logs and travel records.

While lawyers for Epstein’s estate told Berman in a letter last week that the estate took no position on the Justice Department’s unsealing request, some Epstein victims backed it.

“Release to the public of Epstein-related materials is good, so long as the victims are protected in the process,” said Brad Edwards, a lawyer for some victims. “With that said, the grand jury receives only the most basic information, so, relatively speaking, these particular materials are insignificant.”

Questions about the government’s Epstein files have dominated the first year of Trump’s second term, with pressure on the Republican intensifying after he reneged on a campaign promise to release the files. His administration released some material, most of it already public, disappointing critics and some allies.

Berman was matter of fact in his ruling on Wednesday, writing that the transparency law “unequivocally intends to make public Epstein grand jury materials and discovery materials” that had previously been covered by secrecy orders. The law “supersedes the otherwise secret grand jury materials,” he wrote.

The judge, who was appointed by President Clinton, a Democrat, implored the Justice Department to carefully follow the law’s privacy provisions to ensure that victims’ names and other identifying information are blacked out. Victim safety and privacy “are paramount,” he wrote.

In court filings, the Justice Department informed Berman that the only witness to testify before the Epstein grand jury was an FBI agent who, the judge noted, “had no direct knowledge of the facts of the case and whose testimony was mostly hearsay.”

The agent testified over two days, on June 18, 2019, and July 2, 2019. The rest of the grand jury presentation consisted of a PowerPoint slideshow and four pages of call logs. The July 2 session ended with grand jurors voting to indict Epstein.

Epstein, a millionaire money manager known for socializing with celebrities, politicians, billionaires and the academic elite, killed himself in jail a month after his 2019 arrest. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 by a federal jury of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of Epstein’s underage victims and participating in some of the abuse. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Maxwell’s lawyer told a judge last week that unsealing records from her case “would create undue prejudice” and could spoil her plans to file a habeas petition, a legal filing seeking to overturn her conviction. The Supreme Court in October declined to hear Maxwell’s appeal.

Maxwell’s grand jury records include testimony from the FBI agent and a New York Police Department detective.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer sought to temper expectations as he approved their release on Tuesday, writing that the materials “do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor.”

“They do not discuss or identify any client of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s,” wrote Engelmayer, an appointee of President Obama, a Democrat. “They do not reveal any heretofore unknown means or methods of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes.”

Sisak writes for the Associated Press.

Just a few storefronts away from the now-vacant Button Mash, Sick City Records is on the brink of sharing the same fate.

For nearly 20 years, therecord shop has offered Echo Park a rocker-themed hodgepodge of rare vinyl, vintage band tees and dapper haircuts from its singular barber shop chair. But as rent continues to increase and fewer people stop by to browse its sonic selection or get a trim, Sick City Records is struggling to keep its doors open.

“We’ve worked so hard for this. We’ve been doing this for 20 years. We have to fight to keep this place open — it’s what we love to do,” said Jesse Lopez, the record store’s co-owner and resident barber.

Lopez and his business partner, Brian Flores, attribute their financial difficulties to an overall rough year. In January, when the Eaton and Palisades fires broke out, the shop was desolate for around a month. Then, right as summer kicked off — usually a lucrative season for record-collecting tourists stopping by — ICE raids began happening all over the city.

According to Flores, the streets were filled with large fleets of cars all summer, with loud sirens on, trying to scare people. Recent data from the L.A. Economic Equity Accelerator and Fellowship and the L.A. County Economic Development Corp show that 43% of Latino business owners in the county reported revenue losses of 50% or higher since June.

Co-owner Jesse Lopez, left, cuts the hair of Los Angeles resident Jason Berk, 33, inside of Sick City Records.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

“No one was walking around. It was June. Nobody’s walking their dog,” said Flores. “In this whole shopping center, everybody is an immigrant.”

The record shop’s finances reached an all-time low in October. The duo was two months behind rent; their inventory had gone stagnant and their once regular barber shop clients had become sporadic. The prospect of closing up shop and cutting their losses became more real than ever.

In a last effort to save their music hub, Flores and Lopez have since picked up a vendor spot at the monthly Rose Bowl Flea Market, started a series of collaborative fundraisers with local artists and launched a GoFundMe account.

Since they first opened in 2006, Flores and Lopez have always specialized in rock, punk and alternative — carrying bands like the Velvet Underground, the Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Suede. The inside of their space reflects that — the walls are filled with wheatpasted skulls; rows of Iron Maiden and Suicidal Tendencies tees line the perimeter and their most valuable merchandise — like a sealed Iggy Pop vinyl, a clear variant of Portishead’s “Dummy,” and a signed Echo & the Bunnymen record — hang high on elevated shelves.

“A lot of stuff’s been sitting here for a long time,” Flores confessed as he looks around at the different half-filled genre crates.

“We try to make what we can. We make our own buttons. We do our own silk screening. We can’t buy high-end vintage. We can’t afford it right now,” he added. “It’s embarrassing when the kids are asking for new rap records and these record guys come in looking for something special, but we don’t have it.”

Band tees and vinyl records hang on a wall inside of Sick City Records.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

In recent years, Sick City has also made an effort to expand into other genres, and now carries anything from country to jazz and rap. Between albums like Tyler the Creator’s “Cherry Bomb” and the Cocteau Twins’ “Heaven or Las Vegas,” Flores says they will always dedicate several of their crates to local underground acts, featuring anything from their customers’ passion projects to bands who play the city’s bars and house shows.

Their local selection is usually most popular during the summertime and when people are in town for events like the relatively nearby Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

“Truthfully, this year we haven’t had that many tourists. People are usually looking for L.A. bands to take home to places like Australia and Canada and ask us for recommendations,” said Flores. “But this year, without tourists, it’s still slow.”

Their dedication to L.A.’s local sounds goes back to their roots as a business. In 1999, the duo first sold vintage band tees at Melrose Trading Post. At the time, the market was mostly older vendors selling novelty items. Flores and Lopez decided to shake things up a bit by playing Metallica in the early-morning hours and began to build a younger clientele who were interested in their vintage clothing. Over time, they learned how to screen print and started selling their own designs.

After about five years of selling at the market, they decided to upscale into a more permanent business that would focus on music. In 2006, they opened a space in Silver Lake that functioned as a barbershop with a couple of record crates. Despite it being the early 2000s, the vendors were ahead of the up-and-coming vinyl revival, as millennials started to pay more attention to physical media.

As record-collecting grew in popularity and events like Record Store Day went mainstream, they saw a surge in sales. In 2008, they expanded the record portion of their business, opening their current location in Echo Park.

With this stint of success, the record shop started to function as a record label as well. In the early 2010s, the duo helped some customers and longtime friends who were in bands release, distribute and promote their albums. Flores and Lopez would help choose the album art, the order of the track list and help book shows.

Sick City Records owners Jessie Lopez, left, and Brian Flores at their Echo Park shop.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

One of the first bands they worked with was local rock group the High Curbs, who were teenagers at the time and thereforestruggled to get into the bars where they were booked to play. With the help of Sick City, they were able to release their 2016 album. The band, which still regularly tours and releases music, made its return to the record shop earlier this summer for the annual music festival Echo Park Rising.

“They told me, ‘We don’t do any small shows anymore, but for Echo Park Rising, we want to give back and play for you guys.’ We had a full house,” Flores said. “We felt the love back.”

At the height of the business, when they were funding their record label, Flores says they were making around $8,000 a month. Now they are making closer to $2,000 monthly, with customers spending an average of around $10 per visit. On a weekday afternoon in November, a handful of patrons came into the shop to sift through their vinyl selection, but only one customer made a purchase.

“We want to do more. We want to do more shows and promote more bands. We’ve done shows at Los Globos, the Silverlake Lounge, the Redwood [Bar and Grill]. But all this costs money,” Flores said. “So when we were able to put out those records, it was very expensive at the time, but we were able to do it.”

Flores and Lopez continued to operate out of both stores until 2020, when they decided to consolidate both businesses into the one that exists today.

Since the pandemic, Sick City Records’ rent has continually increased. In 2020, the duo paid $1,800 for the space. Today they pay $3,500. In the last several years, gentrification has taken hold of Echo Park, hiking up both residential and commercial rent. Flores says that in the nearly 20 years that they’ve been on Sunset Boulevard, he’s seen many small businesses collapse from these strains.

With a specialty in rock, punk and alternative, Sick City Records’ selection often spotlights local L.A. acts.

(Andres Melo / For The Times)

“There are a couple of small coffee shops, like Woodcat, that are still there. But Spacedust [a clothing shop] is gone. Cosmic Vinyl is gone,” said Flores. The latter establishment shuttered in 2018 but reopened earlier this year at a new location in Eagle Rock.

“There’s no parking. I don’t know why they keep raising the rent. But Echo Park has always been a hub where people want to be.”

Sick City Records has several fundraisers and flea market pop-ups planned before the end of the year. On Dec. 13, they will be hosting an art show at the shop called “Hold On to Your Friends,” which will feature live DJs, local artists and vendors. All proceeds will go to keeping Sick City in operation.

“Hopefully, people don’t forget about us. We’re just trying to keep the music alive, keep a good vibe and keep promoting the music community,” said Flores. “We just got to get back on our feet. We want to bring in product that we’re proud of.”