LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell slams Nithya Raman’s anti-cop message while he touts falling LA crime rate, debunks ICE cooperation claims

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LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell has fired back at mayoral candidate Nithya Raman after she attacked him in an interview Tuesday — with the city’s top cop touting LA’s falling crime rate while debunking claims his department has cooperated with ICE.

In exclusive comments to The California Post, McDonnell said the socialist mayoral candidate was off-base when she criticized him over everything from the cost of staffing the LAPD to his relationships with the city’s immigrants and ICE operations in Los Angeles.

During an interview with ABC 7, Raman said McDonnell “lost the trust of our immigrant community here in LA.” 

“It’s easy to make a broad statement like that,” McDonnell said. “I would challenge somebody: Is that a handful of activists talking, or is that, you know, a greater feeling of discomfort in the bigger community?”

The chief, whose parents immigrated to the US from Ireland in 1950, noted that crime rates are down in LA — something he attributed to strong relationships with all sectors of the community, including immigrants.  

“We try and work with everybody. And if they’re not happy with the level of service we’re providing or the way we’re providing it, we try and find out how and why we can make that make that right,” he said.

The chief pointed out that most LAPD officers and more than half of the department’s civilian workforce are Hispanic. He added that the LAPD does not cooperate with immigration enforcement, citing department protocols dating back to 1979.

“Generalized comments like that of people not being happy or satisfied, I would love to be able to see any data behind that that,” he said. “Because that’s not the feeling I get in all of my travels or in in my history here in Los Angeles for half a century.”

He added: “Our mission is to protect communities, not conduct immigration enforcement.”

Raman, who has said she would boot McDonnell if elected, declined again in her Tuesday interview to name a possible successor or say whether a new chief would be selected before the 2028 Olympics come to LA.

She said the selection process would require a search and collaboration with the Police Commission and City Council.

“It’s too important of a decision to set an arbitrary timeline or to make a decision before I’ve had a chance to talk to all the key stakeholders…” she said. “I will ensure that whoever we pick to be our next LAPD chief will keep us safe.”

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Raman argued that LAPD staffing and costs have moved in the wrong direction, saying the city has been “paying half a billion dollars more for 1,500 fewer officers than we were before.” 

But McDonnell said that more potential hires are taking the LAPD’s newly streamlined entrance exams and applying for jobs — and that the raises granted to officers in the city’s new contract merely serve to keep LAPD’s salaries competitive in a tight market.

“We hope to be able to give a competitive hiring salary so that we’re not outclassed by smaller departments who are often more nimble in their hiring practices,” the chief said. “It is extremely competitive right now to be able to get the best candidates that we can.”

McDonnell noted that the city’s overall crime rate is down 10.1 percent this year, with homicides falling 9.1 percent. “On top of just raw crime numbers, we went through the World Cup, and that went off flawlessly,” he said.

Earlier this month, during another interview with ABC 7, Raman said that she could keep McDonnell until 2030 before reversing course and telling The Post that she expects him gone sooner.

During that interview, she was pressed about Bass’s warning that firing the chief 18 months before the Summer Games could be disastrous.

“That’s all stuff that I think about now and things that certainly I will be weighing and considering as we move forward,” she responded.

The chief said he hopes he’s still on the job when the games come to LA, for the city’s sake.

“This is a very heavy lift, the largest sports event in the history of the world,” McDonnell said. “The eyes of the world will be on Los Angeles, and if we pull this off the way we were able to do with the FIFA World Cup, that will make LA a destination for many years to come.”