Growing ICE criticism leads to scrutiny of LAPD relationship with feds
Following the recent shooting of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis, some police chiefs have joined growing criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration offensive.
One voice is missing from the conflict: LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell.
This week, the chief reiterated that the department has a close working relationship with federal law enforcement and said he would not order his officers to enforce a new state law (now challenged as unconstitutional) that bans the use of face masks by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents.
Top law enforcement agencies across the country rarely criticize their federal partners; It relies on cooperation to investigate gangs, extremist groups and other major criminals, and it also counts on millions in funding each year from Washington.
Longtime department observers say McDonnell and the LAPD find themselves in a particularly difficult situation. The city is roiled by immigration raids and protests, and local leaders, including Mayor Karen Bass, are blowing up the White House. But with the World Cup and Olympics coming up soon – events that require coordination with the federations – the chef is choosing his words carefully.
Last year, McDonnell backtracked on his message that the LAPD had a long-standing policy of not interfering with civil immigration enforcement. Unlike his counterparts in Minneapolis, Portland and Philadelphia, he has largely refrained from commenting publicly on tactics used by federal agents, reserving his strongest criticism for protesters accused of vandalism or violence.
“In a city as large as Los Angeles, a city that is a target of terrorism, it is critical that we have a very close working relationship with federal, state and local partners,” the chief said in a radio interview last spring. He boasted that the LAPD had “the best relationship in the country in that regard.”
McDonnell stood next to FBI Director Kash Patel on the airport tarmac last week to announce the capture of a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder accused of smuggling tons of cocaine through Los Angeles. Then, suddenly press conference On Thursday, McDonnell, who touted city officials’ historically low homicide totals, referred to Pretti’s shooting without mentioning him by name, saying LAPD officials were as “troubled” as anyone by events in other parts of the country. He said the department will continue to work closely with federal agencies on non-immigration issues.
Explaining his stance on not enforcing the mask ban, McDonnell said he wouldn’t risk asking his officers to go to “another armed agency creating a conflict for something,” which amounts to a misdemeanor offense.
“This is not a good policy decision and I don’t think it was well thought out,” he said.
Elsewhere, law enforcement leaders, civil rights advocates and other legal experts have decried how ICE agents and other federal officers disregard best practices when making street arrests, performing crowd control and ensuring public safety during mass protests.
After agents opened fire on two men wanted for arrest in Portland, Oregon, in mid-January, the city’s police chief held a tearful news conference in which he said he was trying to understand Latino residents “through your voice, your anxiety, your fear, your anger.”
Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal set off a firestorm on social media after calling ICE agents “fake, fake, law enforcement wannabes.”
In Minneapolis, where the Trump administration has deployed 3,000 federal agents, police Chief Brian O’Hara reportedly privately warned his officers that they would lose their jobs if they did not intervene if federal agents used force. And at a news conference this week, the New Orleans police chief questioned ICE’s arrest of one of the agency’s recruits.
Second guess, Helena, Mont. It also spread to smaller cities such as; those cities’ police chief pulled his officers from the regional drug task force over his decision to cooperate with U.S. Border Patrol agents.
Over the weekend, the International Assn. The Chiefs of Police, the nation’s largest and most influential group of police chiefs, called on the White House to convene local, state and federal law enforcement partners for “policy-level discussions aimed at identifying a constructive path forward.”
McDonnell’s supporters argue that the chief’s role is apolitical, but many of his predecessors have become national voices shaping public safety policy. The chief’s supporters say speaking out risks provoking a backlash from the White House and could also affect the long stream of federal money the department has relied on, for example, to fund de-escalation training for officers.
Assemblyman Mark González (D-Los Angeles) was among those opposed because of McDonnell’s willingness to work with ICE while serving as Los Angeles County sheriff, but said he now sees himself as a “great partner” supporting crime-fighting legislation.
That’s why he said he was disappointed by McDonnell’s unwillingness to challenge the racial profiling and use of excessive force by federal agents in Minneapolis and elsewhere.
“We should trust a chief who can say that ICE detaining and detaining children as young as 5 and detaining flower sellers is not in keeping with the purpose of this system,” said González, the House majority supporter. “It helps to ensure that law enforcement supports a community they serve.”
Senior officials within the LAPD supported McDonnell’s balancing act and suggested that promises from officials in other cities to arrest ICE agents were hollow.
“Did you see any of them get arrested? No,” Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said.
LAPD officers serve on nearly three dozen task forces with federal authorities, where they share information and resources to track down criminals, said Hamilton, the department’s chief of detectives. Cooperation with federal partners is essential for tasks such as combating “human trafficking in Figueroa” and dismantling international theft rings, the official said. As part of these investigations, both sides are assembling intelligence; Regulations that some privacy rights groups have warned are now being exploited in the government’s crackdown on immigrants.
“There are currently no events that will impact our overall relationship with the federal government,” Hamilton said.
Art Acevedo, a former chief of Houston and Miami, said it can be complicated for any major city chief to take an official stance on a controversial issue like immigration.
He said opposing President Trump comes with “some political risks.”
But he said chiefs in immigrant-rich cities like Houston and Los Angeles must weigh that against the potentially irreparable damage to community trust that failing to condemn the latest raids would do.
“The old adage that silence is deafening is absolutely true. You end up losing the public and putting your own people at risk,” he said. “The reality is, when you’re chief of police, you have a bully pulpit, and what you say or don’t say matters.”
Those with experience on the federal side of the issue said it cuts both ways.
John Sandweg, the former director of ICE under President Obama, said federal authorities need local law enforcement and the public to keep them informed and support operations, but immigration enforcement’s “zero tolerance” approach puts such cooperation in “jeopardy.”
“Ideally, in a perfect world, ICE could work within immigrant communities to identify really bad actors,” he said. “But when you have this zero tolerance, when the quantity of arrests is so much more important than the quality of the arrests, you eliminate the opportunity to have that cooperation.”
Times writers Brittny Mejia, Ruben Vives and Associated Press contributed to this report.
