The city of Los Angeles will have a new top cop, if only for the next six or so months.
Three weeks after Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore’s said he will step down at the end of February, the city’s Police Commission announced that Assistant Chief Dominic Choi would take over as interim chief effective March 1. Choi was selected in a unanimous vote by the five-member commission.
The assignment is expected to last only until mid-summer, while a nationwide search is conducted to find a more permanent replacement.
Choi’s name was among several that had circulated around police headquarters and City Hall for months.
In picking Choi, the Police Commission went with an experienced insider who has held a variety of roles as he ascended the department’s ranks, from internal affairs investigator and homeless coordinator to Moore’s chief of staff. Choi, who joined the department in 1995, was recently elevated to the assistant chief over the Office of Operations, replacing the outgoing Robert Marino. Choi previously served as acting chief while Moore was away.
From Day One, he will be expected to step in and run the LAPD, a massive, multibillion-dollar organization of more than 10,000 employees that is unlike most police departments. As interim leader, he will likely be asked to make decisions related to officer discipline and promotions.
The decision was announced Wednesday afternoon, following a special meeting of the Commission, the department’s civilian policy-making body. After a brief public comment, the body’s five members retreated into closed session to continue deliberating.
All three of the speakers who called in to the meeting talked of the need for to move on from Moore, and two of them advocated for former L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell to get the job.
One commenter, who goes by the nickname “Steve Rogers” and regularly calls into Commission meetings to advocate for police, called for an “immediate course correction.”
Another caller said the Commission should pick McDonnell, who came up through the LAPD’s ranks before leaving to become police chief in Long Beach, for “his intellect, ability to build a team, proven leadership.”
“His knowledge of the domestic and global landscape allows him to hit the ground running on day one,” the caller said.
Choi emerged from a pool of finalists that LAPD insiders say included two other former senior officials who are retired from the department, Sandy Jo MacArthur and Bob Green, as well as current Deputy Chief Michael Rimkunas.
Richard Tefank, executive director of the Police Commission, said that that the interim candidates wouldn’t be allowed to apply for the permanent position.
In announcing his departure, Moore said he was proud of his career at the department and had made the decision to leave in order to spend more time with his family. He also reiterated his denial of a report that he had ordered two detectives to investigate a USC scholarship Bass received when she was a member of Congress representing parts of Los Angeles County.
Bass has denied any wrongdoing in accepting the scholarship, and the House Committee on Ethics cleared her request to accept the tuition award.
The mayor has repeatedly said that Moore’s departure had nothing to do with the USC allegations, and the two leaders have presented a unified front in several public appearances in the weeks since. At another news conference late last month to discuss falling violent crime rates, Bass repeatedly praised Moore for his steady leadership.
Moore’s backers say he has shepherded the department through a period of unprecedented upheaval shaped by a worldwide pandemic and a social uprising that followed the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. They also point to his continued support of reforms reforms in the wake of Floyd’s death and other flash points from 2020, including expanding community outreach efforts and placing new limits on pretextual traffic stops.
Critics who opposed Moore’s reappointment last year to a second five-year term argued that the size, scope and frequency of scandals during his tenure reflected a poor track record for any leader. His second term brought further controversies, including gang officers accused of theft, illegal stops and searches, senior staffers engaged in inappropriate relationships with subordinates and what officials called an inadvertent release of photos of undercover officers.
Moore said before his reappointment last year that he would only serve for two or three years before turning the department over to a new chief ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games and other major sporting events the city is set to host. He said he wanted to continue reforms on use of force and diversity and avoid a “haphazard” transition. He said he would spend the next few years laying the groundwork for a succession plan.
For months, speculation has swirled about whether Bass could seek to make a statement by appointing a woman or a Latino for the first time in the department’s long history.
Whoever Bass, with the the Police Commission’s help, ultimately picks as the city’s next chief will have to confront some of the same intertwined problems facing law enforcement here as elsewhere, including concerns about officer morale, use of force, allegations of racial profiling and how to respond to issues involving traffic, substance abuse and homelessness. While violent crime has receded from its pandemic highs, the department is also smaller — by hundreds of officers — and continues to face recruitment challenges.
In the past, the city has worked with outside consultants to conduct nationwide searches for a chief capable of leading under the intense microscope the department faces. The choice has often come down to picking between an experienced outsider, with the fortitude to challenge the status quo, or promoting an insider who has deep institutional knowledge of the force, its rank-and-file and the city they’re tasked with protecting.
Times staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
