
LAPD undergoes first major leadership shake-up with McDonnell as chief
Faced with ongoing struggles to woo new recruits and uncertainty around his plans to overhaul the LAPD, McDonnell gave the first indications about how he intends to reorganize by elevating three deputy chiefs — Emada Tingirides, Michael Rimkunas and Scott Harrelson — to top positions and resurrecting a long-dormant bureau.
The moves were announced in a departmentwide email last week but aren't expected to take effect until later this month.
Tingirides, who lost out to McDonnell in a bid to become chief last fall, becomes assistant chief in charge of the Office of Operations, which oversees patrol functions. She was recently announced as a finalist for the same job in Fort Worth, according to local news reports. Her recent promotion is seen by some inside the department as a move to convince her to stay. She becomes the highest-ranking Black woman in the department's history.
Harrelson will now be in charge of the department's training and recruitment efforts as the head of the Office of Support Services, replacing Assistant Chief Daniel Randolph, who is expected to retire in the coming weeks.
Filling out McDonnell's inner circle are two other holdovers from the administration of former Chief Michel Moore: Rimkunas and Dominic Choi, who served as interim chief until McDonnell took over in November. Choi remained an assistant chief but was named McDonnell's chief of staff — in effect the department's No. 2.
The head of the bureau that includes internal affairs, Rimkunas will now run the Office of Special Operations.
McDonnell also resurrected the department's Human Resources Bureau, which was shut down in 2004 when McDonnell he was a senior official under former Chief William J. Bratton. He didn't immediately say what the new bureau's responsibilities will be.
It's unclear whether McDonnell will have to submit parts of his reorganization plan to the City Council, which in the past has had to sign off on changes to the department's structure.
When he took the job last year, McDonnell initially said he wanted to spend at least three months studying the LAPD to understand how it had changed since he came up through the ranks. He left in 2010 to become the top cop in Long Beach, then served a term as L.A. County sheriff. His early review timeline was thrown off, he told reporters at a news conference last week, because of the fires in January and the recent protests over federal immigration raids.
The series of major incidents, McDonnell said, presented an unexpected opportunity to evaluate his senior staff to see how they performed 'in crisis mode.'
The chief added that he had delayed his realignment for the 'outcome of the budget to see where we were' and the completion of a monthslong study of the department by Rand Corp., a global policy think tank brought in last year to conduct a top-down review. The study was recently finished, and McDonnell said he was reviewing its recommendations, as well as those made by the numerous internal working groups he had convened to look at recruitment, discipline and other workplace issues.
Without offering details, McDonnell hinted that another one of his priorities will be beefing up the department's detective ranks and overhauling the system that handles misconduct complaints against officers, long a source of controversy and frustration.
'I have in rough form what I think it could look like, but I certainly want to get the input from those who are dealing with it on a day-to-day basis on how do we best deal with the nuances of doing the job today with the number of resources that we have,' he told reporters.
McDonnell has come under growing pressure from critics who have said he is moving too slowly to make changes, with more urgency required as the city gets ready to host events such as the next year's World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games.
In other personnel moves announced last week, McDonnell moved Deputy Chief Marc Reina from the Training Bureau to South Bureau, where he previously worked as captain, and promoted German Hurtado, the department's immigration coordinator, to deputy chief over Central Bureau, which has been the epicenter of recent protests.
Hurtado has been named in at least two pending lawsuits by LAPD officials accusing him of covering up unjustified uses of force by officers during the 2020 protests. The city has denied wrongdoing and is fighting the cases in court.
'As far as I know, I'm only named as a witness in those cases, and I'm not at liberty to talk about ongoing lawsuits,' Hurtado said when reached Monday by The Times.
McDonnell also demoted Assistant Chief Blake Chow to his civil service rank of commander — a similar trajectory to McDonnell, who was made to drop a rank during the tenure of former Chief Charlie Beck. Capt. Ray Valois, who helped oversee the department's response to the Palisades fire, was elevated to commander in the Valley Bureau.

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Chicago Tribune
6 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Christi Parsons: Abraham Lincoln's empathy is what our divided nation needs
In our era, they might seem like performative gestures for the president. A quiet visit with the wife of a wounded soldier. A conversation with a battlefield nurse or a kitchen worker. A hand extended to a Black woman who had once been enslaved. Abraham Lincoln didn't publicize these moments, though. He prioritized them for personal reasons. Because even as he held the Union together with the force of his will — even as he buried his own child and bore the weight of a nation at war — he made time for mercy. He listened to the voices of those without power, a practice that steeled him for wielding his own. Empathy is getting a bad rap these days. Elon Musk recently declared it the 'fundamental weakness' of Western civilization, summing up the ethos of the administration he just left. Even those who defend empathy speak of it mainly as a private virtue, not one that compels any particular action by public figures. But in the hands of a great leader, empathy can become a powerful political force. Whenever America has begun to fray — during war, depression, civil upheaval — the country has rallied behind a president who focused on the disenfranchised. If we're to survive our current crisis of division, our civic leaders need to do the same thing. And, as citizens, so do we. Maybe that's why Lincoln's name keeps rising in our conversations, as historians and storytellers nudge us in this direction. Lincoln is a figure in exhibits, podcasts and intellectual festivals this summer. The Metropolitan Opera is working to produce George Saunders' moving novel 'Lincoln in the Bardo,' a deeply empathetic portrayal of the 16th president. New scholarship further reveals a deeply sensitive and heartfelt man. In this modern moment of anxiety, they're showing the way to a better place — or at least the first step toward it. How did Lincoln cultivate the trait of empathy? Partly by surrounding himself with compassionate people. That's according to 'Loving Lincoln,' a new biography examining his story through the lives of the women who, despite their lack of franchise, were his key influencers. By his female relatives, Lincoln was nurtured into what his stepmother called 'the best boy I ever saw,' historian Stacy Lynn writes. Their stories 'offer evidence of Lincoln's kindness and sensitivity, his patience, his moral center, his social and political virtues, the breadth of his compassion, and his inspirational legacy.' By far, the deepest relationship of his life was with his wife, Mary, whose steely resolve helped bolster his commitment to freeing enslaved people. She was in favor of emancipation very early on, and she pressed her husband on the issue. The Lincoln White House became a place of mercy and goodwill, in no small part because of the compassion the president showed for his wife in her grief. He welcomed Black people to the White House. Mary Dines, who worked in the kitchen, urged Lincoln to visit the camps where newly freed families lived, and he went. Elizabeth Keckley, a formerly enslaved woman who became Mary Lincoln's dressmaker and confidante, called him 'kind and generous by nature.' Editorial: The idea of America, under stressLincoln also welcomed Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. 'I never was treated by any one with more kindness and cordiality than were shown to me by that great and good man, Abraham Lincoln,' Truth said later. To meet the gaze of all these people, to shake their hands, to give them audience — these were not symbolic gestures. They were radical acts of inclusion by the leader who kept the Union intact. This is meaningful for us today, in our moment of deep national division. For those in office, the life of Lincoln is a guideline. He spoke publicly of the need for love and compassion. He surrounded himself with confidantes who embraced it. And he took action on it, ultimately assisting the emancipation of 4 million people from bondage. Elected officials today can do likewise. They can reject the dogma of hatred in discussing immigration. They can surround themselves with advisers who, even if they favor downsizing government, hold respect for public service and public servants. They can vote and act with care for those on the margins of society. But the work of public compassion isn't all on their shoulders. Each of us can train ourselves individually for compassion. A good first step is the one Lincoln modeled all his life. We can start today by using compassionate language, a practice that can lead to feeling it in the heart. Research shows language doesn't just express emotion — it can help shape it. Certain practices can actually increase activity in the neural networks that enhance empathy and emotional regulation. Showing empathy to others feels good, too. Compassion, as with charity, begins at home. Ultimately, though, we have a compassionate responsibility to one another. So what can we as individuals do to fulfill it? We can reach out to friends and family members with differing perspectives. We can try to talk, understand and share. We can reward kindness in those who seek our votes — this fall, next year and the two after that. We can help change the national tenor by changing our own. In the grand scheme of things, it was just a few years ago that Lincoln led our country through something much worse than the conflict we're now experiencing. His example feels even more relevant when we consider how powerfully his words land in our hearts today. He's telling us how to bind up the wounds of our nation, 'with malice toward none, with charity for all.' For the love of Lincoln, let's listen. Christi Parsons is a former Tribune White House correspondent and a longtime political journalist now on the faculty at the University of Maryland.

Los Angeles Times
6 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Can the president and first lady of France stop Candace Owens' lies?
Why is American right-wing commentator Candace Owens so obsessed with French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte? 'I am disgusted by your relationship,' Owens said in January, after the Macrons asked her to stop accusing the French first lady of being a transgender woman. 'You make me sick, Brigitte.' Sure, in our patriarchal world, it's unusual for a wife to be 24 years older than her husband. But President Trump is also 24 years older than his wife, Melania. So, seriously, what is the big whoop? One answer can be found in the 219-page defamation lawsuit filed Wednesday against Owens by the Macrons in Delaware Superior Court. In exhaustive detail, the lawsuit lays out the preposterous claims made by Owens about the French first couple, subjecting them to 'a campaign of global humiliation.' The law firm representing the Macrons, Clare Locke, is the same outfit that won a massive settlement against Fox News for defaming Dominion Voting Systems in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. As the lawsuit recounts, in March 2024, Owens was dismissed by Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire media operation after making a series of antisemitic comments, including repeating the 'blood libel' that Jews drink the blood of Christian babies. In June 2024, she launched her newly independent YouTube channel and, according to the Macron lawsuit, was hungry for attention and 'searching for a salacious conspiracy theory to increase viewership.' At one point on X, she described her wackadoodle claims about the Macrons as the 'biggest scandal that has ever happened in politics in human history.' Oh, I dunno. As far as political scandals go, I think real ones like Watergate, Iran-Contra and the Jan. 6 insurrection were a teensy bit more impactful than a fantasy about a first lady's sex change. So how, exactly, did Owens land on a conspiracy theory focused on the French president and first lady? According to the Macron lawsuit, in September 2019, Owens became involved in French far-right politics after she was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Convention de la Droite (Convention of the Right) in Paris. Her 15-minute speech was the usual Stephen Miller-esque litany of complaints familiar to Christian nationalists: immigrants, political correctness, secularism and, of course, the 'fake news media' are ruining America. She made spectacularly asinine assertions about police killings of unarmed Black men, claiming that in 2016, 'only' 16 unarmed Black men were slain by police and that Black men had a higher chance of being struck by lightning than killed by cops. She also endeared herself to her audience when she accused Macron of being a weak leader and, horrors, a 'globalist.' In any case, it seems that accusing high-profile women of being a transgender has become fashionable on the transphobic far right. As you may recall, some of this country's most heinous conspiracy theorists have leveled the same bizarre charge against Michelle Obama, whose husband, the Hawaii-born former President Obama, was repeatedly accused by Trump of not being born in the U.S. These outlandish accusations spring from the impulse to inflict as much political damage as possible. In early 2025, Owens launched an eight-part series on her YouTube channel called 'Becoming Brigitte.' In it, she claimed the French president is gay. That his relationship with Brigitte is incestuous. That they engage in pedophilia and worship a satanic idol called Baphomet. She has cited a 2021 Daily Mail story as her source, when in fact that piece was a complete debunking of the very conspiracy theories she was promoting. The Daily Mail traced the origin of the conspiracy theory to a piece published two months earlier in a French far-right newsletter, Faits et Documents (Facts and Documents). The allegations, according to the Daily Mail, were an attempt to damage the 2022 reelection prospects of Macron, who faced two right-wing opponents. Fait et Documents claimed no childhood photographs of Brigitte Macron could be found. But, as the Daily Mail — and the Macron lawsuit — note, there is a newspaper announcement of her 1953 birth, photos of her taking communion at 7, and photos of her first wedding. How likely are the French first couple to prevail in a defamation lawsuit? The standard of proof in American courts, especially for people as famous as they are, is very, very high. The Macrons will have to prove that Owens acted with 'actual malice,' that she knew what she was saying is false and said it anyway, or that she acted with reckless disregard for whether it was true or not. The Macrons, according to their lawsuit, sent her three separate retraction demands, explicitly stating that her claims were false, and included evidence such as birth records, marriage records and photographs. They have asked for a jury trial and unspecified damages. Owens has remained defiant, claiming to her nearly 4.5 million YouTube subscribers that the Macrons are trying to silence her, and that their lawsuit is proof that her allegations are correct. 'I am fully prepared to take on this battle,' Owens said. 'On behalf of the entire world, I will see you in court.' Personally, I think she should be nervous. Robert Barnes, the right-wing attorney who defended the loony conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, agrees. 'Owens told some of the dumbest, obvious lies one can tell,' Barnes wrote Thursday on X. 'She has 0% chance of winning in court.' I can hardly wait. Bluesky: @rabcarianThreads: @rabcarian


NBC News
7 hours ago
- NBC News
South Carolina Democrats will fight to keep 'first in the nation' primary status in 2028
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Three years before 2028, the outlines of the next presidential race are already growing clearer, with large fields of potential primary candidates in both parties already making early moves. But one big thing is very much unclear for Democrats: which state will vote first when the primaries start. The 2024 election was the first in almost two decades that saw major change to the top of the Democratic primary calendar, booting Iowa — the longtime first-in-the-nation caucus — and sliding South Carolina's primary to the fore, challenging New Hampshire's traditional leading role. The moves came amid discontent with Iowa Democrats' messy 2020 caucuses and recognition of the role Black voters play in the Democratic Party — and with heavy influence over the party from then-President Joe Biden, whose South Carolina primary win in 2020 set him on the path to the White House. In South Carolina, which was tapped to host the Democrats' first sanctioned primary for the first time in 2024, state Democrats are adamant they will be first in line on the primary calendar again in 2028. 'Oh yeah, we're first,' South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Christale Spain told NBC News at the party's headquarters in Columbia earlier this month. She added, 'South Carolina is first. That means the South is first. So we're gonna continue to fight for that.' Yet national Democrats and party leaders from other states have signaled that they're open to considering changes to the party's primary calendar. In February, shortly after he was elected to his post, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin demurred on whether he thought the primary calendar should change, telling reporters that rank-and-file members would be the ones to decide whether to change the primary schedule. 'If they do, my commitment … is that it's open and transparent in terms of the process,' Martin said. He added that if the calendar were to change, he would back a 'rigorous,' 'efficient' and 'fair' schedule. 'It has to honor the traditions and diversity of our party while also battle-testing our nominee in a way that helps us win,' he added. The DNC echoed Martin's February comments in a statement to NBC News, while also signaling with more certainty that the party would take a look at changing the calendar. 'The DNC is committed to running a fair, transparent, and rigorous process for the 2028 primary calendar. All states will have an opportunity to participate,' DNC Deputy Communications Director Abhi Rahman said in a statement. So far, no states have officially stepped forward with a bid to take over South Carolina's newly won first-in-the-nation status on the Democratic presidential calendar. That's partially because the primary is still so far away, and any changes to the calendar will be initiated by the DNC's powerful Rules and Bylaws Committee, which will likely not examine this issue for at least another year. Jaime Harrison, a former chair of the DNC and of the South Carolina Democratic Party, argued that his state deserves the first-in-the-nation spotlight in an open race, after Biden ran for re-election in 2024. 'I think South Carolina needs to get a shot at an open primary situation where it is the first in the nation,' Harrison told NBC News in Columbia. Spain, the current South Carolina Democratic Party chair, called her state a 'proven testing ground' with a 'vast array' of Democratic voters. 'You know, the rural voters, the urban voters, the college students, Black voters, older voters, retirees. We have that all, and we're a small state' with 'inexpensive media markets' for buying TV ads, she said. But Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats have signaled that they won't let the Palmetto State keep its position without a fight. Plenty of states campaigned for early slots last time the calendar was open, from new entries to the likes of Nevada, a newer early state that petitioned to go to the front of the calendar. In a statement, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart told NBC News that while the party is currently focused on the state's Senate and gubernatorial contests next year, 'I do expect to have tough and direct conversations with the DNC regarding our Iowa caucuses and the serious concerns surrounding the Biden 2024 calendar.' 'National Democrats let Trump get a head start in the 2024 campaign by excluding Iowa,' Hart added. New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Raymond Buckley was more dismissive of the DNC's calendar changes. He noted a state law that dictates that New Hampshire must hold first-in-the-nation primaries one week before any subsequent party primary elsewhere. 'The scheduling and the implementation of the primary is not a Democratic Party event,' Buckley told NBC News. In 2024, New Hampshire bucked the national Democratic Party's new calendar, holding its primary ahead of South Carolina's despite threats from the DNC that the state would lose delegates to the Democratic convention. Biden won the New Hampshire primary in January as a write-in candidate after refusing to put his name on the ballot in the non-party-sanctioned primary. The DNC eventually voted to allow New Hampshire to send its Democratic delegates to the convention in Chicago. Buckley added that this election cycle, 'we will work with the other states to put together a calendar that certainly respects diversity, respects New Hampshire law and respects the fact that the bottom line is we need to win the White House in 2028.' Those eyeing 2028 presidential runs, including Democratic senators, governors and former Biden administration officials, seem to be acknowledging in their early travel that some combination of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina will lead the party's nominating process in three years. Already, four Democratic governors — Wes Moore of Maryland, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gavin Newsom of California — have visited South Carolina this year for events with voters. Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota have attended events in New Hampshire in 2025. And former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg attended a town hall in Iowa, while Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona has plans to visit next month. Still, voters and Democratic officials in South Carolina plan to fight to stay first. 'I'm going to fight with everything I have to make sure that, at least for this 2028 cycle, that it remains the first in the nation,' Harrison said.