Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ deputy mayor — whose purview included oversight of the town’s hearth division — was positioned on administrative depart final month after the FBI raided his residence in connection to an alleged bomb menace he made towards metropolis corridor.
The Los Angeles Police Division stated on the time that Deputy Mayor Brian Williams was seemingly the “supply of the menace,” however the feds later took the lead on the investigation on account of Williams’ shut connections with the LAPD.
Williams was hand-picked by the embattled mayor in February 2023, and given important public security duty in his function.
Amongst his duties have been overseeing the town’s police division, hearth division, the Port of Los Angeles Police, the Los Angeles World Airport Police and the town’s Emergency Administration Division, based on an ABC Information report.
The raid got here lower than three weeks earlier than LA erupted in flames underneath Bass’ watch, and the resurrection of the story within the information cycle in gentle of the fires has raised new questions on her management judgment.
Upon being informed concerning the raid on her appointee’s residence, Bass put out a press release that echoed practically verbatim her protection of the town’s response to the lethal wildfires which have ravaged LA County for greater than per week.
“My primary job is to maintain Angelenos secure,” the assertion learn partially. “The one approach to do this is to carry individuals who commit crimes accountable and to take actual steps to forestall crime from taking place within the first place.”
Williams has not been arrested or charged with against the law, however he stays on administrative depart. His lawyer Dmitry Gorin stated he “strongly maintains his innocence.”
Bass, 71 — who was as soon as on President Joe Biden’s shortlist for vp — has been raked over the coals for her response to the wildfire disaster, which has burned an space practically the dimensions of Brooklyn and claimed 24 lives and counting since Jan. 7.
The mayor was in Ghana through the begin of the fires, attending the inauguration of the African nation’s president, however claims she was being briefed
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